I really love memoirs, but they’re a crapshoot now because they’re so very popular in this blogging age. That is to say, LOTS of them get published and they’re not all worth reading. This cover and title had me worried, but I was intrigued by the idea of a faithful but wacky Mormon living in New York City. Elna Baker is a quirky, spirited girl who says “Yes!” to everything but drinking, drugs, and sex. And sometimes she says “almost” to sex. In the end, I really felt sad for her. She documents an intense struggle between her natural exuberance and curiosity and her intensely buttoned-down faith and, in the end, if feels like she loses a lot of her faith. It’s not a triumphant loss; she seems genuinely heartbroken. I woke up thinking about faith and what it requires of us and what of faith is biology and circumstance. Unsettling. I guess that is what made this memoir worth reading. That and the scene where she goes on a date with an amorous “Warren Beatty.” Read it to find out…
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