Review - Women We Buried, Women We Burned by Rachel Louise Snyder
I received a free review copy from NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
Women We Buried, Women We Burned is a new memoir by Rachel Louise Snyder, detailing her troubled childhood and how she eventually became an international journalist and advocate for victims of domestic violence.
The memoir begins with the untimely death of Rachel’s mother and the aftermath of that enormous loss. I loved how well she described what that loss was like from a child’s perspective, realizing now all that she didn’t understand then. Her father became entrenched in an evangelical church and remarried, blending families. These events began a tumultuous cycle of domestic violence within the family, which culminated when Rachel and her siblings were kicked out of their home as teenagers.
Rachel holds little back as she describes her own culpability in the events of her teenage years. She was a rebellious child who refused to be controlled. She fell into self-destructive patterns and was expelled from her high school.
Over the years that followed, Rachel eventually found her feet. She discovered her love of writing and her love of travel. As she learned more about the world and its people, she began to better understand herself and her own family.
This book is about strong women and the things that get in their way. It’s about disease and grief and death. It’s about faith and knowledge. It’s about messy family relationships and self-discovery.
If you liked Tara Westover’s Educated, you would probably like this book as well. Sensitive readers should know this book contains adult language, sexual content, child abuse, and drug use.
Women We Buried, Women We Burned releases today (May 11, 2023).
