Uncultured A memoir

Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Mestyanek Young's page-turning debut details her escape from the Children of God religious cult and her disillusionment after joining the U.S. Army. Born into the Children of God, the author endured relentless extreme hunger, as well as sexual and physical abuse at the hands of the "Uncles," or predatory elder male cult members, throughout her childhood. "After fifteen years of... life in a religious prison camp," she escaped, leaving behind her family and quickly discovering how ill-prepared she was for the outside world ("You don't exist," a secretary told Mestyanek Young when she first tried to enroll in public school as a teenager). The author landed a job at Chick-fil-A and finally got admitted to high school, where her guidance counselor encouraged her to dream big. Determined to prove her worth to the world, Mestyanek Young joined the Army but found it to be another institution in which powerful men asserted control over her and the threat of sexual violence was omnipresent. In Afghanistan, she contended with the horrors of war alongside discrimination, isolation, and sexual assault. Mestyanek Young searingly captures the fear and intensity that were her constant companions in the Children of God, and she draws smart parallels between the dogmatic "indoctrination" she encountered in both the cult and the Army, observing that "wherever there is programming, the code can be written wrong." Readers won't be able to put down this harrowing and enthralling memoir. (Sept.)

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Review by Library Journal Review

Raised in Brazil in a religious cult called the Children of God, which originated in the United States and is currently called the Family International, Young was denied an education and was physically, emotionally, and sexually abused. She escaped to Texas, enrolled in high school, and graduated from college as valedictorian of her class. She then entered the army, achieving the rank of captain and becoming one of the first women to conduct ground combat operations. In the military, though, she found an atmosphere remarkably similar to that of her cult upbringing. With a 100,000-copy first printing.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Goal-oriented, driven, and often betrayed, the author recounts time spent in the twin cults of centrifugal Christianity and the American military. "The first rule of cults is you are never in a cult," writes Mestyanek Young, who grew up in the communal world of the Children of God, led by a self-styled prophet who gathered a group of young followers whom he thought of "as sheep, in need of a shepherd." Moving from country to country--Brazil, Mexico, Japan--a step ahead of the authorities, the group, as described by the author, was both strict in discipline and extremely free-wheeling in matters of sex, especially sex with minors. As a young teenager, the author broke free, attended college, and married at 21, briefly settling into a relationship that was problematic even years after her divorce. She also joined the U.S. Army, which had many of the cultish ingredients of her youth, especially the view that "as a woman, you're either a bitch, a slut, or a dyke." Even so, and despite her revulsion at superior officers' defense of torture, Mestyanek Young excelled in leadership skills, working in intelligence in Afghanistan. "I was sure I could be a part of the army but not owned by it, that a person could have brains and independent, innovative thoughts" she writes, quickly adding, "I was wrong." When she ran afoul of the command structure, her career ground to a halt. The author recounts her story in a series of episodes that become repetitive in the reading even as it's clear that she was treated unjustly, at least by civilian standards. In the end, her message is compelling: A cult is a cult, she writes, and being a member makes it easy "to hate, harm, even kill because we are the good guys." Affecting, if a touch long, and a deft portrait of the dangers of blindly following leaders of whatever stripe. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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