I'm not sure how I felt about this book entirely, or how to review it. It was haunting, powerful - but also hard to read, and at times felt a little disjointed. Caitlin Myer's reflections on her experience growing up in Mormonism, and the way the theme of "wiving" flowed through the whole book was powerful and caused me to think quite a bit. She has a way with words that made this book hard to put down. Yet, for a reason I can't quite pinpoint, it wasn't my favorite memoir. Maybe it didn't quite live up to the hype for me - not sure! Either way, interesting read.

Perfect for women looking for a boost of courage and strength. Very much in the Glennon Doyle/Cheryl Strayed wheelhouse, but less focused on advice and more on experience, which was a welcome distinction.

I received this book free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I didn’t really care for this one, I took me 7 weeks to finish. I found it pretty all over the place and not her whole story was explained.

While it's a good book, I found this to be too raw and almost abrasive for me... The opening itself had me scratching my head and wondering where this was going... Also, while I love memoirs, I'm not really a fan of those that hop in time throughout, and that also focus too much on the 'people around' as opposed as the person telling the memoir. In this light, this book fell flat for me because I just wanted the author to get on with it, especially around the earlier pages.

This was such an interesting book! I was brought up in a similar way, so hearing the author's survival story was empowering. This book will stick with you.

This book blew me away! I was unable to but it down. Perfect, dazzlingly, very well written. The details the author described throughout the book was so amazing. The characters and storyline were fantastic. The ending I did not see coming Truly Amazing and appreciated the whole story. This is going to be a must read for many many readers. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! No spoilers. Beyond amazing I enjoyed this book so very much. The characters and storyline were fantastic. The ending I did not see coming Could not put down nor did I want to. Truly Amazing and appreciated the whole story. This is going to be a must read for many many readers. Maybe even a book club pick.

I am gutted. Caitlin Myer's memoir, Wiving, is unlike any other memoir I've read. It's a story known to many women: patriarchy, conservative religious upbringing, traditional gender roles, sexual assault and rape, marriage, family, physical health issues, and mental health. Still, the way Myer reveals her story is methodical, dreamlike at times - admitting her own likelihood that events are not as she as remembers and yet EXACTLY as she remembers, and the things she survives will gut you.

The book is broken into parts, and within each part are examples of the numerous ways in which she has played a wife to someone. She also includes parts of stories from the Bible's Yael and Judith figures who broke from their roles as wives to become warriors. At times, the timeline can be a little confusing, but overall I didn't think the timeline even mattered all that much. The book was about relationships - those with a romantic partner, an abusive partner, those with our parents, and the most important one, the one with our own self. Myer has had to overcome a lot to carve her own way. I think her book is poetic, raw, and very vulnerable.

I started this book with some reluctance. From the description it wasn't clear if this was a true memoir--that is, a narrative built around actual incidents--or more of a meditation on feminism glossed over with personal anecdotes. Luckily, for me at least, it's the former.

At first the back-and-forth in time was jarring, especially at the beginning--why are we rewinding to childhood when the title is Wiving? (It becomes clear later.) Once the majority of the narrative switched to her growing up years, I tended to skim whenever she abruptly returned to her adulthood. Other readers may not mind this as much.

But the writing is peak-Margaret-Atwood-gorgeous. Seriously, this book will slice you open. While the theme of Wiving didn't always feel cohesive, the subject matter recalls No One Tells You This, The Sound of Gravel, and Girl at the End of the World, in all the very best ways.

Content warning for rape and assault--be kind to yourself. It is easy to see these scenes coming if you prefer to skip them. I received a copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Note: I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley and am leaving this review voluntarily.
The first thing that caught my eye about Wiving by Caitlin Myer was the cover—full of color yet muted, the tones spoke to the desire for hope, however stunted that desire may be by circumstance. Next, I noticed the title. “Wiving?” I thought. “That’s unique. This has to be interesting.”
And it most certainly is.
As the author takes the reader on a painful, lonesome (but not altogether lonely), perplexing journey through the first half-century of her life, Myer recounts some of her most painful memories.
A childhood wrought with confusing messages about “a woman’s role”, how any sexual activity—consensual or forced—would ruin the woman’s reputation. Barriers set by the Mormon culture in Utah, meant to enforce the subservience and placidity of women. Familial discord and mental health struggles that impact children and medical negligence. The events that formed the youngest years of the author’s life are harrowing, many of which are part of the quiet scars so many of us bear.
These scars gained in youth form the path Caitlin Myer took through her early adulthood and into middle age, often finding herself in situations that ultimately added more scars to her heart. From wishy-washy, opportunistic, never-going-to-commit boyfriends to emotionally abusive, gaslighting partners, to a marriage so loving it was suffocating, Myer explores different versions of the “wifehood” she was prepared to seek, all the while knowing it isn’t what’s meant for her. After a medical crisis the author fully begins to shake free of the chains in which her upbringing bound her, setting out on a global quest for freedom—whatever that truly means to her.
Told in blunt terms and frank recollections, Wiving is the type of book I immediately texted my fellow survivor friends to say “I HIGHLY, highly, highly recommend this.” The thoughts and insights the author shares regarding the thought processes and ways in which multiple abusive events by various abusers changes one’s mindset, worldview, and self-worth are striking. Never before have I read a book and truly felt that my own thoughts were the words on the page, but Wiving is that book for me.
I wish I knew the words to thank Caitlin Myer for writing this book, as difficult as it may have been to recall such tortuous events.
This book absolutely deserves five stars for the message it shares and the way in which the author tells it. I started reading it at nearly midnight, and only when my eyes burned with exhaustion did I stop…only to pick it up again as soon as I awoke. I completely encourage survivors of abuse (especially an upbringing in a cult, gaslighting, and sexual abuse/assault) to read this book, and then find someone to share it with immediately. Wiving sets the standard for the type of memoir our culture needs.

Review from Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3461625110:

I'm not sure I can write a very coherent review of this right now. Wiving was a painful, beautiful read, and it moved me deeply. I'll be sitting with Caitlin Myer's words for a long time.

I enjoy difficult books like this, where you feel you don't deserve the trust the author has given you by sharing the parts of their lives most people don't have the guts to acknowledge let alone share publicly. Caitlin's writing is so real and human and sad and scary and funny. I love people who dare to go this deep into themselves and their trauma. As I read I was continually surprised that the author shared them, over, and over, and over. The amount of introspection Caitlin's writing demonstrates is staggering, I can't think of another word for it. Whew, I dunno. The strength in the vulnerability here is... something.

A particular aspect of the book that strongly resonated for me is the strong desire that women may feel about not falling into the same traps our mothers did. Yet despite our resistance, we end up replicating certain behaviors. For Caitlin, for me, for many, that trap is marriage, becoming a wife or "wiving." It's about our inability to escape patriarchy, to live a life free of it, ultimately. It's something that we all share. The arc of the book is simultaneously about being drawn to those traps and running from them, about wanting love and needing freedom, how we go back and forth over our lives trying to find some kind of balance, the pressure to conform and give up our independence, our dreams, our path, to serve another.

I just finished this book yesterday and I've barely been able to feel like I've begun processing it. It hit close to home in a lot of ways, and I imagine it will with many readers. Perhaps this sounds a bit earnest, but I'm genuinely grateful to the author for writing it. For trusting us with her pain and her heartbreak and her inner conflicts in such a shameless, honest way.

Oh, sidenote! Whoever reviews this book and calls it "sexy" confuses the fuck out me (at least one reviewer I know of did). At no point did I find this book sexy. Did they actually read it? Trigger warning for lots of sexual assault, y'all.

Thanks to NetGalley (and to Skyhorse Publishing) for providing me a copy of Wiving in exchange for an honest review.

Caitlin Myer tells her story of growing up, with a mom suffering from mental illness, in a patriarchal religious society with a brutal honesty that drew me into her story and kept me reading with interest and longing to see how she overcomes each of the challenges that she faced. She tells intimate details of her story with notice of the emotions at the time, but also with the lens of looking back at the experience with what she knows now. Watching her come to understand that she is not at fault for sexual assault, and then learning to believe that truth and act on the knowledge that she is not on this earth to please anyone, protect anyone, serve anyone, and that she on her own, as herself, is worthy of taking up space in the world, was a journey I was honored to take with her throughout this amazing, well written memoir. There are parts of her story that will resonate with far too many women in our society today. This was a brave and open look at the toughest parts of being a woman and I was hooked from beginning to end!

Wiving is the second of three books I read at the same time that have a sexual abuse history in the story. All three of the books were quite heavy, but filled with importance. In Wiving, we learn that the author experienced this abuse from a church elder. Even if it may seems startling, it's not. It's typical. At least in my opinion. It's always the most religiously upheld people that cause most of the problems. And one of the main reasons, I do not like organized religion. Or Christianity.


But I digress.


Wiving is a story of how many times the author was "wived" to someone who either assaulted her, or she mistakenly found herself in a bad situation. I remember when I was a child, growing up in the church, my mother told me that the first (and only, in her eyes) man I slept with, would be my husband. This bothered me in so many ways. And to see a book written in that frame of mind, that the author was "wived" to all these men, made me sad, and heartbroken for all of us who have been at the hands of the abusers.


It's a beautiful story, no matter how heartbreaking.


Wiving publishes 7.28.2020.


5/5 Stars

I was captured from the first page- this book is heartbreakingly beautiful.

With each poetic phrase, author Caitlin Myer details her story of growing up in and leaving the Mormon church, her struggle with the deeply prevalent patriarchy, the devastation of multiple sexual assaults, and her constant battle to outrun mental illness.

Despite the weightiness of these topics, "Wiving" never felt over-done or over wrought. The author bounced forward and backward through her life story, but it never seemed disjointed or confusing. I wondered what a "happy ending" to this story might look like, and whatever that night be, I think Myer comes very close. She seems to have fully processed her story and is becoming "at home" in her own skin. I hope that she has found peace.

My thanks to #NetGalley, the author and publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book. The pleasure was all mine. #Wiving

A raw and complex memoir about an interesting life. The author shows great vulnerability in her writing.

A beautiful, tough, and brave memoir. The kind of memoir that will inspire you to tell your own story.

I am blown away by Caitlin Meyer's lyrical, yet straightforward writing - the toughest moments in her life laid bare for the reader so honestly that sometimes it is painful to read. This book tackles all the beauty, pain and messiness involved with being a woman, amplified times ten or even a hundred.

Meyer grew up with a Mormon family in Utah. Her family was extremely traditional in some ways, particularly regarding religion, sin, virginity, and the "wiving" in the title, but also unique and ahead of its time in other ways. Meyer's mother had bipolar disorder and serious depression, spending a lot of time sick in bed. Her mother is fascinating to me. Though strictly Mormon and wedded to many of their gendered beliefs, she also showed a lot of feminist spirit. On one occasion after showing her daughter some poems, she implied that she had spent all her creativity on having children (there were six in Meyer's family).

You should be forewarned that there's a lot of abuse, including sexual abuse, in this story. It is pretty much non-stop. Meyer, like so many other women and girls, was sexualized from a young age, and abused by a number of older people who knew better. It doesn’t get much better for many years. A lot of the time this is very hard to read, but the way she writes about it is completely unique and somehow just a revelation. Her repeated tough experiences are analyzed through the lens of both her religion and our American way of life, and her writing has a lot to say about being a girl or a young woman in our culture. The book, like its title, is from the perspective of the primary duty of "wiving" the author had instilled in her since she was a little girl. Be a good wife, give the man what he wants, flirt but be virtuous, put up a fight. You see how the strict religious oppression of her upbringing made worse a lot of terrible situations. A lot of these ideas are common to many of us even if not raised Mormon, but are amplified in this book.

A beautifully written, tough, heartbreaking memoir that is important even though often hard to read. This book definitely deserves the advance praise it's been getting.

Side note: This book has been compared to Educated. I liked it better than Educated! It’s similar in some ways but quite different and, for me, more emotional.

Thanks to Caitlin Meyer, NetGalley and Skyhorse Publishing for the advance copy of this great book.

This book was so interesting and something I think is often covered up. I was nervous to read something about "patriarchy" because I feel like the term is sometimes overused. However, Caitlin Myer lived in nothing short of extreme patriarchy and it was incredibly eyeopening. I know that a lot of my friends in the LDS faith may not have had this experience but wow, it was interesting and I couldn't help be feel this immense sense of pride for Caitlin as she came to figure out who she was.

This is such a beautiful book. Caitlyn's story is one that is raw, emotional, compelling, devastating, and beautiful. Her strict Mormon upbringing that was filled with repression and sexism resulted in what these kinds of environments often foster: abuse and shame. In the end, though, she was able to overcome the forces of her youth and empower herself as a woman and human. Such a remarkable story and engrossing to read.

When I am pitched a book whether it be non fiction or fiction and it has to do with the Mormon church, I don't tend to read much further as I have a fascination for knowing as much as I can about this faith, it stems from my days in college with a religious study major and an interest in all faiths.

Caitlin Myer is a wife and she is ready to become a mom. Becoming a mom won't be as easy as becoming a wife for Caitlin and with past trauma and current trauma, she tells her story of the past and the present.

It is always hard to review a non fiction book as you can't discuss the character or the story with opinion as the author is telling the truth and in this case their own story. In this case, I will talk about how the story was written. There were times where I felt as though the author could have edited a few bits and pieces. I know that she was using the many instances to prove a point and create the full picture of her story, but there were a few bits and pieces that I felt as though could have been excluded.

I am glad that I had quite a bit of background knowledge of the faith and the community before reading this book. It helped to know many of the other stories of people who have left the Mormon faith due to negative experiences in order to place this story within the "canon". It helps to have many stories to create a full perspective of this faith and how some have had the worst of experiences.

Thank you to the author, Skyhorse Publishing and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I loved the cover, which was what caught my eye, and the book - wow. This is a gripping, emotionally raw and utterly absorbing memoir of a young woman born into a place and family that on the one hand restricted her completely in terms of her role as a woman in Mormonism, and on the other hand gave her much too much freedom. As a child, with parents who were too caught up in their own struggles to take care of her, she felt abandoned and alone, and struck out on her own. This is fraught with danger, and there is quite a bit of sexual violence (trigger warning) - but there are also beautifully written explorations of larger philosophical issues like the role of women in society, and giving your life purpose and direction. Highly recommended!

I am female and in reading this book, all the doubts, fears, pain, all the things I learned to lock away in the dark recess of my mind about this body were unearthed by Caitlin.
I don't know whether to hate that she spoke such truth or to applaud her...all I know is that I felt seen, heard and championed for by her story. This book is one that I hope I get to read a year from now as well.
Thank you Netgalley for the eARC.