A review by unapologetic_reviews
The House of My Mother by Shari Franke

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

I listened to Shari Franke's The House of My Mother as an audiobook, narrated by the author herself. It was a mixed experience. In the early chapters—where she describes her mother, Ruby’s childhood and their family’s early years—her reading felt distant, almost detached. Since Shari wasn’t part of that story, it came across as a recitation rather than storytelling. However, once the focus shifted to her own experiences, her narration became more engaging.

Shari is careful not to tell her siblings' stories beyond what directly overlaps with her own, which is intentional and respectful. The only sibling she delves into is her brother Chad, and honestly, I felt bad for him at times. She recounts life before the cameras, the YouTube years, and what happened after their family’s channel declined—suddenly and dramatically, about halfway through the book. At that point, I thought, OK, so what’s the rest of the book going to be about? 

I couldn’t help but compare it to two other memoirs: Jill Duggar’s Counting the Cost and Deborah Laake’s Secret Ceremonies. All three books deal with women raised in highly restrictive religious environments. Like Jill Duggar’s memoir, Shari’s story captures what it’s like to grow up in a large family under public scrutiny. Yet while Jill’s experience includes professional film crews, Shari’s was entirely filmed and curated by her mother—somehow making it feel even more invasive. Both Jill and Shari remain in their faiths, which surprised me. Having studied Mormonism and similar religions for years, I always wonder: Why stay?

That question stuck with me throughout the book, especially when Shari touches on her mother’s background. Ruby was parentified early on, raised with the expectation that her primary purpose was to become a wife and mother. It shaped her identity and, likely, her mental health. There’s also a hint in the book that Ruby had some same-sex attraction. If she’d been allowed to explore and embrace that, her life might have turned out very differently. 

Later in the book, Shari describes an incident involving a man and how the church punished her far more severely than him. It’s obvious this wasn’t his first offence. Yet, as often happens in patriarchal systems, the church’s response was harsh and one-sided. 

Shari acknowledges the injustices, but doesn’t quite connect it to the broader systemic issues within her faith. It’s hard to gain perspective while you’re still inside the system.

For me, this was one of the most frustrating yet fascinating parts of the book. It reminded me of my own research into Mormonism during my university years in the early 2000s and my research into personal stories since then. The subject of my MA Thesis was how women in these patriarchal religions work to reform their faiths rather than leave them altogether. As an atheist, I found myself thinking: Just leave. It’s all nonsense. But Shari’s story—and the stories of others like her—are more complicated than that.

Overall, an interesting look into the life of a young woman who went through a lot of hardships, and psychological manipulation through her short life. At the end of the book she is in a good place, and hopeful for the future. We may see, or not see, how it turns out, but that is now up to her own discretion.