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Women We Buried, Women We Burned: A Memoir
From the author of the groundbreaking, award-winning No Visible Bruises, a riveting memoir of survival, self-discovery, and forgiveness sure to captivate readers who loved Tara Westover's Educated and Jeanette Walls' The Glass Castle.
For decades, Rachel Louise Snyder has been a fierce advocate reporting on the darkest social issues that impact women's lives. Women We Buried, Women We Burned is her own story.
Snyder was eight years old when her mother died, and her distraught father thrust the family into an evangelical, cult-like existence halfway across the country. Furiously rebellious, she was expelled from school and home at age 16. Living out of her car and relying on strangers, Rachel found herself masquerading as an adult, talking her way into college, and eventually travelling the globe.
Survival became her reporter's beat. In places like India, Tibet, and Niger, she interviewed those who had been through the unimaginable. In Cambodia, where she lived for six years, she watched a country reckon with the horrors of its own recent history. When she returned to the States with a family of her own, it was with a new perspective on old family wounds, and a chance for healing from the most unexpected place.
A piercing account of Snyder's journey from teenage runaway to reporter on the global epidemic of domestic violence, Women We Buried, Women We Burned is a memoir that embodies the transformative power of resilience.
For decades, Rachel Louise Snyder has been a fierce advocate reporting on the darkest social issues that impact women's lives. Women We Buried, Women We Burned is her own story.
Snyder was eight years old when her mother died, and her distraught father thrust the family into an evangelical, cult-like existence halfway across the country. Furiously rebellious, she was expelled from school and home at age 16. Living out of her car and relying on strangers, Rachel found herself masquerading as an adult, talking her way into college, and eventually travelling the globe.
Survival became her reporter's beat. In places like India, Tibet, and Niger, she interviewed those who had been through the unimaginable. In Cambodia, where she lived for six years, she watched a country reckon with the horrors of its own recent history. When she returned to the States with a family of her own, it was with a new perspective on old family wounds, and a chance for healing from the most unexpected place.
A piercing account of Snyder's journey from teenage runaway to reporter on the global epidemic of domestic violence, Women We Buried, Women We Burned is a memoir that embodies the transformative power of resilience.
260 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 23, 2023
321 people are currently reading
27506 people want to read
About the author
Rachel Louise Snyder
6 books368 followersRachel Louise Snyder is the author of Fugitive Denim: A Moving Story of People and Pants in the Borderless World of Global Trade, the novel What We’ve Lost is Nothing, No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us and the forthcoming memoir Women We Buried, Women We Burned (May ’23), which will be excerpted in the New Yorker in April '23. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times magazine, the Washington Post and on NPR, and she was a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow. No Visible Bruises was awarded the 2018 Lukas Work-in-Progress Award, the 2020 Book Tube Prize, the 2020 New York Public Library’s Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism and the Sidney Hillman Book Award for social justice. It won Best Book in Translation in Taiwan in 2021 and has been translated into Russian, Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, Turkish, Spanish, Hungarian, and others. It received starred reviews from Kirkus, Book Riot and Publisher’s Weekly and was named one of the best books of 2019 by the Los Angeles Times, Esquire, Amazon, Kirkus, the Library Journal, the Economist, and BookPage; the New York Times included it in their “Top Ten” books of 2019. No Visible Bruises was also a finalist for the Kirkus Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the LA Times Book Award, and the Silver Gavel Award.
Over the past two decades, Snyder has traveled to sixty countries, covering stories of human rights, gender-based violence, natural disasters, displacement and war. She lived, for six years, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and two years in London before relocating to Washington, DC in 2009. Originally from Chicago, Snyder holds a B.A. from North Central College and an M.F.A. from Emerson College. Originally from Chicago, she has a joint appointment as a professor in journalism and literature at American University. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram: @rlswrites
Over the past two decades, Snyder has traveled to sixty countries, covering stories of human rights, gender-based violence, natural disasters, displacement and war. She lived, for six years, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and two years in London before relocating to Washington, DC in 2009. Originally from Chicago, Snyder holds a B.A. from North Central College and an M.F.A. from Emerson College. Originally from Chicago, she has a joint appointment as a professor in journalism and literature at American University. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram: @rlswrites
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 579 reviews
June 17, 2023
In a Nutshell: An interesting memoir by a woman who grew up in an extreme evangelical family and made her own way around the world using nothing but her own skills. Not exactly as promised in the blurb, but a decent read nonetheless.
Synopsis:
First, let me set the expectations right.
👉 The title, though impactful, is misleading. Somehow, it generalises the topic, giving a feel that the book talks of women who have been attacked by society for various reasons. The book, however, is entirely from a personal point of view, with only a few pages talking of women in general.
👉 The blurb also provides a different idea about the content. This line in particular - “ In places like India, Tibet, and Niger, she interviewed those who had been through the unimaginable.” - is probably what she did in real life but it is not a part of the book at all. I admit, the reference to India was one big reason for my requesting this book, and I was disappointed to see that India is mentioned barely a couple of times in passing. The public problem of domestic violence is also not covered to the extent promised. Also, “her distraught father thrust the family into an evangelical, cult-like existence” led me to believe that they had actually joined a cult, which isn’t the case at all. Finally, I avoid memoirs that involve drugs or alcohol or casual sex. (Just a personal reading preference.) The blurb gave no clue about this content, else I wouldn’t have picked this up.
Basically, I had opted for this book assuming that it was an expose of the harsh facts related to domestic violence. What I got was a somewhat typical memoir, talking about survival and rebellion and resilience. A major chunk of the book is dedicated to her childhood after mother's death and her younger years after her father's remarriage. It is only after about the 60% mark that she talks about her international experiences, and those too are restricted to her years and personal experiences in Cambodia with no clue about how she earned her living there.
This is not to take away from her story. If anyone writes a memoir, it goes without saying that they have something to share, and this author has a lot to share indeed. Her childhood years under her domineering father were horrendous, and it must have taken a lot of courage to explore those old wounds again and pen them down. When she writes, “I lost my mother to cancer and my father to religion”, your heart actually breaks for her. The elements set in Cambodia were very interesting, and I could see glimpses of her journalistic prowess.
But as this is a book review, I am rating and reviewing the book and not the person. And the book, specifically the writing style, generated mixed feelings in me.
The narration of many events seems as ad hoc as Snyder’s job choices, seemingly going from random point to random point without any flow. Many important elements of her life, such as her decision of opting for journalism or her divorce, are brushed aside hastily. There are time jumps without warning, and while we can fill in some of the blanks, many facts stay hidden even until the end. I wish the book would have plugged in these gaps so that we readers got to experience a fluid narrative than one coming in spurts.
The ending is what disappointed me the most. The book goes a whole circle as Snyder returns to her father and her stepmom due to certain personal situations. Until that point, we hear nothing positive about her parents, but after her return, all we see is her sympathy and acceptance of her stepmom without any mention of what provoked this abrupt change of heart. The decision of forgiveness and acceptance seems to come out of nowhere. Another sore point for me is that I am not sure of how the stepmom, who was a reserved woman, would have felt [were she alive] about some of her intimate details being revealed in a public work.
🎧 The Audiobook Experience:
The audiobook, clocking at 9 hrs 48 minutes, is read by the author herself. I am not usually a fan of authors reading their own works, but in this case, the author does a great job. If the content interests you, the audiobook is a great way of experiencing this memoir.
All in all, this is an interesting memoir focussing on one woman’s tough life and her determination to make it in the world. Don’t pick it up expecting a greater focus on domestic violence or a spotlight on the other countries mentioned in the blurb. It shares a journey of personal growth than of social activism.
3.5 stars, rounding up for the audio version.
My thanks to NetGalley, Bloomsbury USA for the DRC, and HighBridge Audio for the ALC of “Women We Buried, Women We Burned”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.
Content warnings: Drug abuse, alcohol abuse, rape, casual sex, domestic violence, physical punishment.
———————————————
Connect with me through:
My Blog | The StoryGraph | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
Synopsis:
When author Rachel Snyder was eight (in 1977), her Jewish mom died of cancer. Her Christian father remarried a Christian divorcee with two kids of her own, and soon opted for an extreme style of evangelical faith and stringent parenting, with corporal punishment being a regular part of his disciplining strategy. Snyder soon became a rebel, being expelled from school, choosing drugs and alcohol, living out of her car, and relying on strangers for her survival. However, her hereditary marketing & communication skills, courtesy her father’s various MLM businesses, ensure that she talks her way to college and later, to travelling across the globe.
This memoir focusses on her early life, her escape, her years in Cambodia, and the circumstances behind her return to the US.
First, let me set the expectations right.
👉 The title, though impactful, is misleading. Somehow, it generalises the topic, giving a feel that the book talks of women who have been attacked by society for various reasons. The book, however, is entirely from a personal point of view, with only a few pages talking of women in general.
👉 The blurb also provides a different idea about the content. This line in particular - “ In places like India, Tibet, and Niger, she interviewed those who had been through the unimaginable.” - is probably what she did in real life but it is not a part of the book at all. I admit, the reference to India was one big reason for my requesting this book, and I was disappointed to see that India is mentioned barely a couple of times in passing. The public problem of domestic violence is also not covered to the extent promised. Also, “her distraught father thrust the family into an evangelical, cult-like existence” led me to believe that they had actually joined a cult, which isn’t the case at all. Finally, I avoid memoirs that involve drugs or alcohol or casual sex. (Just a personal reading preference.) The blurb gave no clue about this content, else I wouldn’t have picked this up.
Basically, I had opted for this book assuming that it was an expose of the harsh facts related to domestic violence. What I got was a somewhat typical memoir, talking about survival and rebellion and resilience. A major chunk of the book is dedicated to her childhood after mother's death and her younger years after her father's remarriage. It is only after about the 60% mark that she talks about her international experiences, and those too are restricted to her years and personal experiences in Cambodia with no clue about how she earned her living there.
This is not to take away from her story. If anyone writes a memoir, it goes without saying that they have something to share, and this author has a lot to share indeed. Her childhood years under her domineering father were horrendous, and it must have taken a lot of courage to explore those old wounds again and pen them down. When she writes, “I lost my mother to cancer and my father to religion”, your heart actually breaks for her. The elements set in Cambodia were very interesting, and I could see glimpses of her journalistic prowess.
But as this is a book review, I am rating and reviewing the book and not the person. And the book, specifically the writing style, generated mixed feelings in me.
The narration of many events seems as ad hoc as Snyder’s job choices, seemingly going from random point to random point without any flow. Many important elements of her life, such as her decision of opting for journalism or her divorce, are brushed aside hastily. There are time jumps without warning, and while we can fill in some of the blanks, many facts stay hidden even until the end. I wish the book would have plugged in these gaps so that we readers got to experience a fluid narrative than one coming in spurts.
The ending is what disappointed me the most. The book goes a whole circle as Snyder returns to her father and her stepmom due to certain personal situations. Until that point, we hear nothing positive about her parents, but after her return, all we see is her sympathy and acceptance of her stepmom without any mention of what provoked this abrupt change of heart. The decision of forgiveness and acceptance seems to come out of nowhere. Another sore point for me is that I am not sure of how the stepmom, who was a reserved woman, would have felt [were she alive] about some of her intimate details being revealed in a public work.
🎧 The Audiobook Experience:
The audiobook, clocking at 9 hrs 48 minutes, is read by the author herself. I am not usually a fan of authors reading their own works, but in this case, the author does a great job. If the content interests you, the audiobook is a great way of experiencing this memoir.
All in all, this is an interesting memoir focussing on one woman’s tough life and her determination to make it in the world. Don’t pick it up expecting a greater focus on domestic violence or a spotlight on the other countries mentioned in the blurb. It shares a journey of personal growth than of social activism.
3.5 stars, rounding up for the audio version.
My thanks to NetGalley, Bloomsbury USA for the DRC, and HighBridge Audio for the ALC of “Women We Buried, Women We Burned”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.
Content warnings: Drug abuse, alcohol abuse, rape, casual sex, domestic violence, physical punishment.
———————————————
Connect with me through:
My Blog | The StoryGraph | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
July 1, 2023
I picked up this memoir on an absolute fluke and guess what? I loved it! It’s a brilliant story about a woman overcoming her childhood to be a successful strong female role model for others who have experienced similar situation‘s. When I started the book I didn’t know if I was going to appreciate it or not but by the end I was enthralled and in tears. What an excellently written book that I hope you will also enjoy!
January 28, 2023
From the title, I expected this to be a book sort of related to the witches’ trials, and the women that were burned and killed due to their independence, strong-willed attitudes, lack of submission to the patriarchy, etc For anyone else thinking the same: IT’S NOT.
It’s a memoir. It’s heart wrenching, and leaves me in amazement at the author’s strength through so many devastating losses. This story gives us a glimpse into the hardships and devastation of loosing a mother young, the consequences of a father’s instability, the damages of fundamentalism in an already broken family, and the courage to rise up from those ashes. I feel inspired by her story to continue to fight to overcome my own family’s dysfunctions, and all that fundamentalism has stolen from my own life.
Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy so I could review it.
It’s a memoir. It’s heart wrenching, and leaves me in amazement at the author’s strength through so many devastating losses. This story gives us a glimpse into the hardships and devastation of loosing a mother young, the consequences of a father’s instability, the damages of fundamentalism in an already broken family, and the courage to rise up from those ashes. I feel inspired by her story to continue to fight to overcome my own family’s dysfunctions, and all that fundamentalism has stolen from my own life.
Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy so I could review it.
May 31, 2023
Women We Buried, Women We Burned by Rachel Louise Snyder was both a harrowing and inspirational memoir. Although Rachel Louise Snyder has written several books, this was the first book I have read by her. How fitting that I picked her own memoir to read as my first book by her. In Women We Buried, Women We Burned, Rachel Louise Snyder, gingerly exposed her life to her readers. She led her readers down the many paths she followed over the course of her life. Rachel Louise Snyder learned the meaning of grief at the tender age of eight when her mother died from breast cancer. Her and her brother’s lives were then guided solely by her Evangelical father and its movement. From the moment her father chose to embrace the teachings of the Evangelical Church, Rachel’s childhood was shrouded entirely by his faith and his blind and unbidden acceptance of their beliefs. Women We Buried, Women We Burned was the author’s own personal journey through her life from childhood, her rebellious teenage age years, college, graduate school, young adulthood, marriage, motherhood and beyond. It was well written but sometimes difficult to read. Rachel Louise Snyder was such a brave, courageous and honest woman who was determined to thrive despite the life she was made to endure. She would eventually learn how to overcome her struggles, demons, insecurities, fears and the influences of the cruel and dangerous world she was made to live in. It was not an easy feat.
In 1979, only a few months after her mother’s death, Rachel and her brother were brought to Illinois by their father. They had been invited to attend a family camp or revival meeting by their Aunt Janet and Uncle Jim who were leaders in the Evangelical Church. It was the early days of the Evangelical movement. Rachel’s father bought into all that it stood for. Overnight, he became a religious fanatic. He also felt that the church offered him the chance to start his life over. After all, he was only thirty-nine years old when he found himself a widower. At that revival meeting, Rachel’s father met Barbara. She was a divorced woman, a high school dropout and mother of two children. Strangely enough, the death of Rachel’s mother was never discussed or brought up by anyone anymore. It was as if she had never existed. None of that prepared Rachel or her brother for when their father told them that he was marrying Barbara and that they should call her “mom”. They soon became a blended family and Rachel began to live in a state of fear, uncertainty and despair. Rachel questioned her father’s choices. It was as if he was a stranger to her. He had transformed before her very eyes.
“I’ll never know why my father took the wild detour he took. I asked. A million times I asked, in ways both covert and direct. In whispers and in screams. In violence and submission. I asked for years. And others asked me, so many others. Friends I would meet throughout my life, and my relatives In Pittsburgh and Boston, and people who’d known my real mother, or only later heard her story. They all asked. And I kept asking. The whiplash of what came next, after that revival. I only ever got one answer: because God told us to. Even today, with all that I know and all that I’ve lived, I still can’t answer.
David and I moved to Illinois two weeks after family camp. Cancer took my mother. But religion would take my life.”
Women We Buried, Women We Burned must have been extremely difficult for Rachel Louise Snyder to articulate, remember and write. I can’t imagine all the pain, hurt, disappointment and grief she experienced throughout her life. She was lucky to have met such wonderful friends along her journey through life. I admire her for her strength, courage and commitment to overcome the toxicity that consumed her earlier years in life. Women We Buried, Women We Burned was Rachel’s story about Rachel’s transformation and her own self discoveries she made about herself. Through all the hurt, ridicule and suffering she underwent, Rachel came out as a stronger, more independent, intelligent and honest woman. Women We Buried, Women We Burned touched on the themes of family, religion, illness, violence, motherhood, grief and loss. I highly recommend this memoir.
Thank you to Bloomsbury Publishing for allowing me to read Women We Buried, Women We Burned by Rachel Louise Snyder through Netgalley in exchange for a honest review. All opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
In 1979, only a few months after her mother’s death, Rachel and her brother were brought to Illinois by their father. They had been invited to attend a family camp or revival meeting by their Aunt Janet and Uncle Jim who were leaders in the Evangelical Church. It was the early days of the Evangelical movement. Rachel’s father bought into all that it stood for. Overnight, he became a religious fanatic. He also felt that the church offered him the chance to start his life over. After all, he was only thirty-nine years old when he found himself a widower. At that revival meeting, Rachel’s father met Barbara. She was a divorced woman, a high school dropout and mother of two children. Strangely enough, the death of Rachel’s mother was never discussed or brought up by anyone anymore. It was as if she had never existed. None of that prepared Rachel or her brother for when their father told them that he was marrying Barbara and that they should call her “mom”. They soon became a blended family and Rachel began to live in a state of fear, uncertainty and despair. Rachel questioned her father’s choices. It was as if he was a stranger to her. He had transformed before her very eyes.
“I’ll never know why my father took the wild detour he took. I asked. A million times I asked, in ways both covert and direct. In whispers and in screams. In violence and submission. I asked for years. And others asked me, so many others. Friends I would meet throughout my life, and my relatives In Pittsburgh and Boston, and people who’d known my real mother, or only later heard her story. They all asked. And I kept asking. The whiplash of what came next, after that revival. I only ever got one answer: because God told us to. Even today, with all that I know and all that I’ve lived, I still can’t answer.
David and I moved to Illinois two weeks after family camp. Cancer took my mother. But religion would take my life.”
Women We Buried, Women We Burned must have been extremely difficult for Rachel Louise Snyder to articulate, remember and write. I can’t imagine all the pain, hurt, disappointment and grief she experienced throughout her life. She was lucky to have met such wonderful friends along her journey through life. I admire her for her strength, courage and commitment to overcome the toxicity that consumed her earlier years in life. Women We Buried, Women We Burned was Rachel’s story about Rachel’s transformation and her own self discoveries she made about herself. Through all the hurt, ridicule and suffering she underwent, Rachel came out as a stronger, more independent, intelligent and honest woman. Women We Buried, Women We Burned touched on the themes of family, religion, illness, violence, motherhood, grief and loss. I highly recommend this memoir.
Thank you to Bloomsbury Publishing for allowing me to read Women We Buried, Women We Burned by Rachel Louise Snyder through Netgalley in exchange for a honest review. All opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
June 22, 2023
The basic synopsis: Snyder loses her mother young, and falls into an evangelist cult with her father and brother shortly thereafter, and the book talks of her life from there to what is maybe her mid-to-late 30s.
I was captivated by this book title, and by the initial synopsis, however, what I was promised wasn't what I got. The title made me think it would be more focused on the women she encountered, and the ways their lives were impacted by the women around them, but mostly it was just a first hand account of her life to that point. There was very little talk of the evangelist cult times, and it focused much more on the abuse she suffered at the hands of her father, and (peripherally) the schemes and MLM scams that are so prevalent in the ultra-religious sects.
Quotes, such as, "Cancer took my mother. But religion would take my life." really don't fit. Religion may have made her separate from her family (though really never for long or in any sort of permanent way), but by all accounts in this book, she has done more living before 40 than many folks do their entire lives. It all seemed very dramatized as the book progressed, without too many facts or actual events to back statements like these up.
The author spends much more time speaking about the men in her life, and how they either helped or hurt her as she progressed through life on her own.
Her interviews later in her career, or even how she made a jump to that career (or really even what her career actually is, as I am unfamiliar with her beyond this title), is nowhere to be found in the book.
All in all, it's a pretty basic memoir, though it felt stripped of all the things that would really make it an intriguing one. I was left with so many more questions than answers, and can't say I feel the time spent with this title has really been well used.
I will say that the audiobook was produced well, and I appreciate that the author read it herself - that gave it a little more credit than I would have had someone else been the narrator.
All in all, I'm not sure I'd recommend this one. That's always hard for me to say with a memoir, but please understand that I'm critiquing the book here, not the human behind the book.
Thank you NetGalley and RB Media for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
I was captivated by this book title, and by the initial synopsis, however, what I was promised wasn't what I got. The title made me think it would be more focused on the women she encountered, and the ways their lives were impacted by the women around them, but mostly it was just a first hand account of her life to that point. There was very little talk of the evangelist cult times, and it focused much more on the abuse she suffered at the hands of her father, and (peripherally) the schemes and MLM scams that are so prevalent in the ultra-religious sects.
Quotes, such as, "Cancer took my mother. But religion would take my life." really don't fit. Religion may have made her separate from her family (though really never for long or in any sort of permanent way), but by all accounts in this book, she has done more living before 40 than many folks do their entire lives. It all seemed very dramatized as the book progressed, without too many facts or actual events to back statements like these up.
The author spends much more time speaking about the men in her life, and how they either helped or hurt her as she progressed through life on her own.
Her interviews later in her career, or even how she made a jump to that career (or really even what her career actually is, as I am unfamiliar with her beyond this title), is nowhere to be found in the book.
All in all, it's a pretty basic memoir, though it felt stripped of all the things that would really make it an intriguing one. I was left with so many more questions than answers, and can't say I feel the time spent with this title has really been well used.
I will say that the audiobook was produced well, and I appreciate that the author read it herself - that gave it a little more credit than I would have had someone else been the narrator.
All in all, I'm not sure I'd recommend this one. That's always hard for me to say with a memoir, but please understand that I'm critiquing the book here, not the human behind the book.
Thank you NetGalley and RB Media for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
July 18, 2023
Women We Buried, Women We Burned has been compared to
Educated
and
Glass Castle
and, in some ways these comparisons are apt: bright women raised by parents without a clue (at least at some times), parents who were hyper-religious (Women and Educated) or with substance abuse problems (Glass Castle). Somehow, these women made it to the other side.
However, sometimes this success seems magical - or at least we Americans want it to be. Change should be easy, right? Walls' parents had periods where they were amazing (and unusual), so one can imagine how she got to the other side. Westover clearly described the psychological impacts of the abuse and neglect, but how did she accomplish what she did, given this?
Rachel Louise Snyder was forthright in describing her father's abuse and neglect. She also clearly outlined how out of control her behavior had been between ages 11-16, but also observed how clueless she had been as she tried to support herself, traverse relationships, and stay safe. Relative to Westover, who'd emphasized the psychological trauma she'd experienced, she observed her blanket ignorance, which set her apart and put her life at risk.
I want to say that my parents did the best they could under the circumstances and with the resources they had. But I don’t think this is true. I don’t think they did their best. (p. 280).
Still, Snyder did not skip from out of control to professor at American University. She outlined her journey and the ways that she had struggled. She blamed herself rather than acknowledging her grief and normal reactions to being moved three states away to a new family, a new religion, new school, new life. However, rather than focusing on her adolescence (okay, 45% of the book did), she described the ways that she leveraged her ways out of a hand-to-mouth existence and began solving a series of problems with equal parts of chutzpah and "found" social support.
Part of her recovery involved traveling the world, both out of curiosity, but also her work as a journalist working on human rights issues. As a result, "One trip after another, we met people who had survived unimaginable horror, endured beyond what seemed humanly capable. Slowly, I was learning of the bottomless capacity for both human cruelty and human survival" (p. 238).
I read No Visible Bruises earlier this year. Women We Buried is much more personal, but equally rewarding.
However, sometimes this success seems magical - or at least we Americans want it to be. Change should be easy, right? Walls' parents had periods where they were amazing (and unusual), so one can imagine how she got to the other side. Westover clearly described the psychological impacts of the abuse and neglect, but how did she accomplish what she did, given this?
Rachel Louise Snyder was forthright in describing her father's abuse and neglect. She also clearly outlined how out of control her behavior had been between ages 11-16, but also observed how clueless she had been as she tried to support herself, traverse relationships, and stay safe. Relative to Westover, who'd emphasized the psychological trauma she'd experienced, she observed her blanket ignorance, which set her apart and put her life at risk.
I want to say that my parents did the best they could under the circumstances and with the resources they had. But I don’t think this is true. I don’t think they did their best. (p. 280).
Still, Snyder did not skip from out of control to professor at American University. She outlined her journey and the ways that she had struggled. She blamed herself rather than acknowledging her grief and normal reactions to being moved three states away to a new family, a new religion, new school, new life. However, rather than focusing on her adolescence (okay, 45% of the book did), she described the ways that she leveraged her ways out of a hand-to-mouth existence and began solving a series of problems with equal parts of chutzpah and "found" social support.
Part of her recovery involved traveling the world, both out of curiosity, but also her work as a journalist working on human rights issues. As a result, "One trip after another, we met people who had survived unimaginable horror, endured beyond what seemed humanly capable. Slowly, I was learning of the bottomless capacity for both human cruelty and human survival" (p. 238).
I read No Visible Bruises earlier this year. Women We Buried is much more personal, but equally rewarding.
February 7, 2023
My first 5-star read of 2023! What a powerful and beautifully written memoir! I was left in awe of the author's strength, determination, grace and poise throughout her life as she shared with us some of her deepest, darkest experiences and feelings.
This is truly a story of resilience and thriving against all odds. Snyder had me feel grief, despair, anger, fear, determination, joy, pride, and peace along with her. So many times I wanted to reach out and hug her and I found myself cheering for her all along the way. So many people would have used her early life experiences as an excuse to quit but she used them to propel her forward and I have so much respect and admiration for her.
I will absolutely be seeking out her other books because she writes beautifully and I would recommend this book to anyone who needs a motivational story to carry them through a setback.or just as a reminder of the tenacity of the human spirit.
This is truly a story of resilience and thriving against all odds. Snyder had me feel grief, despair, anger, fear, determination, joy, pride, and peace along with her. So many times I wanted to reach out and hug her and I found myself cheering for her all along the way. So many people would have used her early life experiences as an excuse to quit but she used them to propel her forward and I have so much respect and admiration for her.
I will absolutely be seeking out her other books because she writes beautifully and I would recommend this book to anyone who needs a motivational story to carry them through a setback.or just as a reminder of the tenacity of the human spirit.
June 1, 2024
3.5 stars
Reviewing a memoir is tricky. You're inevitably poking around in someone's personal story, offering judgment on how the narrator has navigated the hands dealt by life. Then again, the writer has put it all out there, telling stories they hope the public will read, at least as much for their own financial and platform-building success as for any truths they hope to convey. The best memoirs touch the universal in revealing the intimate, that no matter how distant your life may be from the author's, you feel an emotional connection.
I first encountered Rachel Louise Snyder in her staggering, vital No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us. This book made such an impression on me, resonated so deeply, I was primed to follow wherever Snyder led. I wasn't expecting to find that our life stories overlapped in strange ways. We're the same age, so our cultural references and filters mirrored each other. We were kids who lived idyllic lives in the 70s, only to see our worlds implode in the late 70s, early 80s. Snyder's life shock came sooner: her beloved mom died of cancer when Rachel was only 8 years old. While in my house, a tense, angry, occasionally violent marriage staggered to an end as I approached 11.
We were both raised in strict evangelical Christian homes and attended fundamentalist Christian schools. I was stunned to see Snyder write of the ACE curriculum—outside of my siblings and the schoolmates I lost touch with 40 years ago, I've never known anyone who was educated in this bizarre, self-paced system. Fortunately, my parents pulled us out after a couple of years-my brothers in jr. high, me in elementary. Snyder entered a similar school much later and was living in a home that gave up all rational thought to adhere to a cult-like approach to faith. That's where our stories diverge. Despite an unstable home, I kept to the relative straight and narrow: shaving my head and getting high before remedial math was a phase. Rachel went all in. Our paths converged again in college, when both the freedom and inspiration of university and pivotal study abroad experiences changed the direction of our lives (me, a year at a French university, Snyder with the Semester at Sea program, a 5-month cruise ship for coeds that visits ports of call around the world).
In between is a lost decade of sorts for Snyder and this period is the memoir's most compelling aspect. Her father remarried not long after being widowed and moved Rachel and her brother from Pennsylvania, away from her extended family, to the Chicago area. His new-found commitment to Christianity had a Jekyll and Hyde effect: he became distant and cruel, eventually physically abusive, excusing his violence with Scripture.
Rachel rebelled, turning to alcohol, drugs, and random sex, eventually running away from home multiple times before being kicked out of school—at this point she was in a public high school—and out of her house. Her spirit imbued with grit, she supported herself while couch-surfing or living in her car. She earned her GED and found her way to college. There the author found her voice and her vocation, leading to a career as an investigative journalist. It's a remarkable life story and at least initially, makes for fascinating reading.
What's missing for me here, despite the fantastic writing and vulnerability, is any deep reflection. There is a marked contrast between the first half of the book, which deals with Snyder's raw and painful coming of age, and the second half, which is more of a "this happened and then this happened" recitation of life events, while bizarrely glossing completely over her (recent?) divorce (we witness the courtship, the wedding, the birth of her baby girl, and then radio silence). The abrupt transition, both in subject and tone, from the deep dive of her Dickensian adolescence into more of a curriculum vitae of her young and middle adult years made me feel as though I were reading two different books.
Snyder holds religion at fault for the downturn of her childhood, but doesn't offer any exploration or examination of how this plays out later in her development. It feels like a deflection from her dad's behavior—a way to hold the confusion and anger at a remove, rather than holding her dad directly responsible for his own choices. She doesn't explain how she came into a space of forgiveness and reconciliation which plays out so poignantly in the end. I suspect it may be that's she still processing all of these emotional inputs and isn't yet ready to articulate these next stages of emotional growth. With the deserved acclaim of No Visible Bruises I can just imagine the agent-publisher conversations of getting Rachel's story into the world, to build her platform and firm up her audience. That sounds cynical, but it explains to me the somewhat incomplete and rushed nature of this memoir's second half.
A riveting, somewhat uneven, read.
Reviewing a memoir is tricky. You're inevitably poking around in someone's personal story, offering judgment on how the narrator has navigated the hands dealt by life. Then again, the writer has put it all out there, telling stories they hope the public will read, at least as much for their own financial and platform-building success as for any truths they hope to convey. The best memoirs touch the universal in revealing the intimate, that no matter how distant your life may be from the author's, you feel an emotional connection.
I first encountered Rachel Louise Snyder in her staggering, vital No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us. This book made such an impression on me, resonated so deeply, I was primed to follow wherever Snyder led. I wasn't expecting to find that our life stories overlapped in strange ways. We're the same age, so our cultural references and filters mirrored each other. We were kids who lived idyllic lives in the 70s, only to see our worlds implode in the late 70s, early 80s. Snyder's life shock came sooner: her beloved mom died of cancer when Rachel was only 8 years old. While in my house, a tense, angry, occasionally violent marriage staggered to an end as I approached 11.
We were both raised in strict evangelical Christian homes and attended fundamentalist Christian schools. I was stunned to see Snyder write of the ACE curriculum—outside of my siblings and the schoolmates I lost touch with 40 years ago, I've never known anyone who was educated in this bizarre, self-paced system. Fortunately, my parents pulled us out after a couple of years-my brothers in jr. high, me in elementary. Snyder entered a similar school much later and was living in a home that gave up all rational thought to adhere to a cult-like approach to faith. That's where our stories diverge. Despite an unstable home, I kept to the relative straight and narrow: shaving my head and getting high before remedial math was a phase. Rachel went all in. Our paths converged again in college, when both the freedom and inspiration of university and pivotal study abroad experiences changed the direction of our lives (me, a year at a French university, Snyder with the Semester at Sea program, a 5-month cruise ship for coeds that visits ports of call around the world).
In between is a lost decade of sorts for Snyder and this period is the memoir's most compelling aspect. Her father remarried not long after being widowed and moved Rachel and her brother from Pennsylvania, away from her extended family, to the Chicago area. His new-found commitment to Christianity had a Jekyll and Hyde effect: he became distant and cruel, eventually physically abusive, excusing his violence with Scripture.
Rachel rebelled, turning to alcohol, drugs, and random sex, eventually running away from home multiple times before being kicked out of school—at this point she was in a public high school—and out of her house. Her spirit imbued with grit, she supported herself while couch-surfing or living in her car. She earned her GED and found her way to college. There the author found her voice and her vocation, leading to a career as an investigative journalist. It's a remarkable life story and at least initially, makes for fascinating reading.
What's missing for me here, despite the fantastic writing and vulnerability, is any deep reflection. There is a marked contrast between the first half of the book, which deals with Snyder's raw and painful coming of age, and the second half, which is more of a "this happened and then this happened" recitation of life events, while bizarrely glossing completely over her (recent?) divorce (we witness the courtship, the wedding, the birth of her baby girl, and then radio silence). The abrupt transition, both in subject and tone, from the deep dive of her Dickensian adolescence into more of a curriculum vitae of her young and middle adult years made me feel as though I were reading two different books.
Snyder holds religion at fault for the downturn of her childhood, but doesn't offer any exploration or examination of how this plays out later in her development. It feels like a deflection from her dad's behavior—a way to hold the confusion and anger at a remove, rather than holding her dad directly responsible for his own choices. She doesn't explain how she came into a space of forgiveness and reconciliation which plays out so poignantly in the end. I suspect it may be that's she still processing all of these emotional inputs and isn't yet ready to articulate these next stages of emotional growth. With the deserved acclaim of No Visible Bruises I can just imagine the agent-publisher conversations of getting Rachel's story into the world, to build her platform and firm up her audience. That sounds cynical, but it explains to me the somewhat incomplete and rushed nature of this memoir's second half.
A riveting, somewhat uneven, read.
May 27, 2023
The first half of this book is heartbreaking but such a testament to Snynder's strength. The second half almost felt like a different book. I didn't connect with this and it seemed to jump all over the place a bit.
May 3, 2023
A few years ago I read Rachel Snyder’s transcendent work on domestic violence, No Visible Bruises. It’s hard to say that I loved a book on such a depressing subject, but I did. It blew me away. So as soon as I saw that she had a new book–and a memoir, no less! My favorite genre!–I knew I had to read it immediately. And then I saw it was also about domestic violence and I was both astonished but also now her previous book made so much sense.
But the violence in her house did not. It truly didn’t. Even more so than the usual horrible story about abuse. Rachel’s mother died when she was pretty young, from cancer. Her father quickly remarried, to an evangelical Christian (they’d been raised Jewish up until that point) and moved the family away from their support and extended family. And after the remarriage, that’s when the abuse began. Rachel theorizes that the overused pseudo-Christian phrase, “Spare the rod, spoil the child” had to do with that non-coincidence. (Everyone thinks that phrase is from the bible and it isn’t.) Rachel rebels. Very strongly. In ways that would terrify me, even as I cheered her on. She parties a lot and does a lot of drugs. She drops out of high school, and starts booking gigs for a band. She has a difficult time finding housing (which makes sense as she was under 18.) She starts to work her butt off, and eventually an older man she’s involved with gets her to take her GED and he knows someone at a local college who will talk to her… and he gets her into college. With no high school transcript to speak of.
I knew she became a successful journalist, but there were large swaths of this book, where I just could not see how she got from Point A to Point B. There just didn’t seem like a path in between. And yet she did it. She even lived outside of the country for years.
And when she moved back, her step-mother was sick. And Rachel, oddly, became her caretaker (she had four biological children who did assist somewhat, but not like Rachel.) At the end, to my astonishment, she forgave her parents, and even admitted she loved her step-mother. This journey to hell and back took my breath away. Half of what she went through and accomplished in her life would be impressive. The forgiveness was the most impressive part of it. I’m still not sure I understand how she got there, even after weeks of mulling over the book. She could teach me some lessons, that’s for sure. I hope she keeps writing and writing. I will now read anything she writes. I even want to go back and look up her earlier books. She’s a favorite author of mine. And that’s a very, very hard list to get onto.
But the violence in her house did not. It truly didn’t. Even more so than the usual horrible story about abuse. Rachel’s mother died when she was pretty young, from cancer. Her father quickly remarried, to an evangelical Christian (they’d been raised Jewish up until that point) and moved the family away from their support and extended family. And after the remarriage, that’s when the abuse began. Rachel theorizes that the overused pseudo-Christian phrase, “Spare the rod, spoil the child” had to do with that non-coincidence. (Everyone thinks that phrase is from the bible and it isn’t.) Rachel rebels. Very strongly. In ways that would terrify me, even as I cheered her on. She parties a lot and does a lot of drugs. She drops out of high school, and starts booking gigs for a band. She has a difficult time finding housing (which makes sense as she was under 18.) She starts to work her butt off, and eventually an older man she’s involved with gets her to take her GED and he knows someone at a local college who will talk to her… and he gets her into college. With no high school transcript to speak of.
I knew she became a successful journalist, but there were large swaths of this book, where I just could not see how she got from Point A to Point B. There just didn’t seem like a path in between. And yet she did it. She even lived outside of the country for years.
And when she moved back, her step-mother was sick. And Rachel, oddly, became her caretaker (she had four biological children who did assist somewhat, but not like Rachel.) At the end, to my astonishment, she forgave her parents, and even admitted she loved her step-mother. This journey to hell and back took my breath away. Half of what she went through and accomplished in her life would be impressive. The forgiveness was the most impressive part of it. I’m still not sure I understand how she got there, even after weeks of mulling over the book. She could teach me some lessons, that’s for sure. I hope she keeps writing and writing. I will now read anything she writes. I even want to go back and look up her earlier books. She’s a favorite author of mine. And that’s a very, very hard list to get onto.
August 4, 2023
I enjoyed Rachel Louise Snyder’s autobiography however the title of the book is a little misleading and I would say the synopsis is as well. I was under the impression that she was going to mostly write about her travels, and the stories she came across from the people (mainly women, due to the title) living in those places and to discuss women’s rights or lack thereof in a particular country and the injustices of domestic abuse in those countries as well in great detail. However, she didn’t talk about her travels in depth or much at all, no less the stories from the women inhabiting those countries. She just briefly discussed her life in Cambodia for the six years she lived there and some quick history on Cambodia as well. The rest was mostly about her life growing up in a strictly religious family and the scars that left on her and how that affected her growing up.
Although her life story was intriguing to read about and it kept me interested, it just wasn’t what I was expecting or hoping to get out of this particular book.
Although her life story was intriguing to read about and it kept me interested, it just wasn’t what I was expecting or hoping to get out of this particular book.
December 23, 2024
I picked this up thinking that this was going to be something of a feminist manifesto kind of book - about how the patriarchy demands that women hide their real desires and dreams and power, etc. That's the vibe that the title gives me.
This wasn't that at all.
Definitely an interesting and heartfelt and honest memoir, but I will admit that I felt quite disconnected from most of it. Snyder is a great writer, and an observant reporter, but I just didn't really click with this on the level that I feel like I should have and wanted to.
This wasn't that at all.
Definitely an interesting and heartfelt and honest memoir, but I will admit that I felt quite disconnected from most of it. Snyder is a great writer, and an observant reporter, but I just didn't really click with this on the level that I feel like I should have and wanted to.
May 17, 2023
Cancer took my mother. But religion would take my life. (loc. 379)
When she was a child, Snyder's life took an abrupt turn: her mother died, her father remarried, and Snyder was expected to switch from low-key Judaism to fervent conservative Christianity. It...did not go well. Years later, her life took another abrupt turn: she left the country for the first time and experienced cultures other than her own. (That went rather better.)
From the description, I thought I might be getting something along the lines of Putsata Reang's Ma and Me, although that might just have been the bits about Cambodia and travelling the globe. But in a lot of ways this is a fit for readers who loved Educated—harsh applications of religion, growing up much too young and also being spit out into the broader world with little understanding of how things worked, variations on violence. (I'll note that you can't go wrong with any of these three books, though you might draw different connections between them than I do.)
There is so much in here. Snyder tells a mostly linear story, and I think too much getting into the details here would detract from the reading experience, but I'll just say that she has the writing chops to tell her story well and to ultimately portray the complicated people in her life in all their, well, complicated glory. At one point there's a significant time jump, and it makes a lot of sense for the story, but it also means that I'm probably going to have to hunt up some of Snyder's shorter-form writing, because it sounds like her curiosity about the world has led her to story upon story upon story that could use books of their own.
This was not quite the book I was expecting, and it was better for it—because I never quite knew where the next chapter would take me, but I trusted that it would be somewhere interesting.
Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.
When she was a child, Snyder's life took an abrupt turn: her mother died, her father remarried, and Snyder was expected to switch from low-key Judaism to fervent conservative Christianity. It...did not go well. Years later, her life took another abrupt turn: she left the country for the first time and experienced cultures other than her own. (That went rather better.)
From the description, I thought I might be getting something along the lines of Putsata Reang's Ma and Me, although that might just have been the bits about Cambodia and travelling the globe. But in a lot of ways this is a fit for readers who loved Educated—harsh applications of religion, growing up much too young and also being spit out into the broader world with little understanding of how things worked, variations on violence. (I'll note that you can't go wrong with any of these three books, though you might draw different connections between them than I do.)
There is so much in here. Snyder tells a mostly linear story, and I think too much getting into the details here would detract from the reading experience, but I'll just say that she has the writing chops to tell her story well and to ultimately portray the complicated people in her life in all their, well, complicated glory. At one point there's a significant time jump, and it makes a lot of sense for the story, but it also means that I'm probably going to have to hunt up some of Snyder's shorter-form writing, because it sounds like her curiosity about the world has led her to story upon story upon story that could use books of their own.
This was not quite the book I was expecting, and it was better for it—because I never quite knew where the next chapter would take me, but I trusted that it would be somewhere interesting.
Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.
December 27, 2023
I liked this book. I’m not sure it’ll stick with me long term but it was a wild story. Snyder looses her way plot wise 3/4 through but finds her ground again by the end.
July 13, 2023
2.5 ⭐️
It was okay — her story was interesting and heartbreaking but I felt like the book was really choppy. About 2/3 of the way through the book it transitioned from a memoir to a teaching on Cambodian history. Then the ending seemed a bit random to me.
& personally, as a Christian, it’s just really heartbreaking and infuriating to hear stories of people being abused in the name of Christianity, that’s not Christ and that’s not okay. Though, of course, the reality of Snyder’s story doesn’t have anything to do with my rating, it’s just a really sad story to read.
It was okay — her story was interesting and heartbreaking but I felt like the book was really choppy. About 2/3 of the way through the book it transitioned from a memoir to a teaching on Cambodian history. Then the ending seemed a bit random to me.
& personally, as a Christian, it’s just really heartbreaking and infuriating to hear stories of people being abused in the name of Christianity, that’s not Christ and that’s not okay. Though, of course, the reality of Snyder’s story doesn’t have anything to do with my rating, it’s just a really sad story to read.
June 16, 2023
3.5 ⭐️- good, just really slow for me.
September 10, 2024
✨B O O K • T O U R✨
#ad I received a gifted copy of this book - many thanks to @rlswrites + @bloomsburybooksus
Women We Buried, Women We Burned
“Though who’s to say any of us are owed any kind of life? Longevity, health, happiness. It’s a privilege to expect a long life,” (247).
“Death is both unnervingly quiet and tremendously loud,” (251).
Immerse yourself in someone else’s journey and you might just find yourself. This was an intense and beautiful read. I enjoyed the family pictures and all the stories. Unflinching and taut this memoir will stay with me forever.
This is truly a book that you won’t be able to put down. Expertly written, the words flow and the life of this author comes alive before your eyes. I especially enjoyed the stories from her travels abroad. Seeing destruction from weather events can really put your life into perspective.
This book is simply inspirational. What a talent of words. Such a beautiful book.
📖: “When eight-year-old Rachel’s mother died, her distraught father thrust the family into extreme evangelicalism. After a childhood marked by silent rage, teenage Rachel became outwardly furious. She was expelled from school and home at age sixteen. Living out of her car and relying on strangers, Rachel found herself masquerading as an adult, talking her way into college, and eventually traveling the globe.
Survival became her reporter’s beat. In places like India, Tibet, Niger, and Cambodia, she witnessed those who had been through the unimaginable choosing hope over despair. She returned to the States more appreciative of complexity, more generous, and open to the healing that would come from a most unexpected place.”
#womenweburiedwomenweburned #wwbwwb #rachellouisesnyder #bookstagram #bookaholic #bookphotography #booksofinstagram #booklove #bookshelf #igreads #reader #bookblogger #instabooks #novel #booklovers #bookworm #book #bookstagrammer #reading #read
#ad I received a gifted copy of this book - many thanks to @rlswrites + @bloomsburybooksus
Women We Buried, Women We Burned
“Though who’s to say any of us are owed any kind of life? Longevity, health, happiness. It’s a privilege to expect a long life,” (247).
“Death is both unnervingly quiet and tremendously loud,” (251).
Immerse yourself in someone else’s journey and you might just find yourself. This was an intense and beautiful read. I enjoyed the family pictures and all the stories. Unflinching and taut this memoir will stay with me forever.
This is truly a book that you won’t be able to put down. Expertly written, the words flow and the life of this author comes alive before your eyes. I especially enjoyed the stories from her travels abroad. Seeing destruction from weather events can really put your life into perspective.
This book is simply inspirational. What a talent of words. Such a beautiful book.
📖: “When eight-year-old Rachel’s mother died, her distraught father thrust the family into extreme evangelicalism. After a childhood marked by silent rage, teenage Rachel became outwardly furious. She was expelled from school and home at age sixteen. Living out of her car and relying on strangers, Rachel found herself masquerading as an adult, talking her way into college, and eventually traveling the globe.
Survival became her reporter’s beat. In places like India, Tibet, Niger, and Cambodia, she witnessed those who had been through the unimaginable choosing hope over despair. She returned to the States more appreciative of complexity, more generous, and open to the healing that would come from a most unexpected place.”
#womenweburiedwomenweburned #wwbwwb #rachellouisesnyder #bookstagram #bookaholic #bookphotography #booksofinstagram #booklove #bookshelf #igreads #reader #bookblogger #instabooks #novel #booklovers #bookworm #book #bookstagrammer #reading #read
March 31, 2025
This memoir reads like a series of miracles—not the kind preached in her abusive Evangelical upbringing, but the messy, improbable miracles of a life that shouldn’t have worked out, yet somehow did. From her chaotic childhood under the thumb of religious extremism to her unmoored teenage years (where her behavior—equal parts tragic and darkly hilarious—was clearly the product of unprocessed trauma), the author’s story is packed with WTF moments that you’ll find yourself rereading passages just to make sure you didn’t hallucinate them. The adults around her oscillate between neglectful and monstrous, and yet her writing never descends into self-pity. Instead, it’s sharp, darkly funny, and ruthlessly observant. That she emerged as a successful journalist (let alone a functional human) feels like a minor cosmic oversight in the best way.
If the first half of the book is about surviving her upbringing, the second half shows her learning to document other people's survival stories—from natural disasters to domestic violence crises. While I appreciated this thematic parallel, the pivot between these sections felt abrupt, like two different books shoved between the same covers. The throughline of her mother's death helps, but I wanted more connective tissue showing how her personal trauma shaped her professional lens. Still, even with this structural wobble, the memoir remains compulsively readable. It's the literary equivalent of watching someone build a life from scraps—messy, imperfect, but undeniably impressive.
If the first half of the book is about surviving her upbringing, the second half shows her learning to document other people's survival stories—from natural disasters to domestic violence crises. While I appreciated this thematic parallel, the pivot between these sections felt abrupt, like two different books shoved between the same covers. The throughline of her mother's death helps, but I wanted more connective tissue showing how her personal trauma shaped her professional lens. Still, even with this structural wobble, the memoir remains compulsively readable. It's the literary equivalent of watching someone build a life from scraps—messy, imperfect, but undeniably impressive.
August 24, 2025
5✨
I am especially tender right now, knowing that 12 years ago at this time, my own mother's body was breaking down and she was dying while I was over 150 miles away, getting ready to start another year of university. Reacquainting myself with campus, with my friends, excited for what the second year of freedom meant. But this really kicked my heart out of my chest. It gave me that big sad cry that I think I needed at a time like this.
This memoir, and really any memoir where a woman explores all of the deep and quite terrible feelings after losing her mother, touches me. Snyder gets it. She knows this really nuanced and pained part of me, because it's part of her too. It's the part of us that's missing. The part that wonders who or what we would be like had we'd had our mother for longer. Hell, Snyder lost TWO MOTHERS in her lifetime. I can't imagine that pain.
This memoir was so interesting- to see someone else at their lowest and pull themselves out of it. To have experienced so much loss and still be able to stand up and talk/write about it, to share those big awful nasty parts of yourself. To be so vulnerable. I'm in awe. My eyes also hurt from crying so hard.
I am especially tender right now, knowing that 12 years ago at this time, my own mother's body was breaking down and she was dying while I was over 150 miles away, getting ready to start another year of university. Reacquainting myself with campus, with my friends, excited for what the second year of freedom meant. But this really kicked my heart out of my chest. It gave me that big sad cry that I think I needed at a time like this.
This memoir, and really any memoir where a woman explores all of the deep and quite terrible feelings after losing her mother, touches me. Snyder gets it. She knows this really nuanced and pained part of me, because it's part of her too. It's the part of us that's missing. The part that wonders who or what we would be like had we'd had our mother for longer. Hell, Snyder lost TWO MOTHERS in her lifetime. I can't imagine that pain.
This memoir was so interesting- to see someone else at their lowest and pull themselves out of it. To have experienced so much loss and still be able to stand up and talk/write about it, to share those big awful nasty parts of yourself. To be so vulnerable. I'm in awe. My eyes also hurt from crying so hard.
July 30, 2023
Well, this was quite dark.
But the light does come out.
But the light does come out.
June 4, 2023
I really enjoyed this, thought it talked about a lot of pain. It felt like it had the right amount of detail and if glossing over, which is often hard to get right in memoirs.
June 20, 2023
Beautifully written and narrated by the author, this memoir is equal parts heartbreaking and hopeful. Raised in a fundamentalist Christian household after the death of her Jewish mother, Rachel struggles to thrive under the thumb of relentless patriarchy and religion. A runaway and a high-school dropout, we follow Rachel through the darkest of days to the point where someone decides to take a chance on her and she enrolls in college on academic probation. The second half of the book follows her life abroad, first as a student on semester at sea, then as a correspondent, journalist and expat, ending with her reconnection with her stepmother, who is dying from cancer. I would have liked to hear more about her time abroad and journalistic work, and I think there was space here for more acknowledgement of the white privilege that surely was at play in pulling her out of the trajectory her life was in as a teenager. However, this was still an eye-opening and impactful memoir.
4.5 stars, rounded up for Goodreads.
Pub Date: 6/13/23
Review Date: 6/20/23
Advance Listening Copy received from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest reiview.
4.5 stars, rounded up for Goodreads.
Pub Date: 6/13/23
Review Date: 6/20/23
Advance Listening Copy received from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest reiview.
June 25, 2023
Rachel's mother died of cancer when she was 8 years old. Her father promptly remarried and then joined a religious cult. She had to leave home when she was 16 and try to make it own her own. This is about her journey into adulthood and her career as reporter.
I resonated so much with this book. My father left and my mother decided to become a religious fanatic. It is a childhood I wouldn't wish on anyone. I went to live with my grandmother who like Rachel sent me to Barbizon Modelling school to improve my self esteem. I think this is why I enjoyed this book so much. It was a beautiful story of a child just trying to survive. Rachel was able to accomplish a lot from where she came. She is a true survivor who refused to be a victim. I would like to say I am proud of her. People who have suffered are those who have to most empathy for others. People who try to make the world a better place so others do not have to go through what they did. Very inspiring story. I love reading books like this.
Thank you to Netgalley, Bloomsbury USA and HighBridge audio for my ARC
I resonated so much with this book. My father left and my mother decided to become a religious fanatic. It is a childhood I wouldn't wish on anyone. I went to live with my grandmother who like Rachel sent me to Barbizon Modelling school to improve my self esteem. I think this is why I enjoyed this book so much. It was a beautiful story of a child just trying to survive. Rachel was able to accomplish a lot from where she came. She is a true survivor who refused to be a victim. I would like to say I am proud of her. People who have suffered are those who have to most empathy for others. People who try to make the world a better place so others do not have to go through what they did. Very inspiring story. I love reading books like this.
Thank you to Netgalley, Bloomsbury USA and HighBridge audio for my ARC
October 27, 2022
As stunning as it is powerful, WOMEN WE BURIED, WOMEN WE BURNED is a tour-de-force memoir of family, faith, love, loss, resilience, and, utimately, redemption. With deftness and grace, Snyder navigates the complicated terrain of childhood trauma and presents a model for how to reconcile with the ghosts of your past.
June 10, 2023
4 stars
This is a gripping memoir that catalogues - in an engaging and well-paced manner - the experiences of its author. I was fortunate to listen to the audiobook, and the author's narration of her own story, of course, adds another layer of personalization and vulnerability. I strongly recommend this version when and where accessible.
Snyder takes readers on a challenging and authentic feeling journey through her traumas and triumphs, beginning with her mother's death from breast cancer when Snyder was a young girl. As any reader can imagine, the loss of her mother haunts Snyder throughout her life, and this was one of my favorite running themes: her frequent consideration of how things might have been different in certain situations, how her mother might have prepared her, and especially the ways in which she finds an element of closure.
In addition to her mother's death, Snyder experiences many other traumas that readers sensitive to information on child abuse, sexual assault, and rape should be particularly attuned to in advance of their reading or listening journeys.
Snyder takes readers through her past, through multiple countries, and through lives and deaths, all in an effort to come full circle, which she accomplishes expertly. Fans of memoirs should definitely queue this one (after reviewing all related TWs and CWs).
*Special thanks to NetGalley and HighBridge Audio for this alc, which I received in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.
This is a gripping memoir that catalogues - in an engaging and well-paced manner - the experiences of its author. I was fortunate to listen to the audiobook, and the author's narration of her own story, of course, adds another layer of personalization and vulnerability. I strongly recommend this version when and where accessible.
Snyder takes readers on a challenging and authentic feeling journey through her traumas and triumphs, beginning with her mother's death from breast cancer when Snyder was a young girl. As any reader can imagine, the loss of her mother haunts Snyder throughout her life, and this was one of my favorite running themes: her frequent consideration of how things might have been different in certain situations, how her mother might have prepared her, and especially the ways in which she finds an element of closure.
In addition to her mother's death, Snyder experiences many other traumas that readers sensitive to information on child abuse, sexual assault, and rape should be particularly attuned to in advance of their reading or listening journeys.
Snyder takes readers through her past, through multiple countries, and through lives and deaths, all in an effort to come full circle, which she accomplishes expertly. Fans of memoirs should definitely queue this one (after reviewing all related TWs and CWs).
*Special thanks to NetGalley and HighBridge Audio for this alc, which I received in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.
September 4, 2023
4.5 stars rounded up. A moving memoir by the same author who wrote No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us. Snyder's life story is certainly compelling -- as she references in the book, her personal Adverse Childhood Experiences score would be quite high. Some parts of this memoir (when she discusses her teenage years up until she enrolls in college) were very graphic and hard to read. The book fast-forwards quite a bit -- while the first 2/3rds focus on her childhood and adolescence, the last 1/3 are selected highlights from her adult years (her timing living in Cambodia, her decision to have a child in her late 30s, the "full circle" moment of caring for her stepmother -- for whom she had very complicated feelings for throughout her life -- during her final battle with stage IV colorectal cancer).
I agree with other reviewers that the book's title of "Women We Buried, Women We Burned" is a bit misleading and may give readers a false impression of what this book focuses on -- it's Snyder's life story, not a systematic examination of the suppression of women around the world (though that becomes a unifying subtheme, and a lens through which Snyder's perspective on women like her stepmother become more nuanced).
I agree with other reviewers that the book's title of "Women We Buried, Women We Burned" is a bit misleading and may give readers a false impression of what this book focuses on -- it's Snyder's life story, not a systematic examination of the suppression of women around the world (though that becomes a unifying subtheme, and a lens through which Snyder's perspective on women like her stepmother become more nuanced).
July 3, 2023
I have to say, I do not know this author, I was intrigued by the title when scrolling through my Libby app. The description of traumatic childhood coupled with a religious background gave me Educated vibes. So I decided to try it. And I’m glad that I did. I enjoyed the deep background of the author’s childhood and subsequent miss used teenage years leading to adulthood, filled with introspection and advocacy for other women.
A good portion of the novel focuses on her life and struggles with her parentage… this was very relatable. But then, as she slips into young adulthood, her life takes an unusual turn becoming a journalist, traveling to far-flung places and viewing them both through her own eyes as well as learning to see them through the lives of the women in them. We learn so much about Cambodia and how the marginalized live. But what I think I liked most was how she brought these experiences back to inform her raising of her daughter as well as a final reckoning with her parents.
This is definitely a really great memoir of someone who has done the work, but also knows how to put you in the shoes of others even for a short time.
A good portion of the novel focuses on her life and struggles with her parentage… this was very relatable. But then, as she slips into young adulthood, her life takes an unusual turn becoming a journalist, traveling to far-flung places and viewing them both through her own eyes as well as learning to see them through the lives of the women in them. We learn so much about Cambodia and how the marginalized live. But what I think I liked most was how she brought these experiences back to inform her raising of her daughter as well as a final reckoning with her parents.
This is definitely a really great memoir of someone who has done the work, but also knows how to put you in the shoes of others even for a short time.
July 29, 2023
This is an excellent memoir and I enjoyed it very much but it is divided into many chapters and it felt like I was reading 2-3 different books. The author is so completely different at each stage of her life, and the book feels like it could have been written by different people. She is 10 years old at the beginning of the book and about to lose her mother to cancer. Her mother has suffered from cancer for 10 years (the author's whole life), but the author has no expectation that her mother could possibly die. No one prepared her for that possibility and she had witnessed her mother being quite ill all of her life, so she had no reason to expect it.
Her dad, who has thus far been a dependable source of support in her life, comes apart at the seams and turns into a Holy Roller and quickly brings a new bride and her two children into the home. I won't detail the happenings from this point. Suffice it to say, it's an action-packed memoir and worth the read.
Her dad, who has thus far been a dependable source of support in her life, comes apart at the seams and turns into a Holy Roller and quickly brings a new bride and her two children into the home. I won't detail the happenings from this point. Suffice it to say, it's an action-packed memoir and worth the read.
January 15, 2024
This book is similar to Educated but didn’t resonate as much for me. The best parts of the book were when she traveled. She had her baby in Bangkok and described daily life really well. I wanted to hear more about her husband and that relationship.
February 16, 2025
The audiobook was read by the author, who did a good job. She grows from the age of 8 at the beginning of the story to a grown woman, an accomplished journalist and mom, by the end. There are necessarily some periods of her life that are skipped over, and sometimes those gaps feel like something is missing in her story. But still I found it quite captivating.
I’m not sure how the title of the book relates to the content.
I’m not sure how the title of the book relates to the content.
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