Gather Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood And Scientology Picturized By Leah Remini Readable In Version

a bit challenged or dare I say put off by the cadence of this audio, I eventually got used to the speed and unique structure of the authors reading style.
She had to read her own story, of course, and to hear her read it is to connect to its authenticity.


This book surprised me, but not in the ways I expected, I marveled at her ability to balance her life in the Church with her life outside of it.
It seemed as if she spent a tremendous amount of time doing Church things, yet she didnt discuss this with her friends at all.
I was impressed by her ability to stay true to herself throughout the years, maintaining the parts of her personality that caused others to deem her a troublemaker, but that essentially are who she is at her core.
Above all, I was amazed that in the end, she called the Church out for allowing its top people to constantly break “policy” and behave in a way that was not permitted under Church law.
. . and then she walked away after getting a very long runaround about it, Thats badass.

I never planned to read this book because the two books Ive read about Scientology were more than enough for me.
The acronyms alone drive me crazy, Im surprised by how compelling this was and by just how much I liked Leah, She came across as loyal, genuine, a little crass but very real, Im sure she is a great friend,

We should all be afforded personal choice to leave any organization no questions asked, Period. Well done, Leah.

stars


While this isn't the most well written book around, the audio version is magnetic and you won't be able to turn away.


I loved, loved, loved listening to sitelinkLeah Remini tell her story, Her Brooklyn accent sounds like home to me I have no accent, but most of my family is from Queens and pronounces words the same way "whooare!".
She was a really engaging narrator and she made her story come alive,

I've already read a ton and watched a ton about the cult of Scientology and the crooks that run it, so those aspects of the story weren't anything new to me.
However, I felt so, so bad for Leah having to discover that everything that she had known was a lie.
Also, the chapters dealing with how children are treated in Scientology were very hard to swallow,

An excellent listen, and totally worth your time and money,
!!

The Most Average of Average Award

I will not be writing a review for this one.

I guess in a way, . . that is my review. I love sitelinkLeah Remini, I love her attitude, her candor, her directness, . . I think she's hilarious even when she's not trying to be, When I decided to read her memoir: sitelinkTroublemaker, I expected a lot more comedy than I got.
But I wasn't disappointed, I was actually pleasantly surprised,

The audiobook experience was excellent in my opinion, Leah narrates it herself and it's like she is speaking directly to the reader, She discusses her childhood, her family, her entry into the church of Scientology, and her career as an actress.
Yes, there was humor for sure, but mostly it was real, downtoearth discussion about her life, Her past devotion to Scientology took center stage most of the time as she shared the positives and negatives of her experiences, but I didn't hear the bitter ramblings of a disgruntled member.
I heard the passionate concern of someone who feels that her fellow Scientologists deserve better, more accountable and ethical leadership.


I knew next to nothing about Scientology before reading Leah's book so I feel like I learned a lot.
It wasn't all bad either so for that I have even more respect and admiration for Leah, She could have turned sitelinkTroublemaker into a total bitchfest, and if I'm being honest, it did verge on that at times, but any issue brought up circled back to the fact that sometimes leadership should be questioned a system of checks and balances put into place.
If prompting her church to consider this made Leah a troublemaker, then it seems she is resolved to keep making trouble.
After all, bitches get stuff done,


My favorite quote:
“We all have something to offer the world in some way, but by not being our authentic selves, we are robbing the world of something different, something special.
” When I realized that I had to read a biography for my reading challenge with the Machalo chicks this year, I was like, "No, please God, No!! I hate biographies! Just strike me down instead! Take my first born child!"

Okay, maybe that was a little crazy.
But, you know what's crazier Scientology!



And, the weird thing is that she doesn't even talk about the alien part of the religion.
Yet, it still comes off as batshit crazy along with being an extremely dangerous cult,

This book will make you so angry that you will want to kill Tom Cruise with a roll of cookie dough.
It makes sense if you read the book, . . not that you need to make sense, This shit is batshit crazy, plus, remember the jumping on the couch thing Yeah, cookiedough related murder is less crazy than Tom Cruise.


The abusiveness of this "church" is scary, They are seriously dangerous to anyone who comes in contact with them and I hope that more and more exmembers get up the nerve to speak out against them.
It seems like they are often afraid to do so, and even Leah was pretty soft in her language.
I'm just really glad that she was able to get out of it and is helping others who are going through the same thing.


On the other hand, there is a lot of money to be made in starting a "religion" like this.
Your average Scientologist is in for a half a million dollars by the time they make it to the top of bullshit mountain.
Chaching!

I just spent an embarrassingly long amount of time going down the Scientology rabbit hole.
How do people follow this so blindly, Pay me more to get to the next level! its straight up bonkers, The parts of this book about her life took a backseat to this crazy religion, And am I the only one left wondering where the leader of the cults wife is Really, where is she "Belief and faith are great, but very few people have been led astray by thinking for themselves.
"

I finished this book at one AM on a work night, when I had to be up atAM the next morning.
I did this even though I knew I would feel like shit the next morning, because I just couldn't help myself.
I was thinking, boy, I should go to bed! I'm going to regret this tomorrow and probably the days after! And then I just kept reading.
That is the power of this book, In the morning, my eyes were so dry I thought they were going to go all sleep monster on me:



I actually went into this book expecting to have a good time reading it, but not expecting to be very impressed.
I will admit I have a snobby bias against books that are ghostwritten, especially ones "written" by celebrities.
I just assume they're all money grabs, But once I got into this book, it took hold of me, Leah Remini is a pistol, She's brash and loudmouthed and admits that many people find her incredibly annoying, Right on the very first page, she admits to having done some terrible things, She says her family and her husband have done terrible things, But then you realize why she's telling you all this, and it's because she knows the Church of Scientology would have used all that information against in an effort to discredit her once the book came out.
So she did it for them, It's a powerful way to start out her story,

And her story ended up being fascinating, I know there are other published memoirs of people who grew up in the church, but I've never read one before.
My knowledge has mostly come from books like Going Clear and its subsequent HBO film, which focuses on the history of L.
Ron Hubbard and his church, and the more organizational aspects of it, Reading it from the perspective of one of its parishioners this is what Leah calls them, so I will too, even though I would prefer to call them cult members was fascinating.
She walks you through the whole thing, her way of thinking, how and why the religion meant so much to her, what her life was like because of it.
And all the while you're horrified by what Scientology does to her and those around her, you also understand how she could remain so dedicated and loyal for so long.
That's how cults workthey are designed to hook people and keep them,

Leah Remini's book is a fascinating artifact of a person who survived a cult, You can see the way her thinking is shaped by her experiences, and you can see how she resists.
Her story is a good one for this type of book because she saw and experienced so many different aspects of the religion, as an early and failed member of the SeaOrg, as a standard parishioner, and after she'd worked her way up in Hollywood, as one of the church's celebrity VIPs, for a while in the inner circle with Tom Cruise.
And you can see that it's only after she's completely out of the church that the full scope of what Scientology has done occurs to her.
These were actually the most fascinating parts for me, when she talked about the work she's had to do, the therapy, to essentially deprogram her brain.
I wish there had been more of it, but then, she's only been out for two years, and still has a long road ahead of her.


If you like Leah as an actress, and if you are interested in Scientology or cults, I would definitely recommend this.
Her particular and very unique voice shines through, even though the book is ghostwritten by

Rebecca Paley, who acquits herself very well in making her writing presence as invisible as possible.
.