2019: #10 – The Gospel of Trees (Apricot Irving)

I can’t say that I loved this, but it was alright. It was interesting, at least. The story follows Apricot and her family through their missionary trips to Haiti. They were almost accidental missionaries, falling into the opportunity as her parents searched for adventure, but it soon became an obsession. Apricot’s father was there as an agronomist, believing that trees were the key to a

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2018: #30 – Educated (Tara Westover)

Tara Westover grew up in rural Idaho, the youngest daughter of a somewhat fundamentalist (heavy on scripture but no plural wives) Mormon family. Following the FBI’s raid on Ruby Ridge in 1992, her father also completed his plunge into becoming a paranoid survivalist, complete with burying gas and guns on their land so they would be ready when the FBI came to take them away.

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2018: #10 – This is Not My Beautiful Life (Victoria Fedden)

This book is touted as a hilarious, wacky story, but mostly I found it sad. Frankly, Victoria is surrounded by terrible people, with maybe the exception of her sister. And I don’t think they’re terrible because they are committing crimes, they are terrible all on their own. The best parts of the book are when she is talking about motherhood and her daughter, and my

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2017: #9 – Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology (Leah Remini)

As someone with more than a passing interest in topics like true crime and cults, I’ve long found everything surrounding Scientology to be interesting. Leah Remini is not the first person to escape Scientology, nor even the first celebrity, but it’s possible that she’s been the loudest. Before I started the book, I though that Remini had been born into Scientology, so I was surprised

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