My Copy of 'I'm Perfect, You're Doomed' Arrived Today...

brinjen

Late this afternoon and I'm about a third of the way through it already. Can't put it down... loving it so far. From talks about demonic influence (and ice cream) to birthday parties with no be-heading to watching her first movie that had the word f*ck in it...

It's kinda eerie too... from what I can gather the author is around the same age as me (mid thirties) and we both left around the same (1997). I'm finding myself relating to a lot more in this book than I expected to... especially when the author describes what was going through her head at the time... absolutely, thoroughly recommend it.

babygirl75

I was gonna get it at Barnes & Noble's and couldn't remember the name of it!!! doh!

I'll def go get it now....

Tuesday

I put a review up myself here, I'm not a fan. I really liked the book at first because of how lightly she looked at things like demons and the stories were familiar to me since I grew up two towns over from her. As the book progressed it struck me just how she was messing up her life and it didn't have much to do with the JWs at all. I also feel that she confirms EVERY stereotype that JWs have about those who leave. I won't spoil it for you with how, but here's a great exercise to do when reading the book: make a list of every stereotype JWs say about people who leave the JWs. They become promiscuous, they do drugs, they never really were a JW to begin with because they were sinners, rock n' roll music caused it, etc. Then check them off as you read through the book.

The constant 80's references got real old, real fast with me too. I remember the episode of South Park where they talk about Family Guy's jokes as Manatee Jokes, one of my comments is "VH1's I Love the 80's called; they said they wanted their jokes back."

To each their own, I've found that it's a pretty polarizing book you either love it or you hate it. I'm very much in the hate column, I'm probably going to do a youtube review of the book soon.

brinjen

From what I understand (and if I'm wrong, I'm wrong) Kyria wrote the book simply to present her story. She was using a bit of JW material in her comic routines and realised how little people know about the JW's... so she wrote about her own experience as one. I've read a few interviews with her now where she has admitted she wanted to grab the girl in the book and slap her. If she changed it... it wouldn't be a memoir but rather a fictional tale.

Tuesday

I've read a few interviews with her now where she has admitted she wanted to grab the girl in the book and slap her.

If she wrote something to the effect of this in the book I would've liked the book. Memoirs can most certainly give either a more balanced perspective or a more expirienced perspective. Essentially I agreed with her mother "What Kyria wants, Kyria gets". It was well written from a technical stand-point, and I was definitely enamoured with seeing places I had been and people I had met described in a book. I have to like the main character of a book in order to like it, that wasn't the case here, I couldn't even relate to it. The jokes I just thought were unoriginal, I also sincerely think the book is going to do damage to the ex-JW cause. There's a part in there where she talks about pretending that her father molested her; which I think ardent JWs might read and use as an excuse why the two witness rule is in place. Which you and I both know is a VERY dangerous policy.

saywhat29

I got it from the library as I'm a cheap bastard. I generally liked the book and I liked Kyria's humor. Hmm, I've read some reviews from others on here and I think the confusion comes from what people wanted from the book to begin with. Kyria really didn't write some expose on Witnesses to rip the faith to shreads; she just told her story. And yes it did involve sex, rock 'n roll, the gays, loveless marriages, mental disorders 'bad association', drugs... because thats what everybody has to deal with- even JWs on some level, no matter how much they wanna cut themselves off from the world these things are/were still there and are in their lives as well no matter how much they want to pretend that its not.

So, I think thats why people are commenting on how some her problems were kind of her fault; I don't think the author would disagree with you at all because her tone already conveyed that. 'Did they know they had to support me and fix my problems? Why wouldn't they let me have the wedding I wanted and pay for it att he same time? Why wouldn't my mother's friend want to take me in as well and support her daughter's friend with the drinking and marriage problem?' Oh, Kyria knows who is to blame for the majority of her problems and she doesn't make a point of soley trying to put it on the JWs. Matter of fact, there isn't any expose on the Big Bads in Brooklyn, how dates are all wonky, the registration cards situation in Mexico v. the situation in the Congo (forgot which african country it was in). She just shows you how it affected her views, not made them.

She knows her probems were her problems, however she wrote about how being a JW influenced her problems because is a story that doesn't get talked about a lot; how her belief system sort of left her unprepared for life and how it was growing up with said beliefs that the world was going to end when it isn't. It wasn't the best story, nor was it that interesting after a while. The ending, however worked for me, with her in the poetry cafe getting to read yet another line of her bad poetry unsure of anything that was about to happen.

She's funny and her Youtube videos are kinda cute too.

saywhat29

There's a part in there where she talks about pretending that her father molested her; which I think ardent JWs might read and use as an excuse why the two witness rule is in place.

I don't think thats fair. She didn't say she was pretending to by molested by her father; she said that she was hanging around her friend lisa so much who, from growing up with sexual abuse, turned everything any guy did into abuse and had always looked at her father in a strange way to begin with, she started to wonder that maybe just maybe something happened. She didn't believe it herself but then--- "You never know.." is what Lisa would tell her. And even when she questioned if something happened in the book, it was clear in how she wrote it that even SHE knew she was full of sh*!. Maybe for a moment she wanted it to be true, for the attention. She was a young dumb kid after all.

Honestly, Tuesday I think the point should be not that she fulfills the stereotypes that the witness cast on those who leave the faith. Honestly, we all do and we can't escape their generalizations, nor should we even try.

Tuesday

I don't think thats fair. She didn't say she was pretending to by molested by her father; she said that she was hanging around her friend lisa so much who, from growing up with sexual abuse, turned everything any guy did into abuse and had always looked at her father in a strange way to begin with, she started to wonder that maybe just maybe something happened. She didn't believe it herself but then--- "You never know.." is what Lisa would tell her. And even when she questioned if something happened in the book, it was clear in how she wrote it that even SHE knew she was full of sh*!. Maybe for a moment she wanted it to be true, for the attention. She was a young dumb kid after all.

Honestly, Tuesday I think the point should be not that she fulfills the stereotypes that the witness cast on those who leave the faith. Honestly, we all do and we can't escape their generalizations, nor should we even try.

I remember the portion of the book, she also conveys how "cool" she thought it was to have a troubled past. You're not mentioning the part where she confronts her father saying "you KNOW what you did". That is what I'm talking about, she knew she was full of it, yet she still accused her father of something the poor guy didn't do. He was a bit of a loser sure, he was certainly physically abusive, had a temper and most certainly wasn't a good father, he however was not a child molester. What do JWs say about the two witness rule and repressed memories? "They're often fake, and need to be corroborated by a second person", here's a literal example they can point to of a JW accusing an innocent person in print. So again, more harm than good.

I have worked INCREDIBLY hard to defy those stereotypes, I left for ideological reasons. I have never touched a drug, in fact I have only drank alchohol on one occasion. I have been married 6 years, it's a happy marriage, she is the only woman I have had sex with. I have a child that I'm raising the way I would like to be raised. There are many of us who have worked incredibly hard not to live up to those ridiculous stereotypes to show that the stereotypes are wrong. It seems to me for every step forward a person like myself or MANY MANY others take towards JWs realizing that not everyone leaves for the stereotypical reasons or lives their life in sin, something like this book comes out to push us five steps back.

Again that is my take, I wouldn't recommend the book simply for the fact I don't think it's that good. People who don't enjoy Family Guy humor won't like the book. I would recommend a book like "Falling In Truth" which I think is written much better, is more creative in my opinion, contains far more information and a better look at what it's like being a JW. I think it's near criminal that what I feel is the difinitive book of the JW expirience and leaving the JWs is so under-appreciated, when a book that's chief drawing power is the fact it interspearses an expirience with stolen bad jokes about the 80's is praised left and right.