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Leaving the Witness
- Exiting a Religion and Finding a Life
- Narrated by: Amber Scorah
- Length: 6 hrs and 56 mins
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Publisher's summary
"À la Tara Westover's Educated, Scorah's pensive, ultimately liberating memoir chronicles her formative years as a Jehovah's Witness...and captures the bewilderment of belief and the bliss of self-discovery...[Leaving the Witness] is a suture for anyone searching to reconcile their past and present selves." (O, The Oprah Magazine - named one of "The Best Books by Women of Summer 2019")
"Scorah's book, the bravery of which cannot be overstated, is an earnest one, fueled by a plucky humor and a can-do spirit that endears. Her tale, though an exploration of extremity, is highly readable and warm." (The New York Times Book Review)
A riveting memoir of losing faith and finding freedom while a covert missionary in one of the world's most restrictive countries.
A third-generation Jehovah's Witness, Amber Scorah had devoted her life to sounding God's warning of impending Armageddon. She volunteered to take the message to China, where the preaching she did was illegal and could result in her expulsion or worse. Here, she had some distance from her community for the first time. Immersion in a foreign language and culture - and a whole new way of thinking - turned her world upside down, and eventually led her to lose all that she had been sure was true.
As a proselytizer in Shanghai, using fake names and secret codes to evade the authorities' notice, Scorah discreetly looked for targets in public parks and stores. To support herself, she found work at a Chinese language learning podcast, hiding her real purpose from her coworkers. Now with a creative outlet, getting to know worldly people for the first time, she began to understand that there were other ways of seeing the world and living a fulfilling life. When one of these relationships became an "escape hatch", Scorah's loss of faith culminated in her own personal apocalypse, the only kind of ending possible for a Jehovah's Witness.
Shunned by family and friends as an apostate, Scorah was alone in Shanghai and thrown into a world she had only known from the periphery - with no education or support system. A coming of age story of a woman already in her 30s, this unforgettable memoir examines what it's like to start one's life over again with an entirely new identity. It follows Scorah to New York City, where a personal tragedy forces her to look for new ways to find meaning in the absence of religion. With compelling, spare prose, Leaving the Witness traces the bittersweet process of starting over, when everything one's life was built around is gone.
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Critic reviews
“In her impressive debut, Scorah recounts her years as a Jehovah’s Witness in China, her decision to leave the faith, and her ongoing spiritual questioning...Scorah’s prose is straightforward, and she has a winning sense of humor about how much she’s changed...Scorah provides a rare glimpse into the insular world of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and her accounts of expat life and leaving her faith should give this candid memoir wide appeal.” (Publishers Weekly)
"Scorah’s book, the bravery of which cannot be overstated, is an earnest one, fueled by a plucky humor and a can-do spirit that endears. Her tale, though an exploration of extremity, is highly readable and warm.... She teaches us how integrity is determined not by assenting to the juvenile claims of fundamentalism, but by enduring the universe as we find it - breathtaking in its ecstasies and vicious in its losses - without recourse to a God. Given the enormity of her grief and the wholesale collapse of her previous belief system, the intellectual integrity that Scorah displays is nothing short of a miracle.” (The New York Times Book Review)
“À la Tara Westover’s Educated, Scorah’s pensive, ultimately liberating memoir chronicles her formative years as a Jehovah’s Witness - a 'life in waiting' that included a sham marriage, covert missionary work in China, and eventual shunning by her religious community - and captures the bewilderment of belief and the bliss of self-discovery. Writing 'stitched the narrative arc of my life back together', Scorah says; her book is a suture for anyone searching to reconcile their past and present selves.” (O, The Oprah Magazine)
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- Length: 8 hrs
- Original Recording
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Sophia Chang is a badass of the music industry. As the daughter of Korean immigrants in predominantly white suburban Vancouver, she grew up shunning the “model minority” myth. Armed with a fierce sense of independence, she moved to New York City and infiltrated the world of hip-hop, yet remained mostly in the shadows of the artists she supported. With her debut memoir, Sophia Chang is finally ready to grab the mic for herself.
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Something in the music spoke to me...
- By Tina G. on 09-30-19
By: Sophia Chang
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The Undocumented Americans
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Writer Karla Cornejo Villavicencio was on DACA when she decided to write about being undocumented for the first time using her own name. It was right after the election of 2016, the day she realized the story she'd tried to steer clear of was the only one she wanted to tell. So she wrote her immigration lawyer's phone number on her hand in Sharpie and embarked on a trip across the country to tell the stories of her fellow undocumented immigrants—and to find the hidden key to her own.
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Raw, heartbreaking - we can do better by others
- By RapaciousReader on 04-11-20
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Members Only
- By: Sameer Pandya
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra
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Raj Bhatt is often unsure of where he belongs. Having moved to America from Bombay as a child, he knew few Indian kids. Now middle-aged, he lives mostly happily in California with a job at a university. Still, his white wife seems to fit in better than he does at times, especially at their tennis club, a place he's cautiously come to love. But it's there that, in one week, his life unravels. It begins at a meeting for potential new members: Raj thrills to find an African American couple on the list; he dreams of a more diverse club. But in an effort to connect, he makes a racist joke.
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Stick with it... so worth it!
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Secrets and Wives
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What do we really know about modern practicing polygamists - not fictional ones like the Henrickson family on HBO’s Big Love? We’ve seen the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the news, the underage brides in pioneer dresses on a Texas ranch. But the FLDS is just one of many groups that have broken with mainstream Mormonism to follow those parts of Joseph Smith’s doctrine disavowed by the LDS Church. Gaining unprecedented access to these communities, journalist Sanjiv Bhattacharya reveals a shadow country....
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Great stories (+), religious amateur hour (-)
- By Douglas on 09-26-13
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Comedy Sex God
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- Unabridged
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Part autobiography, part philosophical inquiry, part sacred quest - The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck for the spiritual seeker - a hilarious, profound, and enlightening romp around the fertile mind of standout stand-up comedian, host of the hugely successful podcast You Made It Weird, and star of HBO’s Crashing Pete Holmes.
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Mixed bag
- By Brandon on 06-20-19
By: Pete Holmes
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Falling Apart in One Piece
- One Optimist's Journey Through the Hell of Divorce
- By: Stacy Morrison
- Narrated by: Stacy Morrison
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Just when Stacy Morrison thought she had it all, her husband of 10 years announced that he wanted a divorce. She was left alone with a new house that needed lots of work, a new baby who needed lots of attention, and a new job in the high-pressure world of New York publishing. Morrison had never been one to believe in fairy tales. As far as she was concerned, happy endings were the product of the kind of ambition and hard work that had propelled her to the top of her profession.
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so helpful
- By jessica ball on 11-10-15
By: Stacy Morrison
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The Sum of Our Days
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Isabel Allende reconstructs the painful reality of her own life in the wake of the tragic death of her daughter, Paula. Narrated with warmth, humor, exceptional candor, and wisdom, this remarkable memoir is as exuberant and as full of life as its creator. Allende bares her soul while sharing her thoughts on love, marriage, motherhood, spirituality and religion, infidelity, addiction, and memory - and recounts stories of the wildly eccentric, strong-minded, and eclectic tribe she gathers around her and lovingly embraces as a new kind of family.
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She does not disappoint
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Say I'm Dead
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Fearful of prison time - or lynching - for violating Indiana’s anti-miscegenation laws in the 1940s, E. Dolores Johnson's Black father and White mother fled Indianapolis to secretly marry in Buffalo. Her mother simply vanished, evading an FBI and police search that ended with the declaration to her family that she was the victim of foul play, either dead or sold into white slavery.
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Deeply meaningful important read
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What listeners say about Leaving the Witness
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Lori DiCola
- 06-04-19
Astonishing book, delightfully read by the author
I'm hit or miss on authors reading their own books, but this one knocks it out of the park! She has a welcoming conversational reading style and I found myself talking back to the book, out loud, to the dismay of my dogs who couldn't hear the headphones.
Eye-opening experiences most people wonder about without ever wanting to participate! Shines a light on what might go on in the mind of a full-time bible volunteer on her own, mostly, in a foreign country.
Very interesting. Made me walk twice as far today! :-)
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9 people found this helpful
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- Ryan
- 06-08-19
Fantastic story, quick read/listen...
Amber is such a good writer, and the story just pulls you in. I finished it in two sittings. I'm not an ex-JW, but loved learning more about the experience being a JW and leaving it. But the book is about much more than just leaving a religion. It's about transformations and opening one's eyes to things you've been unable or unwilling to see previously. This book is for everyone, not just ex-JWs.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- Amazon Customer
- 07-09-19
resonating visceral story
As a fellow exjw this story was so familiar and still fascinating to listen to.
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- Bendetta
- 08-05-19
Eye opening and sad
The book helps you to understand some of the tenants of being a Witness. I found the book to be deeply personal. I recommend it.
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- Lois Latman
- 06-17-19
Breathtaking Memoir
I could not stop listening to this truth is stranger than fiction memoir. Both the story and the reader are as good as it gets.
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- Steven Hassan PhD
- 06-06-19
Very fresh,honest and personal account. Thought-provoking!
I enjoyed this book immensely and especially liked hearing the authors own voice telling deeply personal things about her journey from being born in a mind control cult, the Jehovahs Witnesses, to Communist China where she encounters a new reality that puts herself back in touch with herself.
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- Visual accent
- 08-05-19
Interesting insight into world of witnesses
Felt for her throughout. Helps explain the behavior of some witnesses I knew in past and currently. She really exposed herself.
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- Anonymous User
- 10-08-22
3rd Generation Witness
I regret not knowing this book has been out all these years. As a third generation JW I can’t begin to describe how this book feels. It captures everything I’ve thought and gone through the last two decades of my life. My whole family are still JWs. Anyone who has been shunned by a cult or organization needs to read this book. Thank you. 🙏🏻
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- Joe Hunt
- 09-17-24
Head nodding
Hell of a good job on the book, Amber. Hell of a good job on using some basic reasoning. I mean change is inevitable, but this 15 billion year old universe ending tomorrow?, kind of unlikely. haha
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- Anonymous User
- 07-05-19
Great in-depth look into JW life
Another former JW here. The author gives great insight into the lesser known beliefs and traditions of Witnesses. As a male, it was interesting to hear about the aggressions that women specifically have to deal with within the organization. Very relatable and well written.
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1 person found this helpful