Review of A Well-Trained Wife, by Tia Levings

Biography, Christian, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, True Stories 0

A Well-Trained Wife

My Escape from Christian Patriarchy

by Tia Levings

St. Martin’s Press, 2024. 289 pages.
Review written October 18, 2024, from my own copy, purchased from Amazon.com
Starred Review

A Well-Trained Wife is a memoir from Tia Levings about her life in Christian fundamentalism, her abusive marriage, and how she finally got the courage to leave. Here’s an excerpt from the Prologue:

Allan screamed every night at the demons in the walls. He clutched at my neck as often as he tore his hair seeing those fiery red eyes. He swore he’d kill me. Or he’d take the kids “forever.” Finally, I begged him to see a doctor. I called him “unwell,” too afraid to call it insanity.

The church called Allan’s demons spiritual warfare. Seeing demons pointed to spiritual truth, not illness. Allan didn’t need medicine – I needed correction. They told me to submit more. Go to church more. And anyway, Allan refused doctors. That settled that.

And I was supposed to turn the other cheek. Divorce wasn’t allowed any more than doctors. Now, my long hair hid the scars resulting from my vows to love, honor, and obey. “Till death do us part” could mean by his hand, but who cared?

The Prologue tells us where the story is going, and then Tia’s story shows us how she got there. She starts out with her background in a fundamentalist church and her earnest desire to please God – as well as the boy her friend introduced her to who tried to molest her. And then guilt for that, and plenty of teaching about how a woman’s role is to get married and please her husband and have his babies. One of her best friends in high school was a guy she was afraid was gay – and believed that meant he’d go to hell if it were true.

And then she meets Allan. He is also looking for the woman God has for him. And he moves quickly. Tia relates their story with all the red flags that she didn’t realize were red flags at the time. They get married and get involved in increasingly more conservative churches. Both of them get discipled by people who tell them that Allan needs to be the one in control – complete with “disciplining” Tia and not letting her post anything online he hasn’t approved.

Tia’s story includes five kids and the excruciating story of an infant who gets heart surgery – and then passes away when only nine weeks old. Through it all, her husband is controlling and abusive – and Tia keeps thinking that if she does better, is more obedient, more pleasant, she can change things for them.

Until finally she realizes her life and her children’s lives are in danger, and she escapes in the night.

Tia Levings tells her story well. There’s lots of detail so we understand where she is coming from, and she speaks with compassion for her past self who went through so much and just wanted to please God. She talks about the many lifelines who helped her gain perspective, helped her even think about leaving, and helped her get her feet on the ground after she did leave.

I like these words of perspective in one of the later chapters:

But that’s the thing about puritanical high-control religion. All those God-rules had numbed the entire human experience. The good and the bad, the joy and the pain. The rules said there wasn’t more and I was wrong to thirst for it. Now here was reality, offering me drink.

And of course the book makes me reflect. Because I grew up in a conservative Christian home. I have described it before as not as extreme as those who were home schooled and deep into Bill Gothard’s teachings. We weren’t as extreme as what she describes here.

But then I think, hold on, the only reason my parents weren’t as extreme is that the churches they attended weren’t quite that extreme. But I attended Bill Gothard’s “Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts” many times. I think the only reason we didn’t go to the Advanced seminar (and maybe my oldest brother did?) was that it wasn’t happening nearby, and we’d never pay for plane flights.

I was third of thirteen children. We went to church twice on Sundays and on Wednesday nights as well. We went to Christian schools. Or at least we older kids did – the later kids were homeschooled. I went to a Christian university and married a young man I met there who had his own notebook from Bill Gothard’s Advanced Seminar.

I’ve long told myself that we had a good marriage for many years – until my husband let chronic resentment get in and had an affair and left me. But this book made me wonder how much I was fooling myself. I had wanted to be a stay-at-home Mom, but we couldn’t afford that and I worked part-time for most of the time we were married – and felt a little resentful about that. I happily followed his job around the country and the world – but I wonder if there would have been a better way to approach it. And of course, I knew absolutely nothing about sex when I got married. I always thought it was beautiful to learn together – but well, this book made me think more about those kids hurrying into marriage and thinking they knew “God’s right way” to do things. I’m just not sure I was any more clear-eyed than Tia was.

All that is to say that this book is compelling and well-written. And it made me think about what makes a good marriage – and that it’s perhaps not as clear-cut as my pastors used to try to make me believe.

I love this statement on the very last page:

I have a new spiritual practice now. One that is fluid and deeply private. There are no gurus or holy books of rules. My mycorrhizal network underground communicates through poetry, gratitude, compassion, reality, and supreme love. I’m a tree rooted to the deep with arms reaching for the sky. I’m a woman. A mother writer artist hiker friend, but more than any role. I am not half of another. Nor the completion of their aching soul. I don’t owe anyone my body or service. Training is for dogs. I’m a human soul on a journey home and I belong to me.

That makes me believe that Tia Levings is going to go on to live a good and joyful life. Not a perfect one, but a rich and lovely one, with plenty of joys and sorrows. And I believe that I am doing so, too.

Thank you for sharing your story, Tia! Here’s to a life free of rules but full of love and joy.

tialevings.com

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Review of Say More, by Jen Psaki

Audiobooks, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, True Stories 0

Say More

Lessons from Work, the White House, and the World

by Jen Psaki
read by the Author

Simon & Schuster Audio, 2024. 5 hours, 55 minutes.
Review written September 23, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

This book isn’t so much a tell-all as it is a self-help book on how to be a better communicator, peppered with super interesting anecdotes from the author’s years working in the halls of power.

Now, I didn’t read the book for the communication tips, fervently hoping that my days of public speaking are behind me, but I did still pick up some good tips for general communication, such as facing up to your mistakes sooner rather than later, and what to do when a communist dictator starts negative propaganda about you. (Okay, I definitely hope I’ll never need that tip.)

Still, reading this for the stories will definitely carry you through. There were lots of interesting glimpses into the characters of her particularly famous bosses John Kerry, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. But there were also heartwarming stories involving her husband and kids, as well as stories from her path to those high-profile jobs. The stories are entertaining and interesting, and you get plenty of examples as to why her communication principles will help you in every aspect of your life.

I like reading books by political figures that show me their heart for public service. Here’s one more example of a young woman doing her bit to do good things in the world – and the audiobook ended up being uplifting and inspiring.

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Review of The Truths We Hold, by Kamala Harris

Audiobooks, Current Issues, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, True Stories 0

The Truths We Hold

My American Journey

by Kamala Harris
read by the Author

Penguin Audio, January 2019. 9 hours, 26 minutes.
Review written October 1, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

I have a history of becoming a fan of female politicians after I read their books. It worked for Elizabeth Warren and Katie Porter, and now for Kamala Harris. In all three cases, their writing reveals a heart for public service that can’t be faked. Instead of contempt and disdain for those who get left behind in America, for whatever reason, these leaders ooze empathy and understanding – and a determination to call to account the powerful forces that messed up the lives of ordinary Americans.

In Kamala Harris’s case, her fight against the big banks was especially impressive. Yes, I’d heard about that as a political line. But getting the full story – how all fifty state attorneys general were meeting just after she’d been elected to that office in California, and they were prepared to settle for $2 billion and immunity for the banks against further prosecution – was truly impressive. She initiated a full investigation, met with actual people who’d been defrauded and lost their homes, and eventually got a settlement ten times bigger that went much further toward helping the people who’d been harmed.

Her life story helps the reader understand all that empathy. She was brought up by a single mother who was a cancer researcher but eventually died of cancer. Her mother purchased a home when Kamala was in high school, and was tremendously proud of that achievement, which gave Kamala all the more compassion for the folks who lost their homes during the recession.

This book was written in 2018 in the middle of Donald Trump’s presidency, so it was a politically different world than what’s out there now, but I did especially like the ending of the book, all about policy changes we need to have happen — and all of that grounded in compassion and empathy for ordinary Americans.

I haven’t heard her lately saying anything about Universal Basic Income and Medicare for All, but I love that those things are on her radar. (She mentions a pilot program happening with UBI, and there’s much discussion about how the healthcare system is broken, but we mustn’t go back to a time when people could be denied healthcare for having preexisting conditions.) Actually I appreciate that she’s politically savvy enough to go for changes that are politically possible, but will still help ordinary Americans.

I put this audiobook on hold as soon as Harris got the nomination, and my hold finally came in. Even though it was written six years ago, it showed me the heart of this smart and dynamic politician and made me trust that she truly is working to make lives better for ordinary Americans and to bring those who would harm them to account.

kamalaharris.com

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Review of The Backyard Bird Chronicles, by Amy Tan

Audiobooks, Musings, Nonfiction Review, True Stories 0

The Backyard Bird Chronicles

by Amy Tan
read by the Author

Books on Tape, 2024. 6 hours, 29 minutes.
Review written August 20, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

This book is what the title suggests – the story of the birds who came to Amy Tan’s backyard, since 2016, when she took a class on nature journaling and started paying attention.

The nature journaling class was also about sketching birds – saying you notice better when you draw the birds. The audiobook is supposed to have an accompanying pdf, but I wasn’t sure how to access it, so I’ve put a hold on the book to glance through the pictures she drew.

And this book is excerpts from her nature journal, telling about her visitors, as she got to know them. Mind you, Amy Tan has a bird-friendly garden and a green roof on a home overlooking the San Francisco Bay. And she has multiple feeders out for different kinds of birds – in fact, some of the fun in these chronicles is her quest for feeders that are squirrel proof and scrub jay proof.

The book was a little repetitive in spots, I think because it was a journal. Occasionally she’d refer back to something that had happened before as if we hadn’t just heard about that in the earlier part of the journal. But that didn’t really detract from the meditative writing, all about noticing her visitors.

I listened to almost all of this book while obsessively doing a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle, and it was soothing and comforting, making me feel like I was observing nature while I was actually doing a puzzle and thinking about nature.

I am lucky – I live in a second-floor condo. My downstairs neighbor puts out and fills a bird feeder, so I can sit out on my balcony and be on the level of the birds lining up for the feeder. Although the book didn’t convince me to try sketching the birds, it did make me want to notice a little better, pay attention, and enjoy the visitors here.

So – this is a book about bird-watching. In the author’s backyard. In the hands of a skilled author, that turns out to be a delightful and interesting topic.

amytan.net

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Review of Making It So, by Patrick Stewart, read by the Author

Audiobooks, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, True Stories 0

Making It So

by Patrick Stewart
read by the Author

Simon & Schuster Audio, 2023. 18 hours, 50 minutes.
Review written August 16, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

I have no idea what took me so long to get this audiobook listened to, except maybe that since it came out in October 2023 when I was busy reading for the Morris Award, I may not have put it on hold, and then forgot when that reading was done. Anyway, I finally made up for lost time – and what a treat!

Understand that I’m a big Star Trek: Next Generation fan. My then-husband and I watched the show avidly, beginning some time in the third season, I believe. And on one of our car trips from Illinois to Phoenix, Arizona, for Christmas in the early 1990s, we listened to an audiobook on cassettes of Patrick Stewart reading Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. That was in the days before I even listened to audiobooks, but that one had my rapt attention.

So when I learned that he’d written an audiobook and reads it himself, you better believe I wanted to listen to it! 19 hours of listening to Patrick Stewart’s voice? Yes, please!

So it was fun to learn that the accent I know and love is not the one he was born with. He grew up very poor in Yorkshire, and learned the “BBC” accent in theater school. Everything about his childhood was fascinating. He had an abusive father, yet both his parents supported him going to theater school, and he got a scholarship from the local community to attend. He blames Margaret Thatcher for the fact that such scholarships aren’t available to young aspiring actors today.

Of course, my favorite parts were him talking about acting on Star Trek: Next Generation. He barely knew what Star Trek was when he was suggested for the part, though his kids had avidly watched the original series and were duly impressed.

My least favorite parts were learning about him cheating on his first two wives, and I was prepared to be judgmental when I learned his third wife is younger than his son. But then I thought – wait a second, someone my age or younger is married to Patrick Stewart? Okay, I can believe that she’s in love with him. And why would he mind marrying a much younger woman? He kept mentioning her throughout the book, and is clearly happy and in love and still happily working in theater, always striving to accomplish more – and I can only be happy for him.

He’s lived – and is still living – a rich, full, and interesting life. It was a delight to get a window into all that he’s experienced.

The audiobook ended with an excerpt from A Christmas Carol. Made me want to listen to that audiobook all over again.

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Review of The Woman They Could Not Silence, by Kate Moore

Audiobooks, History, Nonfiction Review, True Stories 0

The Woman They Could Not Silence

One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear

by Kate Moore
read by the Author

Blackstone Publishing, 2021. 14 hours, 37 minutes.
Review written August 1, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.

This book is both fascinating and horrifying. It’s the story of Elizabeth Packard, whose husband had her locked up in an insane asylum for three years beginning in 1860. It’s about her fight for her freedom, for custody of her children, and ultimately to reform laws and the treatment of the “insane.”

The story was hard to listen to, because Elizabeth was locked up basically because she developed religious views that disagreed with her pastor husband. And she was too vocal about them. Everything he did was completely legal, and he was able to have her committed to an asylum on his say-so. Even more horrifying was the later corroboration from the superintendent of the facility that he was convinced she was insane, because he based that assurance completely on her opinions, which he did not agree with.

Or another example of her obvious insanity was that she was angry with her husband – the same man who’d put her in the insane asylum when she was completely sane. Because it’s not “womanly” to hate your husband.

The book also told about the horrors of the asylum. At first, Elizabeth was in the best ward, but as punishment for speaking up, she got moved to a much worse situation and witnessed much abuse and many horrible things. Any letters she received or sent were confiscated. And she never had any idea how long she would be incarcerated.

Eventually, she was able to get a trial. The way the doctors used her ideas as proof that she was insane was chilling to me. It reminded me of present-day people telling transgender folks they are “confused” – indeed the book included a postscript about modern women being called insane or crazy for their political views.

After she was free, Elizabeth Packard went on to work to change the laws – so that women couldn’t be incarcerated on the word of their husbands, so that insane asylums had to be independently inspected, and many other issues. She was free, but she used her powerful voice to help the many others she’d seen who had been victims of the current system.

Not realizing the narrator was the author, I wondered why they picked a narrator with a British accent, but as usual I very much enjoyed listening to that accent. With the one bothersome detail that she didn’t pronounce “Packard” the way Americans do, putting more of an emphasis on the second syllable. But that was easily overlooked, as I enjoyed everything else about her reading. The book was obviously scrupulously researched – using Elizabeth’s own writings and other contemporary writings and reports to put together the whole story.

It was wonderful to learn about this true American hero, as well as sobering to learn the situation women could find themselves in only 160 years ago.

kate-moore.com

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Review of The Brave In-Between, by Amy Low

Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, True Stories 0

The Brave In-Between

Notes from the Last Room

by Amy Low

Hachette Books, 2024. 210 pages.
Review written June 26, 2024, from an Advance Reader Copy.
Starred Review

First, great big thanks to my friend Suzanne for passing this Advance Reader Copy on to me. She knew I would like it, and she was absolutely correct. She knew I’d appreciate a memoir about divorce and picking up the pieces with a background of Christian faith.

This memoir is about those things – a husband’s betrayal and trying to build her life again, with the help of her faith – but it’s also about living in the “Last Room” – which is literally the last room of life. The book tells about the author’s diagnosis with Stage IV colon cancer and four years of treatment, with no expectation of a cure. For years, she hasn’t been expecting to live long, and this changes your perspective.

She begins the book with her husband taking tender care of her after surgery – when they were already divorced. Then she backs up and tells about the betrayal and all that followed. And then the doctor appointment when her life changed. And then what that means for dating, for time with her children, for her career, and how she thinks about life in general.

And she frames all of this with Philippians 4:8 — “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things.” In the prologue she explains that in the last room she uses those intentions as spotlights to bring clarity to the chaos, and I love the way she weaves them and thoughts about them into her story.

I was riveted by this book and Amy Low’s story — and I was also uplifted. The book isn’t heavy on Christian content, but it’s there, and indeed her reflections on these values from Philippians make the story one of light and not of despair.

amylow.substack.com

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Review of Killers of the Flower Moon, by David Grann

Audiobooks, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, True Stories 0

Version 1.0.0
Killers of the Flower Moon

The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

by David Grann
read by Ann Marie Lee, Will Patton, and Danny Campbell

Random House Audio, 2017. 9 hours, 5 minutes.
Review written May 10, 2024, from a library eaudiobook
Starred Review

Once again I’m late to the party, but I’m enjoying listening to books that are hugely popular at Fairfax County Library. Obviously, this one got a second wind from the movie, but both the adult version and the young adult version still have long holds lists.

This book is a true crime historical murder mystery. Or rather killing spree mystery. There are three parts to this book, and the first section is about an Osage woman named Molly Burkhart in the 1920s. Like many of her Osage neighbors, Molly was incredibly wealthy because their tribe had retained rights to the oil under their land — the land the nation was given because the white folks thought it was worthless.

But there was an oil boom in the 20s, and enrolled members of the Osage nation received monthly checks that were enormous in those years. However, the government had a hard time believing Indians were competent to handle that much money, and Molly, like many others, was appointed a guardian who had to give permission for her to spend any of her own money.

But that’s not the worst of it. Beginning with her sister, one by one the people in Molly’s family began to die. Her sister from a bullet through her head. Another apparently poisoned. Another sister and her husband had their entire house blown up. And Molly’s family weren’t the only Osage people being killed. Dozens, maybe hundreds of people were murdered, with many of those murders covered up.

And that brings us to the second part of the book. At the time, there wasn’t a reliable police force. They could and did hire private eyes, but those weren’t always reliable either. But that was the time that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was being formed, and the next part of the book features Tom White, a federal agent trying to get to the bottom of the murders and bring the perpetrators to justice.

It turned out that finding out who was responsible was much easier than bringing anyone to justice. The white man responsible for killing Molly’s family had plenty of connections with people in power, and had killed so many that everyone was afraid to testify against him.

The third part of the book is about the author doing some investigation almost a hundred years later and finding about even more deaths in the Osage nation. All of these murders were about greed — people wanting a piece of that enormous oil wealth, and not valuing Indian life, and taking advantage of prejudice against the Osage people.

This book tells a tremendously sad story of great injustice and harm. As well as highlighting how badly our government treated people of the Osage nation. But the story is dramatic and riveting. May the light it sheds on that darkness help us all to change our ways.

davidgrann.com

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Review of The 1619 Project, created by Nikole Hannah-Jones

Current Issues, History, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, True Stories 0

The 1619 Project

A New Origin Story

created by Nikole Hannah-Jones
edited by Caitlin Roper, Ilena Silverman, and Jake Silverstein
read by a full cast

One World/Ballantine, 2021. 18 hours, 57 minutes.
Review written 2/4/24 from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

I have intended to read this book since the day it came out. Putting it in my eaudiobook queue was the key to it finally happening.

And it was so much more than I expected. Instead of one continuous book of history, this is a collection that includes eighteen essays about the significance of slavery to every part of American life combined with thirty-six poems and works of fiction highlighting key moments in our history.

This audiobook is the work of multiple authors and multiple narrators, all coming together in one epic tale.

Because of the multiple authors, the book turned out to be a little repetitive, but I learned a lot as I listened, and repetition probably helped me to retain what I heard. 1619 is the date that the first slave ship came to Virginia. This book talks about how slavery shaped our nation from the beginning, and continues to affect us from Reconstruction to the present. The essays, stories and poems help the reader understand that’s not at all a far-fetched claim.

I can see why white supremacists would want to erase this work of history with its conclusions. My own eyes were opened to historical events I was never taught about in school.

You don’t have to agree with everything you’ll find here, but surely this powerful voice should be heard. Surely this side of our joint history, too, should be illuminated. This book isn’t about silencing white voices. But it is about acknowledging the impact of Black people who were brought to our shores against their will and became uniquely American.

1619 Project Website

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Review of Accountable, by Dashka Slater, read by Ariel Blake

Audiobooks, Current Issues, Starred Review, Teen Nonfiction, True Stories 0

Version 1.0.0
Accountable

The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed

by Dashka Slater
read by Ariel Blake

Macmillan Young Listeners, 2023. 9 hours, 12 minutes.
Review written April 18, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
2024 Excellence in Young Adult Nonfiction Award Winner
2024 Capitol Choices Selection
Starred Review

I did not enjoy listening to this audiobook. But it completely deserves the recognition it’s won. This book is on an important and timely topic, and it is thoroughly researched and presented clearly and in great detail, with lots of nuance and with respect for the people involved. It gets you in the heads of all the kids, not simply the ones on one side of the issue, and you fully appreciate how complicated and complex the matter is.

The subtitle explains what’s in this book. A high school kid in a small California bay area town made a private Instagram account and invited thirteen of his friends to follow it. He posted “edgy” memes trying to get approval from those friends — and they got more and more racist, targeting mostly Black girls who attended their high school. The images progressed to pictures of nooses and other horribly racist content.

When the targets found out, it started a big scandal. But staff and administration didn’t really know how to handle it. Should those who followed the account but never commented receive consequences, too? The whole high school community got involved and the account followers — not only the account owner — were shamed and threatened. Eventually even the courts got involved – mostly as to whether the schools had violated their students’ first amendment rights in their response to the account followers.

But every single kid on either side of the event had their life disrupted by it. The girls who were targeted had visceral reactions, from not feeling safe at school to having nightmares and going into deep depression. But the perpetrators, no matter how remorseful they felt, seemingly had no possible way to live it down and get past it, so their lives, too, were dramatically affected.

But shouldn’t their lives have been affected? I like the author’s choice of title, because that’s the question: In what ways should 16-year-old kids be held accountable for terrible things they did when they didn’t fully understand how terrible they were? And what is the appropriate way to make them understand? And how can we bring healing to those who were harmed?

Before I listened to this audiobook, I didn’t begin to understand how difficult and complex answering those questions can be.

This book is a resource for administrators and teachers everywhere in the age of social media. But I’m especially glad that it’s written for teens and targeted to teens, because it’s also a cautionary tale and will surely save at least some kids from making similar mistakes.

dashkaslater.com

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