A review by mxbb01
A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy by Tia Levings

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

I can say a lot about this book so I will try and keep this short. I really enjoyed Shira Franke's autobiography before I read this and thought "I wonder how Franke will feel about her abuse if she is older". And this book kind of scratched that itch. The author IS OLDER and has had much more time to process what she went through and make new mistakes and have a different level of insight. 

I highly recommend checking the trigger warnings before you read this, because the author really gets you into her head space. As an 18 year old, as a 33 year old, as a 37 year old. You are walking the journey with her because of the excellent writing. 

My only complaint is two sentences where she says that "depression is anger turned inwards". If you believe that, it's fine and if you need to believe that to recover it's also fine. But depression is a mental illness with many causes. My depression is not caused by my anger at having survived abuse and religious trauma. It's caused by my brain not making the right juice. 

Other than that - highly recommend this book to anybody who is uncomfortable with the church, purity culture and the American view of God. And I also recommend it to people who aren't uncomfortable with these things, because this book is proof you absolutely should be. 

Even more valid in 2024 after the American election of Trump. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Homophobia, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, and Classism

Moderate: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Confinement, Gun violence, Hate crime, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Sexism, Sexual content, Xenophobia, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Lesbophobia, Toxic friendship, Dysphoria, War, and Classism