I didn’t know much about Jehovah’s Witnesses before reading this memoir, except for the blood refusal during medical emergencies and their reputation of persistently trying to convert non-believers.

I learnt so much - none of it desirable! My overwhelming feeling after reading this book is that Ali Millar has spent most of her life so far alone and unfulfilled. Surely religion is meant to offer the exact opposite of this experience? Granted the choice of religion was made by her mother, but so brain washed was Millar by the whole ordeal that it takes a LONG time to make a break for freedom and a life of her own choice - at great personal cost.

The story is slow-paced but I had to read on. I am shocked at the way so-called religious people in Millar’s life treated her. Life as a Jehovah seemed joyless and regimented - her anorexia almost ignored. What a crazy, cultish existence, where men rule and females remain submissive. I was heartbroken at the way Millar’s mother treats her daughter, repeatedly, in the name of religion. Without the cover of religion, some of her parenting would be classed as downright neglect and abuse. I’m in total admiration of Millar’s love for her mother in spite of this.

I hope that this memoir, and blogs by the author, go some way to helping her find peace and spiritual prosperity in her future. Such a brave move, written without sensationalist notions at all.

I’m definitely wiser for this read and thank Ali Millar for candidly sharing her life experiences to date.

A moving memoir very well written that you will race through, very much enjoyed and would read further novels from this author

This book may be compared to Educated by Tara Westover as both are autobiographies of young women growing up in "exclusive" religious family. Of course the country and religions/faiths are different but they do share some characteristics.
Ali is brought up in a family of Jehovah's Witnesses and her life revolves around the Church , faith and meetings. Any questions that she has are not always welcome. In her teenage years she rebels and drinks, has premarital sex and breaks other rules of the JWs.
Eventually she comes back to meetings and meets her husband M. Her eyes have been opened to a larger world with very different ways of living and through a relationship with a German man is brought to crisis point where she must decide what to do. She now has a child to consider.

It's not as simple as "leaving" the church as she will be "shunned" by the congregation and her own family, especially her mother.

I lent the book to someone who had been part of the same Faith as I was interested to see what they thought. The feedback was that it was hard to relate to the writer and that they didn't find the book interesting.

I found it interesting as an insight into that Faith/ religion in equal measure to the questions that came up for me about if this Faith is well meaning but misguided or shared some elements with cults? I tried to stay open minded and don't necessarily agree with the conclusions of the author at the end of the book.

Overall an interesting read.

Last Days was a fascinating and eye-opening insight into the life of a previous Jehovahs Witness growing up in Scotland.

This was such a beautifully written book. I often felt like I was like I was right there with her as she grew up and often stumbled through life. The painstaking details of her eating disorder, the muted tone of the years of depression and the simultaneous love and resentment of her mothers and her actions.

I can't imagine how much courage it took to write a book like this. To expose all the raw parts of you when you have already been shunned by the people you love and trust but ultimately I think this was too important a story to be kept hidden. I hope this book brings her some peace.

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.

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.

Millar is also talented as respecting individuals. With few exceptions, she insists on understanding where other people are coming from.

That all being said, this individualist writing style did leave me confused at some moments, where I think Millar would have done better to connect her experience to broader trends in religious movements or to explain more context about what the Jehovah's Witnesses believe and how their community functions.

Before I began reading this book, I had forgotten that it was a memoir, rather than a novel, and my heart sank a little, not being a fan of autobiographies. However, the writing style is more that of a novel and it drew me in. If it had been a novel, I would have become frustrated with Ali for putting up with the abuse (not too strong a word) meted out by the Jehovah’s Witnesses congregation her mother brought her up in. However, I was not unsympathetic to her unstable mother, and understood Ali’s desire to remain close to her, which made a decision to reject the JW lifestyle and thereby be estranged from her mother all the more difficult for her, even while I was urging her to do just that.

As a Christian, who knows God is loving, compassionate and welcoming, my heart broke for Ali Millar, growing up aware of the wrath of God, but knowing precious little of his love.

I would probably have given the book 3 stars, but my heart feels compelled to up it to 4 in acknowledgment of Ali’s bravery.

Compelling and devastating in equal measure. Raw and tumultuous, a coming-of-age narrative of a young Jehovah's Witness wrestling with questions of faith, power, selfhood and freedom. At times, incredibly difficult to read, there was a fascinating mix of glimmers of authorial retrospective insight embedded in remembered suffocating blindness to double-standards and powerplays. Deborah Frances-White would no doubt have lots to say about this memoir!

Free courtesy of Netgalley

This book tells the story of a young girl (and her half sister)being brought up by her single mother as a Jehovah's witness.

I will keep this short as this book was not for me, even though it was constructively written, I didn't like it. It was making me angry that a child of 5 is told that the work will end and everyone will be slaughtered but Jehovah will save the people who follow his teachings. It felt that this child spent all her childhood avoiding doing anything as it was a sin, even to think things. I couldn't continue to read it as it was not nice to read. I never thought of Jehovah's witnesses as a cult but that is definitely how this book comes across.

To be fair I have stopped reading it, so it could get better but I don't think so personally.

First and foremost, this book is worth reading, especially if you have any interest in family relationships or religion. However...

While it's a frightening insight into how cults control and manipulate their followers, there is so much going on in the book that it's often hard to tell when and why Ali Millar's life spiralled downwards. Are her unconventional family life and unhappy relationships with people, food, alcohol, sex and a hundred other things more the root of her problems and inability to walk away from the Jehovahs Witnesses? The JW influence over her family - and especially her mother - is significant, but there is a sense that even without them her home life would have been deeply dysfunctional; something else would perhaps have filled the space that the JWs filled.

The writing is mostly strong, pushing you to read more urgently to to discover her fate, but when you finish the book there's a sense of dissatisfaction. Highly detailed passages have us living minute-by-minute with Ali sharing her intimate thoughts, then we jump months and even years ahead with only the sketchiest idea of what she's been doing. You begin to wonder how the family escaped the attention of social services, how after missing so much schooling she smashes her A-levels, how she walks into amazing jobs with no experience, how she moves to a new country... Where does the confidence come from? Where does the cash come from?

The Last Days feels full of holes and ultimately it provides more questions than answers.

The Last Days by Ali Millar

I guess many religions are based on a set of beliefs; beliefs which cannot be proven, and when challenged, require faith to be maintained. Belief and faith become integral to our make up, extremely difficult to let go. Added to this is the spirit of community and possible collective responsibility, all of which present a guide for a way of life.

This courageous book is about someone who feels the need to leave The Jehovah’s Witnesses. It describes the events that result from this, the inner turmoil created and the anxious uncertainty of leaving the unhappy familiar for a hopeful future.

I am sure the author’s journey has been traversed by many in The Jehovah’s Witnesses and probably other devout faiths. I read this book with an open mind, hoping to understand more about The JW and the author’s experiences as I had met someone who found themselves in similar circumstances. I feel more informed about both as a result.

I thoroughly enjoyed this fascinating, often deeply disturbing memoir; Ali Millar grew up in Scotland as a Jehovah's Witness. In this unflinching account of her upbringing, teenage and adult years, Ali tells the story of how she came to eventually leave her religion and begin life as a "worldly" person. I knew a little about Jehovah's Witnesses but this book told me so much more; I will look at the local Witnesses through very different eyes next time I see them. Such an interesting and beautifully written book. I hope Ali keeps writing, I love her raw honesty and openness.
With grateful thanks to NetGalley, Ebury Publishing and Penguin Random House for my advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

I struggled to feel satisfied by this account of a life lived mostly from within the Jehovah’s Witnesses, despite normally loving a cult memoir. Millar’s writing style is a bit too overdramatic to me - written in the present tense and littered with short sentences that lose their effect after a couple of chapters. It also jumped around a lot, so I was having to meticulously piece together a narrative, or stay confused by something until it was explained thirty pages later. Having never been in a cult myself, I can’t speak to the experience - and therefore probably shouldn’t judge - but if Millar actually thought the things she claims to have done throughout the book then I am surprised she didn’t make the decision to extract herself earlier; I assume it was purely on account of her mother (even though she constantly, blatantly flouts Jehovah’s rules). It’s a testament to what brainwashing can do, I suppose. I don’t consider much more informed on the ways and teachings of the “religion” either, which is a large part of why I requested it in the first place - so it was a disappointing read for me.

Defiantly an eye opener.
Ali Millar tells her story of her life being brought up as a Jehovah Witness, it`s a very moving story and I had no idea what happened to people in this religion, a lot I was quite shocked by and found it upsetting in places to know this is how she experienced her life and I`m so glad she has found peace.
A lot of people have said this didn`t happen to them but this is her story and how it happened to her.
A brilliant well told story.

Thanks to Netgalley and publisher for the ARC

The Last Days by Ali Millar was a very interesting book, it's an open memoir, where the Ali the author did not hold back in showing how truly toxic the Jehovah's Witness community can be and still are. Ali was born into the Jehovah's Witness community as her mother had become a Witness before she was born, and had to follow in her mothers footsteps. Ali had no control of her childhood to adulthood. I never understood about this Christian Religion. I had a friend who was at my first and middle school I felt so sorry for her as she could not join in our assembly's etc, Christmas and Easter celebrations, She had to sit outside or in a class room on her own with a teacher and her books. Her birthday was the worst no cards or cake was shared....no invitations was sent to her. for our birthdays etc.........Thats no childhood. So when this book came available I wanted to learn more about.

Why! and how this religion was so different to my Church of England Christian religion!

But, Its Christian?!? Isn't that the same? Hmmmmmmmm

Ali, I could Hug you all those years lost but I am so glad you wrote your memoirs about it. It was a honest and so shocking. I wish you all the best and happiness for the future.

I highly recommend The Last Days by Ali Millar. 5 Big stars from me and a hug. Thank you xx

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher Ebury Press for an advanced copy in exchange for a review.

This isn’t a bad book but I’m giving it four stars as yet again a book is marketed as one thing but has other major themes which need trigger warnings. Therefore TW eating disorders, alcohol abuse, religion and abortion.

The main character grows up from a young age as a Jehovah’s Witness and is basically scared of so many things because of their teachings. She then develops an eating disorder which take up around 40-50% of the story. Later she has a baby and decided whether to leave the Witnesses.

This is a true story. A reader who may need a trigger warning could be quite far into this book before it becomes apparent that a lot of the book is about eating disorders. As in-depth as that is, we never find out if the author gets better with the condition.

The end felt a bit rushed. I would have liked more detail on how she left the Witnesses. The corruption of the Witnesses is touched upon but again not enough detail. A blog, by the author, is also mentioned, but never named. She is trying to protect others identities so maybe Ali Millar is a pen name.

Many thanks to Netgalley for this ARC.

An informative and interesting read of what it was like for a young girl to grow up in a religious life. Gave me an insight into a religion I knew little about.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for an ARC in exchange for an honest opinion

The Last Days is an interesting insight into growing up within the Jehovah Witness faith. Having met an ex-JW, their story is very different to the authors and I'm glad that my friend is still on great terms with his parents and came out of it relatively unscathed.

The authors experience is very different and for me, it was good to read it from another point of view. Her struggles with making sense of the world and the restrictions and expectations that were placed on her, lead her down a very difficult, life-limiting path which was very sad to read.

I was glad that she managed to get out and write about her experiences, that's a very brave thing to do and no doubt has cost her massively.

If anyone can understand where the author is coming from, it's me - I also grew up as a JW, finally leaving in my late teens. A lot of the things detailed are absolutely true; JWs do not celebrate birthdays or Christmas, you are encouraged to keep away from 'worldly people', women are definitely considered second class but it's wrapped up in the language of being a "complement" to man, & having a career/going to university is a no-no.. From my early teens I chafed against the expectations & I had questions about the teachings I was not allowed to ask, & upon leaving I felt exactly like Nicole Kidman looks in that photograph of her shortly after divorcing Tom Cruise - freedom.

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.

Overall, whilst everyone's experiences are different & are uniquely their own, I expected to feel some affinity with what the author has gone through as a young person, but there was very little. I empathise with the author's battles against a patriarchal religion, & an eating disorder, & am glad to see that they have managed to achieve some happiness for themselves, but I struggled with their writing style which was overly florid at times. 2.5 stars (rounded up on sites where half star ratings not allowed).

My thanks to NetGalley & publishers, Ebury Publishing/Penguin Random House, for the opportunity to read an ARC.

It does not surprise me that this author used writing as a means of coping with life and a way of working out where she fits in as she is a beautiful writer with excellent recall of her early life. She rightly says that this is a memoir and admits that memories can be false and are also different for different people. Jehovah’s witnesses often knocked on my door in the 1990s and I used to feel sorry for the little children who must have had to get used to doors being shut in their faces. I haven’t seen any recently but a friend of mine has a sister who became a Jehovah’s witness and I have to say she allowed her children to celebrate Christmas while not celebrating herself. Ali writes about living in a cult. She had to be very strong to escape such indoctrination and to lose her family. Readers with eating disorders will be able to relate to Ali’s anorexia and realise that there is light at the end of the tunnel. The book also talks about coercive control which is suffered by many people as well as those living in a patriarchal society such as the Jehovah’s witnesses. The role of religion is also explored and provides much food for thought. Highly recommended.

This is not an easy read, nor an enjoyable one, for this reader at least. Much of what I read in this book does not chime with people I know who are members of this branch of religion, some of whom are family in-laws.
I am concerned that this may be a very one-sided view of Jehovahs Witnesses, as seen through the prism of the difficult and rebellious teenage years of the author. She is clearly traumatised by her earlier upbringing., and events in her younger life, not all necessarily attributable to JW religion.
I find myself questioning many of the customs and behaviours portrayed here. I would like to read a more balanced view of life in the JW religion, in the interests of fairness and open- mindedness.
My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my advance copy of this book.