4.5 Expressions of Absolute Shock for Faith Jones's Sex Cult Nun

With absolute candor and a casual tone, Faith Jones takes readers through her life as the granddaughter of David "Moses" Berg, the founder of Children of God/The Family International. Her childhood was full of fundamentalist religious teaching paired with physical abuse and inappropriate sexual experiences that were all taught as "right" in her family's religion. Despite very little traditional educational experience, Jones is drawn to learning and the pursuit of knowledge. Throughout the book, she is full of questions and constantly looks for ways to grow.

Despite some pretty major religious differences, Sex Cult Nun has a lot of parallels to Educated by Tara Westover; so if you enjoyed the latter I strongly recommend the former. In both, you are able to see moments of questioning and moments of commitment, a strong pursuit of education and a willingness to question the beliefs they were taught. At the end of each, the author is able to reflect critically on the experiences they had in adolescence, though the journey is difficult. While both of these memoirs begin with extreme experiences and beliefs, I think the process is really relatable as we have been taught--whether by our religions, our families, our politics, or society at large--harmful ideas that ought to be challenged.

A pretty major trigger warning on this one though: through the practices of her religion, Jones and other members of The Family International experienced sexual assault and child molestation. If you have similar traumas in your background, you may want to proceed with caution (or not proceed at all). There are other forms of abuse, too, that are pretty hard to stomach including (physical) child abuse and mental/emotional/verbal abuse. While all of this was tragic and terrifying, Jones's narrative tone is fairly factual and not overly detailed, so it isn't the toughest read I've ever encountered with this type of material, but it could be pretty triggering.