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A review by sleepyshelves
The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church by Sarah McCammon
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.75
Very interesting. The author provides a thorough list of sources and additional list of reading at the end (sorted by general subject matter) which I really appreciated!
Her subject matter is treated with a lot of care and nuance, which is pretty refreshing, and there are some parts that hit very close to home for me. Made me want to reach out to a few people and ask about their experiences.
Because there were so many sources, I kept having to backtrack to remember who a person was when they were brought up several paragraphs (or even chapters) later. Some of the folks got multiple callbacks, where the author sort of reintroduced or refreshed the reader's memory of a certain person/study/reference. That was much appreciated on my part. But it was oddly enough for the parts I could recall fairly well.
I read this book in 2 sittings, but generally find nonfiction to be harder to read. I think the author's frequent use of superscript to streamline her research was particularly helpful for the way the text read. She rarely used "traditional" footnotes (I know there's a real term for this style, I'm just blanking on it), and the stylistic differentiation and formatting made the book easier for my nonfiction-averse reading to work better.
Overall, this was a really neat read. It's a general overview broken down into what kind of feel like more individual essays, and I think a different division of subject-matter would've made more sense to me (ex: following one or a few people's individual stories each chapter instead of talking about it in a pseudo-chronological format) would've made it something more my speed.
BUT! McCammon's a journalist, and this is an excellent piece and format for people who have that type of brain! I think it's a great book worth checking out. My rating simply reflects my own experience with reading. :)
Her subject matter is treated with a lot of care and nuance, which is pretty refreshing, and there are some parts that hit very close to home for me. Made me want to reach out to a few people and ask about their experiences.
Because there were so many sources, I kept having to backtrack to remember who a person was when they were brought up several paragraphs (or even chapters) later. Some of the folks got multiple callbacks, where the author sort of reintroduced or refreshed the reader's memory of a certain person/study/reference. That was much appreciated on my part. But it was oddly enough for the parts I could recall fairly well.
I read this book in 2 sittings, but generally find nonfiction to be harder to read. I think the author's frequent use of superscript to streamline her research was particularly helpful for the way the text read. She rarely used "traditional" footnotes (I know there's a real term for this style, I'm just blanking on it), and the stylistic differentiation and formatting made the book easier for my nonfiction-averse reading to work better.
Overall, this was a really neat read. It's a general overview broken down into what kind of feel like more individual essays, and I think a different division of subject-matter would've made more sense to me (ex: following one or a few people's individual stories each chapter instead of talking about it in a pseudo-chronological format) would've made it something more my speed.
BUT! McCammon's a journalist, and this is an excellent piece and format for people who have that type of brain! I think it's a great book worth checking out. My rating simply reflects my own experience with reading. :)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Xenophobia, and Religious bigotry
Moderate: Homophobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racism, Transphobia, Abortion, and Gaslighting
Minor: Death, Hate crime, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Mass/school shootings, and Pandemic/Epidemic