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

dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad tense medium-paced

4.5

I really enjoyed this book. I watched the Hulu documentary about Ruby and then saw that my library had a copy of Shari’s book and of course I was going to read it. Though I don’t personally feel an affinity for all of Shari’s talk of the LDS church and her faith, especially given my own background and the religious community I was raised in and am now firmly separated from, but that did not take away from the book itself. Shari takes deep comfort in her faith and I respect that as a reader and as a human who ultimately felt hopeful at the end of this book. After reading this, I hope Shari, her siblings and her entire family and those who lived through this find the peace and happiness they deserve. Shari is incredibly strong and she did a great job sharing her story without exploiting or risking retraumatizing her siblings, all of whom are still minors and therefore are never mentioned by name in this book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Religious bigotry, Stalking, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Sexual harassment

Moderate: Homophobia, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts

Just reiterating that she does not use the name of her siblings in this book and their stories are very much left out in the sense that Shari doesn’t exploit them and leaves their stories for them to tell if they want to.