Lauren Hough grew up in a cult, and left it--more than once. She spent five years in the U.S. Air Force, a gay woman serving during the era of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. She worked as a bouncer, a "cable guy," a writer. She's been homeless, incarcerated, beaten, assaulted, threatened, loved, left, happy, bored. She documents all of this--and more--in the aptly titled Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing, a searing collection of 11 personal essays.

Despite the harsh realities that Hough has faced throughout her life--harder even than living in, or leaving, a cult--Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing is never bleak, infused throughout with Hough's wit and sense of humor. "I've learned, if not to expect the worst, not to be surprised by the worst. I'll cry in frustration when my Internet's out, but when my car bursts into flames, well, that seems about right."

That's not to say Hough's humor lets herself--or her readers--off easy. In every essay in this collection, Hough peels back layers and layers of harsh realities to expose the raw, often violent underside of a society that fails its most vulnerable members time and time again. From that underbelly, Hough emerges as a strong, independent, queer woman: proud of who she is and what she will become, ever reckoning with the systems of injustice that forged her and determined to tear them down as she moves forward. It's impossible to step into Hough's essays and not appreciate her candor and honesty, her willingness to be vulnerable and real--and to see those traits as calls to do the same.

Discover: In this searing collection of 11 personal essays, a queer woman raised in a cult documents her experience surviving the unsurvivable--both in the cult, and after leaving it.

A intensely readable and earnest essay collection. Through stories about her youth in a cult, her stint in the Air Force, her young adulthood in the DC club scene, and her experience is a cable person, Hough allows to reader into her daily life, and into her internal world. She shows us her complexity, her imperfection, her humanity, and most of all, her relatability. I really enjoyed this collection. Thank you for the ARC, NetGalley!

Lauren Hough’s life has been filled with situations that would break most people. Perhaps it makes sense, then, that she relies on often crude jokes online and tells her followers to “eff off.” Underneath all of it, she’s still the little girl who wanted to belong, but never did. This makes it even sadder that she alienated many with her comments on Twitter. But the thing is that she’s been stripped so bare in this book, it kind of makes sense for her to have a harsh reaction to a 4.5-star review. This is her first book, after all, and that was one of her early reviews.

If the people who’ve decided that she’s awful took the time to read the book, they’d find someone who believes many of the same things they do. She hates it that the police pull people over just for being Black. She also hates it that we live in a society that forces us to live for work, instead of working to live.

I’m not defending the fact that she decided to lash out. But I am saying that maybe, just maybe, she deserves a hint of leniency. Yes, she’s white, but she’s also gay and grew up in a cult. She’s been homeless. She’s been treated to the worst of humanity. She still doesn’t present herself as above anyone, nor does she present herself as being treated worse than other minorities.

Many people are saying that she’s been crying “white woman tears.” I believe that, as a whole, while people really are the worst. But in Hough’s specific case, it feels a bit disingenuous to simply write her off as another white woman. She knows she has white privilege as far as police go (even though she’s been jailed for something she didn’t do), and yet she’s still been beaten down by the system again and again and again.

All I’m trying to say is that her detractors may want to take a look at her writing. And if they still feel that it’s terrible, then more power to them. Just know what you’re bashing first. Hough really isn’t the enemy. She’s had a very difficult life, and yet she still thinks that many others have had it worse than her. That’s definitely a rare twist on this type of book.

An engaging memoir that draws you right in. Excellent writing style and the subject matter will hold the reader's attention.

Lauren Hough's wit, which makes this book wonderfully entertaining, is only surpassed by the astonishing power of some scenes, particularly her chapter about the prison system. It's not often that someone with a unique story possesses outstanding storytelling abilities. This is one such instance,

I liked this book, but had to give it a two star penalty because the author personally attacked my best friend on Twitter.

The personal essay boom of the past decade or so certainly makes sense as part of the ongoing explosion of internet content. The current landscape is ideally conducive to, well … talking about yourself, taking the old adage “Write what you know” to its most extreme logical conclusion.

This isn’t always a good thing. Too often, this sort of writing devolves into solipsism, a kind of self-celebratory navel-gazing that winds up reading equal parts indulgent and disingenuous. But on those occasions that it works, it’s as impactful as any formal autobiography, giving readers a glimpse at the kind of unexpected truth that can only come from someone else’s experience.

The essays in Lauren Hough’s new collection “Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing: Essays” work. This selection of 11 stories drawn from Gough’s checkered and fascinating life coalesces in a remarkable way. Through these tales of a unique journey – a childhood spent in a cult leads to a turn in the military followed by a rough-and-tumble awakening of her sexuality, all while simply trying to understand the world in ways many of us take for granted.

Hough’s lacerating wit hits many targets, though none so often or so bitingly as herself. There’s a brutality to her honesty and to her self-deprecation that is compelling as hell to engage with. These alternatingly heartbreaking and hilarious tales stand strong on their own, but as a unit, they form a multi-faceted memoir-in-stories that is a true delight.

We’ll start from the beginning. Specifically, the fact that Hough spent much of her childhood and adolescence entangled with the infamous cult known as The Children of God, one of the many quasi-religious entities that sprang up in America in the aftermath of the ‘60s. As such, she spent her developmental years moving from country to country all over the world, living in cramped quarters and dealing with the emotional and physical abuse not just condoned but encouraged by cult leadership.

As you might imagine, that sort of upbringing fundamentally alters your ability to relate to the world around you. And when that sense of remove is compounded by the struggle to come to terms with one’s sexuality, finding a real connection with people proves difficult.

At least it does in Hough’s case, who spends the first decade or so of her adult life on a bit of a wandering quest for some kind of meaning. She enlists in the Air Force, drawn to the regimentation and subversion of individuality, only to be forced out by bigotry. She spends time as a bouncer in a gay club, a gig that enables both her sexual awakening and her burgeoning affinity for drugs. In perhaps the most well-known of the essays – sporting the self-explanatory title “Cable Guy” – Hough relates some of the experiences she had while working as a cable installer.

There’s obvious overlap between these essays, with assorted elements of Hough’s life popping up throughout. I’ll note that they’re all exceptional pieces of work – poignant and hilarious and weird, all bundled together in unexpected combinations – though of course, I have my favorites.

The aforementioned “Cable Guy” was my introduction to Hough, so I have fondness for that one. “Pet Snakes,” a paean of sorts to a particular brand of small-time drug dealer, is bleakly funny (and more than a little familiar). The titular essay is an emotionally fraught look at what it means to extricate yourself from the abusive machinations and manipulations of cult life and how it isn’t nearly as simple as it seems.

But in all of these essays, we are left with at least one unmistakable understanding: Lauren Hough is one hell of a writer. The ability to lay bare one’s soul for the world to see – particularly when so much of what you are sharing springs from your own very real traumas – is a rare gift; Hough does so with empathy and emotional honesty while also being outright hilarious in spots.

Defining ourselves is one of the most difficult things that any of us ever try to do. Digging into the bedrock of our identity – who we REALLY are – can be painful and challenging. However, as Hough illustrates through every one of these 11 essays, it is an effort that can be incredibly rewarding (and, of course, more than a little strange).

I’ve been lucky enough to review a number of unconventional and excellent memoirs in recent months; while this collection may not fit the traditional notion of memoir, it’s tough to deny that that is precisely what it is. There’s a remarkable light/dark dichotomy at play throughout – a dichotomy that, like it or not, is reflective of the American experience writ large these days.

“Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing” is a wonderful assemblage of work from a gifted writer. Weird and genuine and idiosyncratic, it’s a quality reading experience of the finest kind. If you are interested in a unique and uniquely human read, this collection is for you.

I was really excited when my request for an e-arc of Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing was approved. I read Lauren Hough's I Was A Cable Guy essay in HuffPost (Dec. 2018) and was eager to read more of her writing.

I read four of the 11 essays but found them overall difficult to get through. I think they're a bit long for my taste, and while the first one certainly felt worth my time and attention, the next few didn't. Thus I'm setting this book aside. (I might try again when I can get my hands on an audio copy, as it's possible that's a better format for this particular book for me.)

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that I saw several of the author's recent tweets a week ago, and they didn't sit well with me. I did my best to continue reading the book, but I can't say that my motivation wasn't diminished. I also didn't care for several ableist comments that were made offhandedly in the book itself.

DNF at 36%

I liked this book, but I had to give it a 2-star penalty because the author personally attacked me on Twitter.

Wow just wow. This book is a must read. It’s deep open and brutal what Lauren went through. Do yourself a favor and read it. Thanks @netgalley for the opportunity to read it early.

First to touch upon the Twitter/Goodreads controversy: I only review books that I've read from start to finish, and believe that doing otherwise takes the value away from this website. I also think that anyone who reads this book—which is centrally about the author's PTSD, anger, mental illness, and ongoing difficulty with human interaction—and is then surprised when the author is a jerk on Twitter, might want to reflect on who "deserves" to be an author and what the proper punishment for being a jerk on the internet is. Finally: I think female-identifying authors are often punished for doing anything outside of being thankful and nice and polite, and that sucks. I also think that authors from different/blue collar backgrounds are often seen as assholes by the writing/reviewing community just because they do not know the proper rules of engagement, and it's a form of class gatekeeping.

On to the actual review of the book:

From the first paragraph, we are introduced to a very unreliable narrator (she tells us on the first page that she LIES) who also happens to be extremely unlikable (there is a long list of unlikable things about her that I won't spend time on). And our first instinct is to push her away and question everything she says. And honestly, even after finishing the book, I'm not sure what exactly in the memoir is true or false. And honestly, even after loving the book, I don't think she's likable.

But she can write. And she can process very difficult emotions, and talk about humanity in a fresh way that can make your heart hurt. And she is extremely, extremely funny. This is the rare memoir that is a page-turner/stay-up-past-your-bedtime read that is also a smart and fresh commentary on society, religion, sexuality, class, and ultimately a person's place in the world.

Many parts are painful and difficult to read. It seems obvious in places that the author still has a lot of processing and reflecting to do about the stories she tells. It's rough around the edges. But her heart is out there, and she's trying. She's incredibly vulnerable, and even if we're not sure, for example, if she set fire to her own car, she makes us understand that there's a lot more to it than that.

Lauren Hough has been through the unthinkable. She never had the chance to learn to be human or "normal" the way that most of us did. The result is a ton of pain, monkeys still on her back, and enough self-doubt and confusion to sink a ship. But the result is also this completely unique survivor who built herself from the ground up and found success and meaning after a truly strange and incredible journey. She's far, far from perfect (how could anyone be?) but her book is pretty close. It's fun and heartbreaking. It pushes you away and then brings you closer. It makes you confront your beliefs. It makes you wonder if you should be a bouncer in a gay bar after all or follow your dream to be a cable guy. Mostly, though, it sharpens your empathy and see the world from a totally new angle, if just for a few hundred pages.

Lauren Hough is a riot. She’s crass and unapologetically real and abrasive. And she’s an excellent storyteller. (The fact that ah-mazing the Cate Blanchett signed on to read Hough’s audiobook says something).

This memoir is piercing and is an interesting cultural reference point for anyone growing up in the 80s and 90s. Hough shares what it was like to belong to a cult and have half her family torn apart. She talks about being gay in the military during a time when she couldn’t be “out.” She talks about being extremely poor and living day to day in her car when she can’t find a job. She talks about working laborious jobs to make ends meet. And she is very open about her drug and alcohol use to take the pain away. She’s very vulnerable and messy. And I loved her book.

Many thanks to Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for the advanced reader copy via NetGalley. This is my honest review.

I felt kinda meh about this one. Not really connected with the story, even though I did read the whole thing. I would read further books by the author. This one to me is bland.

3/5 Stars

Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing is a collection of non-fiction essays by Lauren Hough. Lauren writes about a variety of topics: growing up in a cult, being a lesbian, her experiences being poor, what her experience was like in the Air Force, PTSD, and more.

First, I want to address something right off the bat. On my Youtube channel, I have zero tolerance for disrespect. The book community is one of the nicest, kindest, most open communities possible. Personally, I really enjoy finding people who read the same book that I read and feel the complete opposite of how I feel (maybe I missed something, maybe the other side has a valid point, maybe I can learn something). However, I am respectful. I still like people's videos that I disagree with. But anyone who is personally attacking another person, I'm out. I ban those folks from my channel. Hate has no home on my channel.

When I was on my GoodReads account, I was super excited because I saw that this book was getting quite a few reviews. What was going on? Lauren Hough, the author, put out a Tweet attacking a GoodReads reviewer for a 4 star rating and stating that no one likes this person. This is not acceptable. We talk about basic universal income. How about we start with basic universal respect? That should be the bare minimum. The book community are my peeps so my heart hurts that the author would do this to one of my own.

As I have never been one to jump on the band wagon or endorse cancel culture, I will now review the book. The book started off strong. Lauren started with a story of her time in the military as a lesbian. It was really quite shocking. This essay reminded me that it wasn't that long ago where people didn't feel safe enough to display rainbow flags, that there are times when the LGBTQ community are not safe and still subject to discrimination. Lauren has a down-to-earth writing style, and she writes to you as if she is your friend. However, I felt that the book went downhill from there. One of the main reasons why I wanted to read this book was because I am fascinated by cults. Lauren mentioned she grew up in one, The Family or The Children of God. She didn't tell the story in a very compelling way. She repeatedly told us it was horrible instead of showing us how horrible it was. Many people grow up extremely poor and move around a lot. That isn't particularly unique.

I was actually very disappointed in this book because Lauren makes a few great points. It sucks to be poor. People can work really hard and still be poor. People can be one misstep from bankruptcy. The criminal justice system is unfair to the poor. Drugs laws need to be rewritten. When someone has mental health problems, waiting a couple of months for an open appointment is not acceptable. However, her writing was poorly developed. She dropped so many F bombs. I mean a few here and there OK. But after awhile, just give it a break. It was really a shame that the storytelling wasn't better developed because I really do think that many of her ideas are valid.

This collection of essays by Lauren Hough doesn’t pull any punches. It doesn’t try to teach a lesson or force a happy ending. It just is what it is. The story of a complicated life. Growing up in an abusive sex cult that left her completely rootless with no sense of home. Trying to find her people in the military, but being disrespected and shut out. She similarly struggled to find her place in the D.C. gay community and as a cable technician. It’s impossible not to root for her as she works to create an authentic life.

Hough is a masterful storyteller and engaging writer.

Russian mobsters. Dick Cheney. A trip to the Pentagon in the early morning hours of Sept. 11, 2001. In this moving memoir, Lauren Hough shares the story of her often incredible life, from a global childhood growing up in the notorious Children of God cult, to serving in the U.S. military as a lesbian stationed in a conservative state, to a stint of homelessness spent sleeping in her car, to finally, her emergence as a writer.

And that’s not even the half of it.

Hough draws a frank and funny account of her extraordinary life in this collection of essays, which revolve around her journey and her struggles to thrive instead of merely survive. Through it all – and there is a lot – you often want to reach through the pages and give Hough a hug, even as you’re laughing along with her deft and dryly humorous storytelling.

2/5 stars.

This book should have been everything I wanted — I love memoirs and I love weird cult shenanigans. It just completely missed the mark for me though. Each essay began to sound like the last (rather than a cohesive theme throughout the book, the essays were just redundant and repetitive). Hough’s writing style was dry, especially for a topic that should have been engaging. The military content was probably the worst of it. It felt like she was trying very hard to imitate other writing styles and completely missing the mark. For a subject where she should have had much to glean, I don’t really think I learned anything interesting — do yourself a favor and just read a Rose McGowan interview on the same cult instead. It’ll be more compelling and take up less of your time.

Do you ever finish a book that leaves you so breathlessly elated that you start screaming at your sleeping cat about how good it is? I’m sorry, Minerva, I didn’t mean to wake you up from you nap and I didn’t mean to alarm you. But this book. You need to listen to me.

I finished up this searing essay collection the other night and immediately hauled my caboose to Bookshop.org to pre-order a physical copy. It hit me that hard. It’s that good.

Yes, this book is a collection of extremely heavy and often times traumatic essays. Lauren’s candor will stop you in your tracks several dozen times throughout. Growing up in a sex cult, joining the air force and then being kicked out because she is gay, being broke, spending time in a jail cell. These are just a few of things she speaks about with honesty and a raw vulnerability that will leave you reeling. The way she wraps up these horrific stories about her past in humor is something I’ve never really witnessed before. I laughed out loud so many damn times. I’m like, fully enamored at this point and will be reading anything Lauren puts out there from now on.

The thing I liked most about this collection was how seen I felt. Everything she says about the military, America, cops, all of it, is how I feel. It was so refreshing and honestly, cathartic as hell to read this book and realize I’m not alone in my beliefs. The relief of knowing there are people out there who get it, who are doing the actual work and not backing down is powerful. I’ve struggled the past year with finding this relief in my own life, and it’s been lonely as hell. So when I find a book and an author who puts this kind of work out? I latch on. The hit of serotonin, oh my god.

I’ll definitely be shoving this book down everyone’s esophagus. A huge thanks to Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Remember when the book Educated became the Non Fiction book that everyone was talking about? I will be surprised if this is not the 2021 book we are talking about. If it's not, then it should be.

I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting much from this... Essays? Ew. But the very first essay drew me in and set the tone for what I would be reading about. This was fabulous, well written, and thought provoking. I'm going to enjoy seeing this book take off in the coming months.

I became familiar with Hough’s work after she wrote a viral essay for HuffPo. The essay was illuminating, shedding light on the life of a cable tech and on “the American id in its underpants”. When I found out about this collection, I was beyond excited to read it.

In 11 essays, Hough peels back the layers of her life, offers them up to us with an outstretched hand, and dares us not to cry. She writes about being raised in a cult, trying to build a life after leaving, working blue-collar jobs barely making ends meet, suffering in a jail cell block, struggling with depression and PTSD, and so much more.

From being a stubborn kid in a cult, to a lesbian in the Air Force in the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell era, to a bartender-barista-dog-walker, Hough has had a life of being punished for who she is. The cult isolates and beats its members into compliance. The Air Force, after she’s targeted with homophobic violence, gaslights and tries to frame her for the crimes she was the target of. Her bosses at the bar or cable company weaponize the language of ‘family’ while squeezing out every last drop of labor from their workers and paying them nothing.

Lauren has learned time and time again to mold herself into what will cause the least amount of hurt and to conceal her feelings, desires, and questions because they only threaten her safety. These survival mechanisms help keep her alive, but they don’t allow her to thrive.

After leaving the cult, Lauren struggles with the shame of her past, intent on hiding it. She mistakes niceness for friendship and clings to it wherever she goes. In trying to outrun her past, she ends up miserable. Yes, she has a job and friends, but she feels completely alienated and adrift. In Europe, she meets with other ‘cult babies’ from her past and can finally shed the mold she’s been crafting for years and breathe. Afterward, Lauren begins writing about her past and in articulating her experience, defangs what was once terrifying and unthinkable. In this space, she’s able to start envisioning a future for herself.

Hough also reckons with trauma and how one copes. She has experienced abuse and sexual assault, and struggles with depression, panic attacks, and PTSD. Her essays are an indictment of many systems - the vindictive police state, our capitalist society that abuses and then discards those who are no longer useful, numbing consumer culture, the lie of the American Dream, the medical industry that offers drug cocktails instead of holistic support - and the traumas they inflict on us.

We watch her become a shell of herself on her quest to find the right medication, flailing in a drug-induced mental hell where yes, the pain is gone, but so is every other feeling. We see the immense pain inflicted on her by her job as a cable tech, as her body is continually pushed to its limits. Any remedy to her pain comes with a cost. She grapples with the question of healing: who has the time to invest in it? What kind of healing is available to those on the margins?

And amid all of this, Hough makes us laugh. Her bluntness and candor are served alongside her biting wit. Her vulnerability leaves us raw, and her ability to laugh despite it all gives us hope.

In her last essay, she beckons us toward pondering what it means to live. In a society where we are worked to death, in a culture that suffocates us with consumption, Hough encourages us to find what living means to us. Forget surviving, laboring, clicking, liking - what does it mean to embrace life? In times as dark as these, it’s important to savor the moments that make us feel alive. We need to stockpile these moments and use them to ground ourselves when we feel like everything is falling away. We need them to remind us to hold on, to persevere.

Thank you so much to #NetGalley, #KnopfDoubleDay, and @vintageanchorbooks for this ARC!