Book Review: Holy Disruptor

 Yesterday and this morning, I have been traveling around making money per location taking pictures of toilet paper and paper towel aisles for the Merchandiser app. It’s my side hustle. Over the last couple of weeks, pay on the merchandiser app has been abysmal. It recently skyrocketed for this particular assignment, (they must be sorry they tried to pay so low) so I went all over rural areas, enjoying the lovely weather and scenery, and quickly submitted pictures of those aisles. 

While driving, I listened to the audiobook version of Holy Disruptor by Amy Duggar King. If you remember the reality show “19 Kids and Counting”, you might remember Amy. She was the first cousin of the 19 siblings. Her mom was Jim Bob Duggar’s only sibling. 

I have also mentioned here before that I was in a live stream of Amy’s not too long ago and mentioned that I want to write a book called The Child Advocate. She picked my comment out of many and raved about how I should, and how much she loved that title. I then not only felt an obligation to buy her book, but I wanted to. 

Amy and I have a lot of similarities. We are both “an only child who only had one child”. And we both grew up with 19 cousins. It’s ironic. My 19 cousins aren’t all siblings, though. They are the children of my dad’s two brothers and my mom’s six much older sisters. My 20th first cousin (not chronologically) was an adoptee born in the 1950’s that we discovered when a handful of us did ancestry DNA tests. However, I grew up knowing 19. 

So many similarities with the numbers, but I could also relate to the complexities of being an only child in an extended family that large and trying to understand the difficulties of abuse and generational trauma. Like Amy, I struggled to witness my cousins endure horrific things that we all had to sweep under the rug, and I witnessed different individuals among the 19 deal with the abuse in so many different ways. I really appreciated witnessing that enigma in someone else. 

Amy did in her book what I seek to do in mine: She told a story and educated at the same time.  I seek to obey the “show don’t tell” rule of writing more than Amy did, but by the time I really got into the story, the amount of telling versus showing no longer mattered.  I didn’t think it was possible to make Jim Bob Duggar look like more of an ass than he already does, but she did.

I also admire that Amy did this despite some of the negativity she gets online. One of my fears about writing The Child Advocate is that I’ll get some negativity.  It’s actually pretty much bound to happen if you are published, in the public eye, and/or have any sort of following.  She handles this with grace.  It’s addressed in the book, and she simply responds with how Jesus was persecuted too!  I’m not “as” Christian as she is, but I can respond this way if I ever get religious critics.  Non religious critics wouldn’t be phased by this response, so I’d have to think of something else for them.  I would give Holy Disruptor 4.875 stars.  I know that’s terribly specific, but the .125 dock comes from the fact that she could have “shown” and not “told” a teeny bit more.  Of course, she had a ghostwriter, so it may be a moot point.

Before the last couple days of toilet paper aisle picture jobs at rural stores, I have been remembering certain memories in which it seems obvious that my mother was trying to bring me down and even set me up to fail.  More on that later, but she knows that Kevin and I have a four day weekend currently from our main job, the inventory service.  I told her at least twice.  So when I told her that I was out doing the side jobs, I said, “The pay went way down lately, but it increased a lot now so I’m out doing them.”  She then proceeded to ask me if I had gotten a pay decrease at my main job, the inventory service, and then a raise.  I said no…. Why would they do that?  My main job is W-2 and paid hourly.  1099 side hustles are different, and she knows the difference.  She then responded, “Oh I thought you must have really screwed up some inventory so they docked your pay.”  She laughed at herself.  I didn’t find it funny and told her I had to go. Have not called her this morning, but she texted me so I know she’s still around.  There have been so many instances over my 47 years that she’s wanted to see me as a failure for her amusement. Speaking of generational curses, now that I am a mother to a young lady, I just can not imagine feeling that way at all. Ever.