These sometimes shocking circumstances are related using a potent literary style that combines mordant humor and helpless indignation with ferocious intellect. Society is messed up, but for anyone other than an employed cisgender heterosexual White male, Hough’s experiences show, it’s a mess on top of a shambles. Her declarations on the state of everything from lesbian bad behavior to what she learns is 'the slide,' the easily missed point of no return for the newly homeless — a quick fall over the edge from relatively presentable to permanent outcast — are compressed into aphorisms so numerous on the page they’re as hard to count as individual sparks in a fireworks display ... As Hough might point out, redemption isn’t given, it’s earned through hard emotional labor — and it’s inside you all along. Hers becomes the reader’s: writing, and reading, the truth can set you free. But first you bleed.
... revealing and honest ... Hough's book isn't really a cult memoir — it's about so much more than that (and it's also quite funny, although you'll have to take my word on that because most of the funny bits include expletives I can't quote here). Slowly, essay after essay, it becomes clear that she's drawing parallels between the Family and good ol' fashioned American Exceptionalism in all its various facets, from rah-rah-'Merica attitudes surrounding freedom to the worship of individualism to the demands of capitalism ... [Hough] isn't trying to sell us a solution or asking us to join anything. She tells it like it is, and it's heartbreaking — but to find our way out, we have to see things clearly first. Any survivor of a cult or an abusive relationship will tell you that.
You’ll laugh, cry, recoil in horror, and probably gasp, but mostly, you’ll appreciate Hough’s candor as she recounts a colorful past brimming with recreational drugs, Russian mobsters, and glow sticks.
... a memoir in essays that, taken together, form less a trajectory than they do a blast radius ... Hough’s writing about her post-cult life buzzes with tension between a fearful goal of fitting in and the eventual relief of belonging she finds via fellow queers, a job as a club bouncer, and drugs. Hough’s side-eye at American systems that conflate conformity and morality—the suburbs, the pharmaceutical industry, pop-culture attempts at LGBTQ 'inclusion'—is as heartbroken as it is piercing. Either way, Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing is impossible to forget.
This selection of 11 stories drawn from Gough’s checkered and fascinating life coalesces in a remarkable way ... Hough’s lacerating wit hits many targets, though none so often or so bitingly as herself. There’s a brutality to her honesty and to her self-deprecation that is compelling as hell to engage with. These alternatingly heartbreaking and hilarious tales stand strong on their own, but as a unit, they form a multi-faceted memoir-in-stories that is a true delight ... There’s obvious overlap between these essays, with assorted elements of Hough’s life popping up throughout. I’ll note that they’re all exceptional pieces of work – poignant and hilarious and weird, all bundled together in unexpected combinations – though of course, I have my favorites ... in all of these essays, we are left with at least one unmistakable understanding: Lauren Hough is one hell of a writer. The ability to lay bare one’s soul for the world to see – particularly when so much of what you are sharing springs from your own very real traumas – is a rare gift; Hough does so with empathy and emotional honesty while also being outright hilarious in spots ... a wonderful assemblage of work from a gifted writer. Weird and genuine and idiosyncratic, it’s a quality reading experience of the finest kind. If you are interested in a unique and uniquely human read, this collection is for you.
Oh, does Lauren Hough have a story to tell ... These essays are funny, profane and deceptively loose, as if Hough is talking to you late at night in a quiet bar. But they’re also well crafted and make unexpected connections ... Hough’s writing is about voice, and her distinctive style is what carries the reader through. By the collection’s end, you feel you know her, and you know she’s finding her own way through writing. Hough is a writer to watch.
Her writing is candid and harrowing as she describes a life of reinvention ... Her experience of the daily struggles of surviving low-paying jobs will resonate with readers ... Although presented in essay format, this reads as a poignant, gripping memoir. A page-turning account of belonging and not belonging, and what it means to start over.
[An] honest and thought-provoking memoir in essays ... Hough’s story is often painful, including homelessness and a brief stint in jail, and her time in the cult is horrifying, but her candid and direct writing makes for engrossing reading, and jolts of humor provide levity. Her story is not one readers often see, and it deserves a wide audience.
This thoughtful, occasionally meandering book explores the shaping power of the past and also raises provocative questions about what really constitutes a cult. An edgy and unapologetic memoir in essays.
... The prose is often conversational and witty ... At the work’s heart is the therapeutic act of telling, and while some sections gesture toward cultural criticism, Hough is at her best when illuminating her circumstances. This moving account of resilience and hard-earned agency brims with a fresh originality.
