Rift

A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy

De: Cait West

Narrado por: Cait West

A gripping memoir about coming of age in the stay-at-home daughter movement and the quest to piece together a future on your own terms.

Raised in the Christian patriarchy movement, Cait West was homeschooled and could only wear clothes her father deemed modest. She was five years old the first time she was told her swimsuit was too revealing, to go change. There would be no college in her future, no career. She was a stay-at-home daughter and would move out only when her father allowed her to become a wife. She was trained to serve men, and her life would never be her own.

Until she escaped.

In Rift, Cait West tells a harrowing story of chaos and control hidden beneath the facade of a happy family. Weaving together lyrical meditations on the geology of the places her family lived with her story of spiritual and emotional manipulation as a stay-at-home daughter, Cait creates a stirring portrait of one young woman's growing awareness that she is experiencing abuse. With the ground shifting beneath her feet, Cait mustered the courage to break free from all shed ever known and choose a future of her own making.

Rift is a story of survival. Its also a story about what happens after you survive. With compassion and clarity, Cait explores the complex legacy of patriarchal religious trauma in her life, including the ways she has also been complicit in systems of oppression. A remarkable literary debut, Rift offers an essential personal perspective on the fraught legacy of purity culture and recent reckonings with abuse in Christian communities.

©2024 Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (P)2024 Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

A Truth-Teller Reads Her Own Memoir!

In her April 4th Eerdman’s interview, Cait West says, “I’ve been called an apostate, a heretic, and a witch. But I don’t take it personally. 🙂 I prefer ‘truth teller.’”

I can think of no better way to begin this review than to say, “Read my friend Cait’s book! She’s a truth teller!”

From the first to the final page, there is so much to love:

* Cait West’s skilled and beautifully crafted writing, like this from the opening page: “If I am alone enough or scared enough, I try to collect the memories, weave them together like lace, like snowflakes.”

* Cait’s honesty about “the complexity of past love and loss and damage” which threads through the book as a steady both/and of emotions and experiences that have shaped who she has become, who she is still becoming.

* Cait’s hope on the final page that, “I have room to love and be loved, to explore the Earth unafraid, to pray or be silent. I am open to the wonder of living.”

Readers on their own journeys—particularly those breaking free from fundamentalism and abusive structures of all sorts—can trust that through the rifting of their own lives, “we can survive, and in the separating, we become something new, always evolving.”

Finally, as an audiobook listener, I have the added advantage of hearing Cait's story read in her own voice--compelling, clear, and kind throughout. Highly recommend!

Incredible story

This is such an important story for anyone who wants deeper understanding of the Christian Patriarchy or Daughters at Home movement. Very well written.

Fantastic Story about extreme homeschooling

Well written look into the life of a girl raised to be a traditional wife. The flashbacks this story gave me were many. I loved the snippets of homeschool literature descriptions sprinkled throughout the book, which came from magazines I also used to leaf through.

Slow, but good.

I expected something different, but it was pretty good. It was slow and boring through a good portion of the book. Some of it seemed like irrelevant stories that didn’t get to the meat of the issues, but as someone from a similar background I appreciate her point of view.

Genuine.

Relatable. Sad but hopeful. Thank you for speaking what you lived so that others can look back in their lives and rethink what happened right or wrong in our spiritual upbringing that was right or wrong.

Compelling narrative and beautifully written

I heard about Cait’s book on YouTube from an interview she did with Cults to Consciousness. This is a must read for anyone who is interested in feminism, cults or religion. This is a beautifully written and lovingly crafted book. The narrative flows so effortlessly through this book and you move through the chapters with ease. Cait is a wonderful writer. Her story is probably like many other women in fundamentalist Christianity. Throughout the narrative, you are with her as she moves through her, putting pieces together and finding inner strength until she finds the courage to speak up. This is a wonderful and powerful book and I think it is a must read for anyone interested in these topics, or anyone who wants to hear the stories of women. Excellent read! Probably my favorite book of 2024 so far!

Well said and well written

Almost all women who are born and raised in some form of organized religion will face many of these issues. I don't really know any religion that doesn't have patriarchy as its foundation--- some have evolved but look at how they started and who wrote the rules. Thank you Cait for writing your story.

The similarities and differences of our stories all connected!

I started listening to the audiobook shortly before Christmas 2024. This was a year that I wanted to focus on joy instead of the emotions that come up with estrangement. Especially as I chose it.

My mother and father had opposite roles from Cait’s story. Patriarchy enforced by a mother who enjoyed the control she had as “second in command,” though she made the choices, since my father drove a truck.

There’s so much power in this story, from the acknowledgement of Cait’s traumas, the traumas of others around her (even the toxic ones), and the desire to make amends on behalf of her ancestors. It makes sense, as enmeshment is a major convention in fundamental Christianity. I’m so proud of her bravery and the advocacy she now does, which has inspired me even before I listened to her book.

Thank you so much for this beautifully tragic story of hope and love in a scary world.

Rift

Terrible narration. The author is the narrator and she sounds like a robot. She should have someone else read it.

Inspiring story, not particularly well written

I was excited to listen to this book because I loved Tia Leving’s “A Well Trained Wife”, but found myself almost fast forwarding at the end to finish this book. West’s story is incredibly inspiring and she’s very strong for putting this book out into the world. I’m sure there are people who will really connect with her story. I found myself getting lost in the many connections to other books which felt contrived and distracting from the actual story. The author also spent a lot of time listing her thoughts which derailed the narrative. These were a couple of aspects of her writing style that felt strained and slightly immature. The performance of the reading was well done however, and I kept listening even though I probably would have put down the book halfway through if I was reading a physical copy.