Overview
“Although this is Mestyanek Young’s first time narrating, listeners will appreciate hearing this deeply personal story told by the author herself. Share with fans of Tara Westover’s Educated and Deborah Feldman’s Unorthodox. Memoir readers will want to check this one out.” —Library Journal
“A painful and propulsive memoir delivered in the honest tones of a woman who didn’t always think she’d live to tell her story.” —The New York Times
This program is read by the author.
In the vein of Educated and The Glass Castle, Daniella Mestyanek Young’s Uncultured is more than a memoir about an exceptional upbringing, but about a woman who, no matter the lack of tools given to her, is determined to overcome.
Behind the tall, foreboding gates of a commune in Brazil, Daniella Mestyanek Young was raised in the religious cult The Children of God, also known as The Family, as the daughter of high-ranking members. Her great-grandmother donated land for one of The Family’s first communes in Texas. Her mother, at thirteen, was forced to marry the leader and served as his secretary for many years. Beholden to The Family’s strict rules, Daniella suffers physical, emotional, and sexual abuse—masked as godly discipline and divine love—and is forbidden from getting a traditional education.
At fifteen years old, fed up with The Family and determined to build a better and freer life for herself, Daniella escapes to Texas. There, she bravely enrolls herself in high school and excels, later graduating as valedictorian of her college class, then electing to join the military to begin a career as an intelligence officer, where she believes she will finally belong.
But she soon learns that her new world—surrounded by men on the sands of Afghanistan—looks remarkably similar to the one she desperately tried to leave behind.
Told in a beautiful, propulsive voice and with clear-eyed honesty, Unculturedexplores the dangers unleashed when harmful group mentality goes unrecognized, and is emblematic of the many ways women have to contort themselves to survive.
Review
This is a story in which I had to let marinate for a while. It is hard to process because it is hard to believe that this can happen, does happen and is still happening.
Daniella is truly an exceptional woman. The trauma she has experienced is heart wrenching. And to know, all the adults around her failed her. But…they were brainwashed too…still doesn’t make it any easier to process. She then proceeds to be outstanding in other areas of her life and to be a leader of men in a the man’s world of the US Army.
In this book she is humble, tough, smart and breakable all at the same time. I had a ton of questions while reading this and I headed to her TikTok page and proceeded to watch her videos for hours teaching me about cults. I have a better understanding but little patience with these people.
Daniella narrates this book herself and I do not think anyone else could have done it! She is amazing.
This is a book that TikTok made me buy and you should run…don’t walk…and get it today!
Purchase Here
reecaspieces 