There’s a moment in this book, Cherilyn Christen Clough’s second memoir, where Cherilyn loses her temper at her brother’s girlfriend for describing their family as “dysfunctional.” As anyone who read Clough’s previous memoir, Chasing Eden, already knows, “dysfunctional” is a very apt descriptor that maybe doesn’t go far enough to describe the way in which Clough and her siblings were raised by their ultra-fundamentalist Adventist parents. Her reaction to that word in the context of the story she’s telling alerts the reader not that the brother’s girlfriend is wrong in her assessment, but rather, reminds us of how deeply enmeshed such family dynamics can be. Throughout this memoir, Cherilyn struggles to build an adult life apart from her family, but still feels tied to them by bonds of love, worry, fear, and duty.

To Un-Eat an Elephant picks up where Chasing Eden left off, with young adult Cherilyn leaving home for an Adventist college community — still a pretty conservative and sheltered place in the world’s eyes, but a place of endless possibilities for someone who grew up as the author did. Many memoirs about dysfunctional childhoods and abusive family dynamics end with the narrator breaking free: few take the reader through the next steps of the story. How do you grow up into a healthy, independent adult when your entire childhood has been so tightly controlled? How do you get an education and a career when you’ve never been to school or even properly homeschooled? And how do you strike the balance of maintaining some kind of relationship with parents and siblings you still love, while learning to create healthy boundaries?

Told in simple, straightforward language, this memoir traces that difficult journey. Cherilyn goes to college, gets a job, travels internationally with a Christian music ministry, falls in love and gets married — but becoming her own person is never easy, as she can never fully walk away from her family when she’s had it ingrained in her that she must “forgive and forget” everything they have done. Her unflinching honesty is unsparing: the author never paints herself as perfect, and reveals as many of her own mistakes and she does those of her family members. What emerges is an authentic portrait of someone struggling to emerge from her difficult childhood and discover herself. The memoir ends on a poignant note that alerts the reader that another piece of the story remains untold; I’m looking forward to the next volume.

As a writer, an avid reader, and a former English teacher, I’m a HUGE believer in the idea that people should read books they enjoy, and other than that, there are no “shoulds” attached to reading — you shouldn’t read books because you feel they’re Important, or Classics, or Must-Reads, unless you want to.

However, I also do enjoy varying my reading, going back and forth between books that are easy and fun for me to read, and books that challenge me more or push me outside my usual reading comfort zones. Some of the books I find most rewarding are the ones that require a bit more from me as a reader — whether that is intellectually, because the writing itself demands more attention and careful reading, or emotionally, because the subject matter is difficult to read about.

The last two books I read were excellent, brilliantly written books that were challenging on BOTH those levels — Tommy Orange’s Wandering Stars and Jesmyn Ward’s Let Us Descend. Both books delved into difficult and painful histories (and presents); both are highly literary and accomplished writing that demanded my full attention on every page. Both are going to be multiple prize-winners, I’m sure, and I am so glad I read them both.

Following those two, my brain demanded something lighter — well-written, but in a much less demanding way — something guaranteed fun and with a happy ending. For that, there’s no-one better than Emily Henry. I love her light, funny romances that still manage to touch on the deeper reasons why some people struggle to find their happily-ever-after. I almost always love her characters: in this novel the well-organized, buttoned-up librarian Daphne finds her Manic Pixie Dream Guy, Myles, after Daphne’s boyfriend leaves her for Myles’s girlfriend. The premise — they’re thrown together because Daphne needs a place to stay and moves into Myles’s apartment, then pretend they’re dating to avoid looking pathetic to their exes — is as flimsy as most romance-novel conventions, but the journey from there to the ending is fun, sexy, and filled with lots of great secondary characters. Daphne’s story in this novel is not just about falling in love but also about learning how to build good friendships, navigate complicated family relationships, and find community for herself. And, as is almost always the case with an Emily Henry novel, there’s some good book-related content, as Daphne is a children’s librarian who loves her job and thrives in it. Thoroughly enjoyed this one.