A review by rkanderton
Forager: Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult by Michelle Dowd

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

3.5

The story was told in the present tense but then jumped around a lot so was sometimes hard to follow. I think I agree with other reviews that some of it felt quite surface level and didn’t really explain how things affected her and sort of glosses over a lot, however that may be down to memory and the fact that it was years and years of her life. It also would have been interesting to hear how she actually escaped and then integrated into the wider world, as the book doesn’t really go into detail about it. However, I can totally respect how difficult it must have been to relive all these things by telling her story, and that this book is authentic to Michelle and is written in a way that is comfortable for her to express herself and what happened to her, so in that regard I cannot fault it. To critique it at all feels disrespectful, and I can only admire her bravery and courage to share her experiences with the world. 
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