Friday, April 26, 2013

Book Review: Diary of a Single Mormon Female by Aleesa Sutton

Book: Diary of a Single Mormon Female by Aleesa Sutton
Genre: Memoir
Rating:★★★★☆
For: Review
From: ebook sent by the author

When I first heard the pitch for this book, I was skeptical. Mostly because I'm not single and perhaps I wouldn't relate. Also, because I'm always worried about "Mormon" books and how authors will portray the church, depending where their head is regarding the church at the time of writing.

But I accepted anyway and thought it might be an interesting one to check out.

Of course, once I started reading, I was pretty much hooked. Turns out, I actually could relate quite well, not necessarily the state of singleness and the experiences found therein, but pretty much everything else.

This book is just what it says it is... a diary. The author takes excerpts from her own diaries and journals as she was growing up and shares them. Brave brave thing to do! She starts out showing us her boy craziness at the age of ten and it goes from there, growing in craziness all through her teen and high school years. It's very fun to read these happy and naive journal entries from a girl who knows everything is going to work out to be happily ever after. It sounded exactly like my own journal.

In between all her entries we get little snippets of her now current feelings regarding what she wrote then... the hindsight is 20/20 thing, you know? These little observations are pretty funny, a little sad, quite cynical at times, but interesting nonetheless.

Anyway, we move to college years and all the dating and ins and outs of love she goes through. Somehow, she manages to get through all of BYU without getting married, something most of us don't manage  And now she has that feeling... now what do I do? It's fun to see her figure out her life from there and all the experiences she has, which, at the time she may have felt a little bitter about or at least frustrated with, and yet I hope looking back she can see all the things she accomplished and all the life she has been able to  live... because she is single.

Bottom line: In the end, I had a really fun time reading this book!

Other Reviews:

I was laughing on nearly every page because of how real Aleesa’s experiences are to life as an unmarried member of the church From Of Munchkins and Manuscripts

Chapters include: "The Hunk of Burnin' Love"; "Was I Weak-Butted?"; "Who Talks About Grandpa's Migraine Headaches on a Dream Date??"; "Virgins, in This Day and Age!" and "Do You Think I Have Nerves of Steel?" From GoodKindles

One woman’s story about coping without Mr. Right in a church focused on marriage and family. From Pauline Wiles



2 comments:

  1. Interesting way of writing memoirs. Sounds like it might be a good book club read.
    Ann

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Ann,
    I'd be very happy to make some free copies available for your book club! Please contact me through my website if you're interested. http://www.aleesasutton.com

    All the best,
    Aleesa

    ReplyDelete