Uncultured: A Memoir

Daniella Mestyanek Young grew up inside the Children of God, the religious group that became one of the more notorious American-origin cults of the late twentieth century. Uncultured is her memoir, and it’s structured in two parts. The childhood inside the group, including the abuse she and others experienced, and the adult life she built afterward, including a career in the U.S. Army that took her to Afghanistan.

Mestyanek Young writes with clarity that does not soften the difficult material. She is also good on the second-order problem of being a cult survivor in mainstream society. The way her assumptions about love, sex, family, and authority were shaped by the group, and the years she spent unlearning them.

The military sections are unexpected and welcome. They show what she was looking for and what she eventually understood about herself.

For readers who liked Educated by Tara Westover or The Witness Wore Red by Rebecca Musser, this is in adjacent territory. Essential and difficult.