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The Last Days: A memoir of faith, desire and freedom

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Ali is also deeply self-sabotaging. As a teen, she begins counting calories and restricts her eating as a means to exert some control over her own life - leading to anorexia. She drinks to excess, often finding it leads to oblivion or questionable behaviour, but regardless, she quaffs the alcohol down. Finally, although she scoffs at almost everything related to the religion, she takes the step of baptism into the faith which seems completely illogical. This is a very important story to tell and I commend Ali Millar on doing so and hopefully giving courage to others who are still enmeshed in the Jehovah’s Witness network who would like to escape.

Little Ali Millar, sitting in the Kingdom Hall, listening to the Elders preach - Waiting for Armageddon. She is terrified about what she may see happen, it haunts her. She attends the Jehovah’s Witness meetings with her Mother and Sister. So much to learn, so much to get right. As journalist, her work has appeared in The Guardian, The Stylist, The Sunday Times and Caught by the River. She has been profiled by The Sunday Times, The Sunday Post and appeared on the BBC World Service, NBC National Australia, Times Radio, and Talk TV. She will appear on a Channel 4 documentary with Rebekah Vardy, recently recorded in the winter of '22. She has read and appeared at festivals and events including Edinburgh International Book Festival, Wigtown Book Festival and Camp Good Life, as well as across digital platforms on podcast, blogs and Youtube channels. I enjoyed how Millar structured her memoir. Because she took on the perspective of her younger self, I felt as if I was learning about the flaws and complications in her faith as she did. There were moments where I could see the real beauty of her childhood religious experiences while also coming to question the toxic and painful aspects of that culture. It took me a little longer to read as I wanted to absorb it in all it’s detail. It’s an emotionally charged book, written with the most descriptive sentences. I like the style of her writing, her own unique way of bringing her memories to paper. A lyrical and powerful memoir of leaving the Jehovah's Witnesses, from an exciting new literary talent.I loved many of my JW friends as most are very nice people. However, they are so caught up in this hypocritical organisation that I’m well aware I could not say anything negative about JW ORG to them. The end of Millar’s faith comes in a truly appalling scene in which three elders (all men, naturally, as Jehovah seems to regard women as second-rate) quiz her about her premarital sex life. On a scale of one to five, she is asked, how much pleasure did she get from heavy petting and what did it consist of? Somehow the fact that this is in her own Edinburgh living room – or in the 21st century come to that – makes it seem even more grotesque. Believe me, it gets even worse. Yet still Millar wants to stay loyal to her faith and to make her marriage work. ‘[Actually,’ one of the elders says, ‘it’s up to your husband to decide what happens next. It’s not your decision to make.’ This is a lovely documentation of a woman discovering that the ideas she can grown up with could not and would not work for the life she longed to live while also contending with the loss of community and identity that would come with forging her own path. Millar's writing and rawness were a joy to read.

Where our experiences diverge though is the author's experience of other Witnesses. There are most definitely those that live a dual life, with their 'meeting face' & what they are like away from the public ministry, & there were cliques, but I also met some genuinely lovely people. We certainly never covered the windows of the Kingdom Hall so we weren't distracted by the outside - that's extremely odd behaviour & I think it says more about that particular congregation than the JWs as a whole. I’d recommend this book to many to assist and support them in the healing process of leaving JW organisation if that is what they have decided to do. May Ali’s experiences resonate with others and assist in setting them free from a very unloving organisation.

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I remember being a young girl at middle school and there being a family of girls who could never join in assembly when we sang hymns and could never join in making cards at Easter or Christmas. We knew they were Jehovah Witnesses but we didn’t have a clue what that meant. Later I learnt they couldn’t have blood if they were in hospital and needed it. But how could we understand, we were 10 years old. Millar is also talented as respecting individuals. With few exceptions, she insists on understanding where other people are coming from.

I found this memoir very brave for the author to write. For me personally reading this it gave me an insight into the life of a member of the Jehovah Witness Kingdom.As she does, she starts to question the ways of the Witnesses, and their control over the most intimate aspects of her life.

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