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"It's a dark story that forced me to think more expansively about what constitutes a cult." The New York Times' Ernesto Londoño

"Although this is Mestyanek Young's first time narrating, listeners will appreciate hearing this deeply personal story told by the author herself. Share with fans of Tara Westover's Educated and Deborah Feldman's Unorthodox. Memoir readers will want to check this one out."
Library Journal

"A painful and propulsive memoir delivered in the honest tones of a woman who didn't always think she'd live to tell her story." —The New York Times


This program is read by the author.


In the vein of Educated and The Glass Castle, Daniella Mestyanek Young's Uncultured is more than a memoir about an exceptional upbringing, but about a woman who, no matter the lack of tools given to her, is determined to overcome.

Behind the tall, foreboding gates of a commune in Brazil, Daniella Mestyanek Young was raised in the religious cult The Children of God, also known as The Family, as the daughter of high-ranking members. Her great-grandmother donated land for one of The Family's first communes in Texas. Her mother, at thirteen, was forced to marry the leader and served as his secretary for many years. Beholden to The Family's strict rules, Daniella suffers physical, emotional, and sexual abusemasked as godly discipline and divine loveand is forbidden from getting a traditional education.
At fifteen years old, fed up with The Family and determined to build a better and freer life for herself, Daniella escapes to Texas. There, she bravely enrolls herself in high school and excels, later graduating as valedictorian of her college class, then electing to join the military to begin a career as an intelligence officer, where she believes she will finally belong.
But she soon learns that her new worldsurrounded by men on the sands of Afghanistanlooks remarkably similar to the one she desperately tried to leave behind.
Told in a beautiful, propulsive voice and with clear-eyed honesty, Uncultured explores the dangers unleashed when harmful group mentality goes unrecognized, and is emblematic of the many ways women have to contort themselves to survive.
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press.


Expand title description text
Publisher: Macmillan Audio Edition: Unabridged

OverDrive Listen audiobook

  • ISBN: 9781250870728
  • File size: 397982 KB
  • Release date: September 20, 2022
  • Duration: 13:49:07

MP3 audiobook

  • ISBN: 9781250870728
  • File size: 398034 KB
  • Release date: September 20, 2022
  • Duration: 13:57:01
  • Number of parts: 14

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Formats

OverDrive Listen audiobook
MP3 audiobook

Languages

English

"It's a dark story that forced me to think more expansively about what constitutes a cult." The New York Times' Ernesto Londoño

"Although this is Mestyanek Young's first time narrating, listeners will appreciate hearing this deeply personal story told by the author herself. Share with fans of Tara Westover's Educated and Deborah Feldman's Unorthodox. Memoir readers will want to check this one out."
Library Journal

"A painful and propulsive memoir delivered in the honest tones of a woman who didn't always think she'd live to tell her story." —The New York Times


This program is read by the author.


In the vein of Educated and The Glass Castle, Daniella Mestyanek Young's Uncultured is more than a memoir about an exceptional upbringing, but about a woman who, no matter the lack of tools given to her, is determined to overcome.

Behind the tall, foreboding gates of a commune in Brazil, Daniella Mestyanek Young was raised in the religious cult The Children of God, also known as The Family, as the daughter of high-ranking members. Her great-grandmother donated land for one of The Family's first communes in Texas. Her mother, at thirteen, was forced to marry the leader and served as his secretary for many years. Beholden to The Family's strict rules, Daniella suffers physical, emotional, and sexual abusemasked as godly discipline and divine loveand is forbidden from getting a traditional education.
At fifteen years old, fed up with The Family and determined to build a better and freer life for herself, Daniella escapes to Texas. There, she bravely enrolls herself in high school and excels, later graduating as valedictorian of her college class, then electing to join the military to begin a career as an intelligence officer, where she believes she will finally belong.
But she soon learns that her new worldsurrounded by men on the sands of Afghanistanlooks remarkably similar to the one she desperately tried to leave behind.
Told in a beautiful, propulsive voice and with clear-eyed honesty, Uncultured explores the dangers unleashed when harmful group mentality goes unrecognized, and is emblematic of the many ways women have to contort themselves to survive.
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press.


Expand title description text