Girl At The End Of The World

Girl At The End Of The World is Elizabeth Esther's memoir of growing up in a fundamentalist cult called The Assembly, which was run by her grandparents. She details her life basically from some of her earliest childhood memories up until the present day and shares what life was like growing up in The Assembly, how she met her husband, and how they eventually (painfully) left the cult.

I really had mixed feeling about this book and therefore am finding it a bit difficult to review. I don't like writing negative reviews, so I'll start with the positive. First off, the cover of this book is beautiful. Very engaging and made me want to pick it up and read it immediately. Secondly, the story itself was mesmerizing. I read this book in just an afternoon. I could've just sat down and read it in one sitting if I didn't have any other obligations! Her story was very interesting and I couldn't wait to see what would happen next and how it would all end up (although I pretty much knew how it would end up, since I've read some of her blog posts before). The memories shared were at times poignant, sad, disturbing, hilarious, and heart warming.

On the negative side, I felt like this book was way too short. The meat of the book was, I believe, a little under 200 (small) pages. I felt like so much was skipped over or not explained, or not fleshed out enough. I was left with more questions than answers by the end and felt like much had been left out. I understand that she can't share every detail in one book, but I was left feeling like I didn't have major, important parts of the story. There were a lot of gaps. I'd like to have read at least another 100 pages so she could flesh out the story a bit more.

I received a copy of this book from Blogging For Books in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

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