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A review by sarahbringhurstfamilia
Confessions of a Latter-day Virgin: A Memoir by Nicole Hardy
4.0
This book is everything a memoir should be--funny, poignant, and devastatingly, intensely personal. I enjoyed it on two very different levels. First of all, it's a much-needed look at the big heartaches and little indignities of being single in a church that is very focused on marriage. I have many single Mormon (and formerly Mormon) friends who have told me stories very similar to the ones Nicole tells. I found this quote especially arresting:
“No prophet or apostle has lived a celibate life is what I'd like to tell her. No one who's ever told me celibacy is a viable option has ever been celibate. They don't even use the word. They say 'abstinent,' which implies there will be an end. They don't consider what my life will be like, if I never marry. Which is likely, given who I am, and the ways I'm different. People stand at the pulpit, or they come to my house, and tell me not to need what every human needs. Afterward, they go home and undress. They lie down next to the person they love most, or once did.”
On a different level, even as a happily married woman with two children, I related to Nicole's search for identity in a church whose idea of female identity can feel so prescribed and constricting as to be suffocating. Her attempts to see (and live) beyond the paradigm she had grown up with ring very true to me. Most anyone who has ever struggled to live in a way that feels individually authentic will enjoy this book.
“No prophet or apostle has lived a celibate life is what I'd like to tell her. No one who's ever told me celibacy is a viable option has ever been celibate. They don't even use the word. They say 'abstinent,' which implies there will be an end. They don't consider what my life will be like, if I never marry. Which is likely, given who I am, and the ways I'm different. People stand at the pulpit, or they come to my house, and tell me not to need what every human needs. Afterward, they go home and undress. They lie down next to the person they love most, or once did.”
On a different level, even as a happily married woman with two children, I related to Nicole's search for identity in a church whose idea of female identity can feel so prescribed and constricting as to be suffocating. Her attempts to see (and live) beyond the paradigm she had grown up with ring very true to me. Most anyone who has ever struggled to live in a way that feels individually authentic will enjoy this book.