genre: memoir
Somehow my audiobook list came up with two very Christian books in a row! I'm going to try hard to not compare Jinger's book with Carlos Whittaker's - but it will not be easy. Disclaimer: I don't think I'm the intended audience here. I read it because I saw she was a Duggar (I'd watched the show for a while) and the title intrigued me. I knew as soon as I started that I probably should stop but I didn't. So that's on me.
The truth is that it's a big deal that Jinger chose to leave behind the extremely toxic teachings of IBLP and it's leader Bill Gothard. After being raised in such a strict manner, her religious scrupulosity seems almost debilitating - she was literally taught by her parents to have a truly unhealthy sense of right and wrong. Digging into those teachings and "disentangling" them took a lot of courage, so I want to give her props for that. Acknowledging the ways in which the rules about modesty, sin, etc. and how it harmed her was the most interesting part of the book for me.
However, this book was really more of just a tract for believing in her own kind of Christianity, based on the absolute inerrancy of the Bible. Her one-size-fits-all way of looking at the Good Book rubbed me wrong and felt extremely moralistic. Based on what I know about her brother's behavior and the struggles within their family, I felt like she wasn't as honest as she should have been about the circumstances in her immediate family. I like the term "disentangling" and I was interested in that parts that actually shared her story but it was seriously three fourths preaching. Not what I was looking for.
Also, I listened to the audio and the way she pronounced the word "Jesus" really annoyed me. So heads up.
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