Review: Growing Up Duggar

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In a delightful and personal look at life in a large family, the four eldest daughters talk about their faith, their dreams for the future, and what it’s like growing up a Duggar. They share how their family walks through unexpected and difficult circumstances and how they manage to maintain their faith and love their family.

This updated edition has new stories and insights that reflect the experiences of Jill and Jessa—the now-married Duggar daughters—on their exciting journey through courtship, engagement, and marriage.

With a backdrop of the key relationships in their lives, the four Duggar girls also open up about their own personal faith and convictions, boys, peer pressure, manners, living in a large family, politics, and much more. You’ll learn how the girls navigate the difficult years between twelve and sixteen, what they look for in a man, life in a big family, and much more—all in a frank and fun book that will inspire teens and adults alike.

Genre: non-fiction

Publishing date: March 2014

Mature content: no

Review: Having read Counting the Cost recently, and seeing this book sort of recommended in the last pages of Counting the Cost, I decided to give it a try. 

I didn't like it. I didn't even finish it. 

Maybe there was a time and place for this sort of book, but if there was, it has passed already, especially in view of the fact that by now more than one of the girls involved in the writing of Growing Up Duggar have come forward publicly denying some of the very things they try to pass off as truths in this book. 

When I started it, I expected to read about the experience of growing up in a large family (being an only daughter myself and having not seen practically any of the old episodes of their family show, I was definitely curious about it).

Instead I got something akin to a collection of (internal?) dialogues that each of the Duggar sisters alternatively have on different topics, from dressing to relationships - and not a particularly well written collection at that. 

So, while I did love Counting the Cost, Growing Up Duggar is not a book I would recommend. 

Happy readings otherwise,

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