{"id":38335,"date":"2021-05-06T22:36:35","date_gmt":"2021-05-07T02:36:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=38335"},"modified":"2021-05-06T22:38:48","modified_gmt":"2021-05-07T02:38:48","slug":"review-of-talking-to-strangers-by-marianne-boucher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=38335","title":{"rendered":"Review of Talking to Strangers, by Marianne Boucher"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/talking_to_strangers_large.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/talking_to_strangers_large.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"189\" height=\"250\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-38337\" \/><\/a><em>Talking to Strangers<\/p>\n<p>A Memoir of My Escape from a Cult<\/em><\/p>\n<p>by Marianne Boucher<\/p>\n<p>Doubleday Canada, 2020.  176 pages.<br \/>\nReview written September 8, 2020, from a library book<\/p>\n<p>This is a short and sweet graphic novel memoir about when the author was 18 years old and got sucked into the Moonies.<\/p>\n<p>She was all about ice skating and got an audition in California for the Ice Follies.  But while she was there, she met some strangers on the beach.  They showered her with love and attention and talked with her about not conforming to expectations.<\/p>\n<p>One thing led to another.  First, she was just going to go to a weekend retreat.  They added teaching and community and before long she was fully involved.  <\/p>\n<p>Her mother back in Canada couldn\u2019t get the California police to intervene, since Marianne was 18 years old.  So she found people who specialized in extracting people from cults.  They laid plans and got help from a former cult member.  Since Marianne didn\u2019t want to leave, they had to get her away from the group in order to convince her, and none of that was easy.<\/p>\n<p>The graphic novel format makes this a quick read, but it\u2019s still a powerful story and a frightening one.  At the end, the book does touch on her difficult healing process, and it provides a resource list at the back.  I\u2019m sorry, but I couldn\u2019t help thinking that there were some similarities with our current political climate.  But may we all find healing with Beauty and Truth.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.penguinrandomhouse.ca\/\">penguinrandomhouse.ca<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0385677332\/sonderbooksco-20\" target=\"outside\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Find this review on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sonderbooks.com\">Sonderbooks<\/a> at: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sonderbooks.com\/Nonfiction\/talking_to_strangers.html\">www.sonderbooks.com\/Nonfiction\/talking_to_strangers.html<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.<\/p>\n<p>Disclaimer:  I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share\" class=\"twitter-share-button\" data-count=\"none\" data-via=\"Sonderbooks\">Tweet<\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>What did you think of this book?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Talking to Strangers A Memoir of My Escape from a Cult by Marianne Boucher Doubleday Canada, 2020. 176 pages. Review written September 8, 2020, from a library book This is a short and sweet graphic novel memoir about when the author was 18 years old and got sucked into the Moonies. She was all about [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82,2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-graphic-memoir","category-nonfiction-review","category-true-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38335"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39405,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38335\/revisions\/39405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}