At forty-five years old, I'm shocked to find myself still here. Writing reviews for memoirs, especially ones that get sent to me, is horribly difficult. The story and the author are incredibly intertwined and critique of one creates an association with the other. I will try to keep that separate. I was an Iranian Muslim, who'd been raped by a Christian and had hoped to be saved by the Jew Our narrator has gone through far more than most would ever experience, from childhood abuse to statutory rape to raped by her coworker all the while suffering from a deep-seated and untreated mental illness. Reading that was difficult. And living through it, infinitely moreso.I struggled with reading this, in part because this isn't subject I willing read. Though I asked after the content before I agreed to read and review, I wasn't aware of the extent that the novel relies on explicit (often sexually explicit) traumatizing events to move along the plot.And in part because the style of writing often went without clear connections between the real world and her drug-induced hazes. In addition, it was very stream-of-consciousness when she entered a manic phase of her bipolar disorder. This made it difficult for me to become submerged into the story.At times this read like a litany of sins - like when she admitted to hiring men and then sleeping with them. I can only imagine the fallout if the gender roles were reversed - a man hiring multiple women and then using his advantage as a boss to sleep with them.Others times this felt like an empowering #metoo novel - she has survived. And I could not imagine a more difficult life to have led. When she talked about her own troubles and strife - moments like that, I really connected with her. And still other times, this almost felt like a vindictive tell-all with pointed, personal attacks on people who've wronged the narrator - such as when a woman decided to stop helping the narrator with her novel. The narrator then barrages the poor woman with emails and calls her out explicitly within the book - no name change.Moments like that made it difficult to connect with the main character. Much her actions in the book consisted of self-sabotage, actually sabotage, harassment and the burning of so, so many people that (at times) it was difficult to form that essential emotional connection to her. She mentions in the beginning that she only changed the names of three people (her sisters). Therefore leaving us to assume that many of the events, including those involving her family, used their real names. And while I can see how their lives and actions influenced her formative years (often contributing to negatively to our narrator's life), I still felt that some of the tell-all elements went too far. I can only say this based on my own (admittingly sheltered) personality/experiences, but I could not imagine horrible, personal events being published so bluntly in my sibling's memoir. The more I read, the more I wondered...what if her sister didn't want the world to know that she was forced to give a blow job at gun point? Or if her other sister didn't want her bipolar/teenage drug addictions to be published? Or if another sister didn't want everyone to read about a failed suicide attempt? And yes, while she changed 3 names, she has 5 sisters, a brother, mother, father, aunts and a famous uncle. I have a feeling people can piece together who is who. That just didn't sit right for me.I commend the narrator on her unwavering honesty but I feel like I am too casual of a reader to truly appreciate this novel. This book just became too much for me. I received a free copy in exchange for an honest review.YouTube | Blog | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Snapchat @miranda_reads