Martha Beck was an atheist-inclined grad student when miraculous happenings during her second pregnancy reawakened her interest in spirituality. After moving back to her hometown of Provo, she embraced her childhood religion in effort to deepen this newfound faith. She writes with lucidity and humor about how she instead discovered the dark side of the Mormon church, including fundamental beliefs that contradict known fact, a culture that stifled intellectual exploration, and a suspected relationship between the inferior position of women in the church and incidents of sexual abuse.
A large part of Beck’s journey involves confronting her own history of sexual abuse, and the book sometimes feels disjointed as it shifts back and forth between the narrative and a scene in which she confronted her abuser. That issue aside, Beck’s attempt to free herself from the bonds of this unhealthy religion while still keeping her seed of faith alive serves as a fascinating example of how important it is to continually ask critical questions in all matters of faith.
