Book Review - The Last Days: A Memoir of Faith, Desire and Freedom by Ali Millar
In ‘The Last days’ Ali Millar is born into the Jehovah’s witnesses in a town in the Scottish Borders, and spends her early childhood living in fear. As she gets older, she starts to question the control the religion exerts over her life, but finds herself more entangled than ever after marrying a fellow believer and having a child. She begins to wonder if she will ever escape.
Jehovahs Witness
The Jehovah’s Witnesses religion is not one I am familiar with, so I found learning about the denomination interesting. I never knew that they didn’t celebrate Christmas or birthdays, allow blood transfusions, and are constantly living in fear of an imminent apocalypse. It’s just they can’t put a date on it, and at one stage when an airplane is shot down over Ukraine, Ali Millar believes that the end days are starting. You can really get a sense of her spiralling into fear.
It’s such a joyless world, and there were times when I really felt for Ali Millar - to live in such a culture of judgement, with a controlling husband and being cut off by her mum, who was completely unsympathetic to her plight. Her situation is compounded by being anorexic, and there are some unsettling and detailed descriptions of her illness. There were times when I found book is really hard going.
Early Years
It took me a while to understand the narrative to begin with until I realised Ali Millar was recreating her actual voice from each period of her life as if she was back in that moment. It was almost like she was reading from a journal and it felt a bit disconcerting to hear such warped opinions of the world from a six year old, but her indoctrination really came across. The section when she discovers sex and rock and roll is brings much needed light and energy to a narrative that I was really struggling with.
I listened to the audiobook, which Miller reads herself, and I enjoyed her lovely Scottish burr. But I found the book hard going at times, and when I’m struggling with a narrative, I find that's more of an issue with audiobooks, as it becomes more of an effort to scan back. It’s easier to flick back a couple of pages or sentences in a couple of seconds.
Summary
I think I was hoping to enjoy this as much as ‘Educated’ by Tara Westover, a similar book. But I never did, for reasons that I’m not quite sure. Maybe I wanted to hear more about her life outside the sect, but it’s hard to put my finger on.
There’s no doubting Ali Millar is an eloquent writer, and I think she really brings across the painful details of her life in the sect. I found parts of it unrelenting and grim, but I’m glad I read it. It’s an incredibly raw and brutally honest book about escaping a cult.
373 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 1, 2022 by Ebury Press