Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing: Essays by Lauren Hough

Abstract

Reviewed by: Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing: Essays by Lauren Hough MaxieJane Frazier (bio) leaving isn't the hardest thing: essays Lauren Hough Vintage https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/623343/leaving-isnt-the-hardest-thing-by-lauren-hough/ 320 pages; Print, $16.95 I'm better at lying than I am at telling the truth because the lies don't make me nervous. —Lauren Hough Identifying Lauren Hough's memoir, Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing, as a heroic journey to self-discovery is a hopeful thing to do. Hough doesn't leave much room for "magical thinking" in this account of her life after growing up in a cult, but she perseveres through hardship, bringing readers along for the journey. Early on, she establishes the way she sought out belonging in different communities after leaving her bizarre upbringing, and she comes to know that she's seeking something more like belonging within herself than in groups without. Figuring out who she is, staying with herself, it turns out, is the hardest part. Early in the memoir, before we understand that Hough was part of the infamous Children of God cult for most of her childhood, she describes why she joined the Air Force: "I'd wear the same uniform as everyone else. They'd have to accept me because I was one of them. I'd find what every book I read, every movie I watched, told me: I'd find friends and maybe even a sort of family." She's seeking the kind of belonging so many young adults need as they leave high school and move into adulthood, and we come to know that it's even more important because she's been performing an unfamiliar American identity, almost a caricature of what it means to be American, and she thinks joining the Air Force will "seal the deal." But Hough has left one institution for another, and it doesn't take her long to recognize that she doesn't belong in the Air Force either. She describes the hate attacks she faced in a [End Page 23] year-2000 "Don't ask, don't tell" Air Force that help push her toward a community defined by sexual orientation. When she finally leaves the Air Force by admitting she is gay, she identifies the problem with signing up in the first place: "All I'd done was join another cult." She moves away from institutions and cults by finding a new plan for her life. Hough weaves the influences of her cult background into her response to adult experiences where she's constantly balancing her reaction to events with some concept she has fabricated of what she thinks of as "normal." Vividly evoking the social fabric of the early 2000s with references to music, clubs, and a form of Washington, DC, where wealthy gay people ooze positivity, she once again feels like a misfit with the group of people where she thought she'd finally belong. She unfolds her growing awareness that rejecting the Children of God as a lifestyle didn't banish its impact on the rest of her life. The controlling idea of the memoir stems from her abuse at the hands of cult members: "One thing I learned late in life is there are people who are shocked when bad things happen to them," and she isn't one of those people. Hough reinforces this tough persona with "Most of the time, I figure it's better to know the universe doesn't pay out favors for magical thinking." She makes it clear from the beginning of the book that she is an unyielding pessimist. Hough gives us entry to myriad worlds that privileged people might choose to ignore or about whose existence they might literally be ignorant. She pulls back the curtain on Children of God, renamed The Family, as well as the increased rate of military homosexual discharge during "Don't ask, don't tell," but she also shows the insecurity of people without deep family resources to bolster their success or even their survival. Hough rides the razor's edge of homelessness, the modern-day equivalent of tenement living, and...