I read every OTD Memoir so you don't have to

Tier list of every memoir about Leaving Orthodoxy

Over the past few weeks, I read every single otd memoir I could find. Why? I'm honestly not sure. I think I just became curious how the otd journey is portrayed in literature and if it reflects any of my own experiences. Now that I read them all, I can have some fun and give my opinions as if they matter deeply.

I decided to rank each book in a tier list. So here goes:

D Tier: Don't Bother

This is the bottom of the barrel. OTD memoirs that absolutely fail and you can confidently skip.

Becoming Eve by Abby Stein

Becoming Eve was not my cup of tea. I found it very poorly written. Every conversation read as completely contrived to me, and the prose felt juvenile and off. Although, in the author’s defense, English is not Abby’s first language.

My biggest issue is that the book isn't really about a journey to becoming transgender or a journey to become OTD. It’s a coming-of-age story set in the Chassidic world, with the occasional, "I'm a girl, I thought to myself" thrown in for flavor. Abby's feelings of being a girl while growing up as a Chassidic boy never actually impact the plot.

The entire narrative feels artificial. There are countless stilted dialogues that do not resemble real conversations. The story jumps around chronologically for no apparent reason. And my goodness, does Abby love reminding you of her great rabbinic lineage. It’s an interesting fact but I grew tired of hearing it.

In this book, Abby is always special. She realizes she's a girl at two years old and never wavers. She's a genius throughout. She never accepts what they teach in yeshiva and reads Richard Dawkins and Kaballah instead. Please. I have trouble believing this.

To top it all off, the moment the story finally gets to the part where Abby goes off the derech, it just stops. You never get the actual journey out or the transition. It’s an interesting story about growing up Chassidish, but it's not well told at all. I’d save your time and read something else. There are far better OTD memoirs and trans memoirs out there.

Apparently, there is now an off-broadway show based on this memoir. Maybe it’s better.

Uncovered by Leah Lax

Uncovered follows Leah Lax’s journey as a baal teshuva who joins the Chabad community, marries, raises a family, and ultimately leaves to come out as a lesbian. This premise could have been fascinating. It’s the only OTD memoir I know of written by someone who didn't grow up religious. I came to this book with so many questions: What drew her to Chabad in the first place? What did she love about it? What was the breaking point that made her leave?

Unfortunately, none of those questions are answered. Instead, the book seems to revel in showing how crazy and backward the Chabad community was, framing it as little more than a cult she was stuck in.

My main issue is with the narrator, who shows no growth or agency. It’s as if there's a secular lesbian trapped inside her the whole time, scoffing at the rules and being tortured by them. But you chose this life, lady! How can you blame a community for its rules when you chose to join it? I want to know why you joined. What did you love? I grew to freaking hate the narrator. She takes no responsibility for anything; everything she does is because someone else told her to. She doesn't say one nice thing about the Chabad community, and it feels like she never wanted to be a part of it, even when she was.

I also hated the prose. It's way too literary, full of dumb, flowery language that detracts from the story. Some examples:

"In the background is Levis furious whispering of Psalms, like whistling rockets to God." What does that even mean? How are chapters of Tehillim like whistling rockets to God?

Or this gem, when talking about cleaning for Passover: "The spiritual lives of my children hung from my washcloth." My God, you're so freaking dramatic.

This absolutely fails as an OTD memoir.

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C Tier: It's Worth Reading

These were good reads, but had some deep flaws.

Cut Me Loose by Leah Vincent

Leah Vincent's Cut Me Loose is a short and easy read, but also a very traumatizing one. This book isn't really about the frum community or the process of leaving it. At its core, it’s about having insane parents who abandon their child for not being religious enough and the horrific ways men will take advantage of innocent girls. I didn't expect to read rape scenes in such gruesome detail and did not enjoy those parts.

This was the only memoir I could find that's specifically about the Yeshivish community, and I enjoyed that aspect. It was a bit jarring, though, for her to keep calling the community "Yeshivish" when they don't really refer to themselves that way. Despite its flaws, the book is an important portrayal of religious extremism and what can happen when parents abandon a child with no resources. I really hate her parents. They are the shittiest parents I've ever read about in a memoir, and that's saying something. I just wish she had delved more into her Yeshivish upbringing and why her parents were so intense instead of focusing on her sexual traumas.

My other main criticism is that the book focuses almost entirely on the "sin" and very little on the "salvation" promised in the subtitle. I wish she had written more about how she healed and built a new life. How did she get into Harvard? How did she fall in love with a fellow OTD person? Did she go to therapy? So much was left unsaid, with all her incredible accomplishments and how she healed summarized hastily in the last chapter.

All in all, it’s a decent book, but it fails as an OTD memoir and should probably be retitled "My Sexual Traumas in Great Detail."

Brazen by Julia Haart

From the star of My Unorthodox Life (which I never watched) comes the Gadol biography of OTD stories. It starts with how much of a genius Julia is and continues by telling incredible stories about her life, all meant to inspire you. This is objectively a bad book, but it was one of my favorite reads. It's just so entertaining, and Julia is a great storyteller. Reading this is like watching a dumb reality TV show and enjoying how ridiculous the people on it are. I literally laughed out loud at some points.

The main issue is that Haart is rarely emotionally vulnerable. For example, she tells us she was suicidal at one point but never explores the actual feelings or reasons why. She instead focuses on the inspirational stuff. Which is actually very frum of her. Most of the book covers her life as a frum woman, filled with crazy stories about herself and her family. Then, towards the end, she escapes, has a lot of sexcapades, and describes them in great detail in the same bizarrely inspirational tone which is honestly kind of hilarious.

My favorite part, which captures the book's absurdity perfectly, was when she gave her take on the Kuzari proof! She believes in the Kuzari proof wholeheartedly (which makes me doubt her acclaimed genius), but her main issue with it is that we only heard Hashem say "I am your God" and "You shall have no other gods before me." Everything else is from Moshe Rabbeinu, and therefore the Kuzari proof doesn't apply to it. So we can't trust the rest of the Torah. Honestly, hilarious.

Julia’s had a crazy life and is a really good narrator. I highly recommend the audiobook for some top-tier entertainment. She still sounds exactly like an inspirational Beis Yaakov teacher, and it's comedy gold.

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B Tier: Pretty, Pretty Good

Solid reads, but didn’t blow me away.

Gaytheist by Lonnie Mann

Lonnie Mann's Gaytheist is a graphic novel about a gay, Modern Orthodox kid from the Five Towns. My main issue is with the way the story is framed. The author paints his upbringing as an oppressive cult, but honestly, compared to other OTD memoirs, his experience seems pretty mild.

This is most obvious in his "escape," which involves his parents sending him to a secular camp where he makes secular gay friends (absolute peak Modern Orthodox). It feels less like a dramatic escape and more like he simply "drifts away" from the community, which is a very different kind of story. He also abruptly ends the book before really exploring how he left and where he left off with his parents. The entire book is really about his childhood.

With all that said, it's genuinely interesting to read the thoughts and experiences of someone who grew up frum and gay, and it's a beautiful graphic novel. The art alone makes it a worthwhile read, even if the narrative definitely has that annoying navel gazing aspect of “wow, look how weird Orthodox Jews are.”

Unorthodox by Deborah Feldman

I watched the infamous TV show when it came out, but the book is so different. It’s mostly a book about growing up in the Satmar community, secretly understanding it's a cult (yeah, I don’t really buy that), and planning an eventual escape. Only the last chapter covers Deborah Feldman's actual departure, and most of it is her coming-of-age story in Satmar Williamsburg.

Honestly, the plot would have put this in C-Tier for me, except for the fact that it’s very well written. The quality of the prose just elevates the entire experience, making it simply a good memoir on a technical level.

This book was super controversial when it came out, especially because it’s the most popular OTD memoir of all time. A lot has been written about how Feldman left out a ton (like a younger sister), misrepresented when her mother left, and was actually the one who ran away from her mother to live with her grandparents. Okay, so it might be more of a novel than an accurate memoir.

But who cares? It's still a very well-written story about a chassidish girl growing up. While it might not be totally accurate to her specific life, it doesn't seem so far off from a standard Satmar upbringing. (Admittedly, I didn't grow up Satmar, so I have no real idea.) It's a good book though, regardless of whether it's 100 percent accurate or not.

The Book of Separation by Tova Mirvis

The Book of Separation is a personal account of a Modern Orthodox woman from Memphis who leaves her marriage and her Orthodox community. It's a very well-written and interesting exploration.

I appreciate that this story is about a Modern Orthodox woman, not a Chareidi one, which makes it a very different story from many other OTD memoirs. The book is less about escaping a cult and more about a deep, internal cognitive dissonance. Mirvis portrays herself as a left-wing, feminist novelist torn by the aspects of Judaism that went against her personal values. This conflict is perfectly summarized when, after she finally leaves, a friend remarks, “yeah, it never really made sense to me that you were Orthodox.”

The narrative explores profound questions: Can you be an artist and also be frum (looking at you - My Name is Asher Lev)? Can you be a feminist and also be frum? Her eventual answer to these questions is a definitive 'nope.' While the story is thematically rich, it did get boring at times. A particularly interesting moment for me was when she took part in The Orthodox Forum at YU and stood up to the rabbis there. I would say it’s the climax of the book. But most of the actual story was kind of standard modox upbringing which isn’t really anything that interesting.

One passage I really really liked was her getting her gett. The mixture of sadness and elation at being free from her marriage and frumkeit really hit. It was published in the New York Times if you want to read just that passage. She also had a great podcast episode interview with an ex-mormon that explored her journey and compared it to those that leave mormonism.

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A Tier: The Real Deal

To get into A Tier, a memoir can't have any of that "Oh my gosh, look at these strange Orthodox Jews and their crazy customs. Can you imagine I escaped this? I must be so amazing!" nonsense that a lot of the others have. These are genuinely interesting stories with good writing that hooks you from the beginning to end.

Foreskin's Lament by Shalom Auslander

Foreskin’s Lament is very dark and pessimistic but so well written, with a truly unique voice. Auslander isn't your standard atheist. He firmly believes in God and also believes He's an asshole who is out to get Shalom. This book is dark humor at its finest, and it's hilarious.

The story begins with a single question, "Should I give my newborn son a circumcision?" It then uses this as a frame to explore his entire life, from his childhood and teenage years to adulthood. I appreciated that this book was a full exploration, as opposed to many other OTD memoirs. He doesn't just write about one area of his life but goes through it all, focusing on the raw emotion and how different events and teachings traumatized him. Along the way, he does a great job of showing both the Monsey frum community of his childhood and the Modern Orthodox one he later encounters.

The book is filled with memorable, funny moments that stem from its bleak worldview. My favorite part was when he and his wife decided to walk all the way from Teaneck to Madison Square Garden on Shabbos to see a show. The absurdity of it is just hilarious. He also shows an interesting encounter with his uncle, Rabbi Norman Lamm. Let’s just say, it’s not exactly flattering.

Overall, this is a fantastic memoir driven by a powerful voice and a compelling, neurotic relationship with God. I also love his Substack, and his more recent memoir, Feh, was great too.

All Who Go Do Not Return by Shulem Deen

Shulem Deen's All Who Go Do Not Return was fantastic. It could have been the perfect OTD memoir, if not for one significant flaw: the author is never emotionally vulnerable.

The book describes Shulem’s intense intellectual journey: how he joins the Skver community of New Square as a teen, how he becomes disillusioned, and how he ultimately loses his faith. It's one of the only OTD memoirs that successfully captures what made him love the community in the first place, as well as the reasons for his journey out. The book is also extremely well written. I'm impressed that someone who grew up speaking Yiddish as a first language could write English with such skill.

The problem is that we only get the intellectual side. We are told about his changing beliefs, but we are never truly shown his feelings. We are told the fucked-up things that happens but never his emotional reaction to them. Instead, the entire memoir is filtered through a detached, analytical lens that keeps the reader at a distance from the heart of the story.

If only we could blend the two Shaloms (Shulem Deen and Shalom Auslander) to create the perfect Alpha Shalom. A memoir that combines Deen's rationalistic exploration with Auslander's raw emotions would be the perfect OTD memoir.

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S Tier: The Unholy of Unholies

The pinnacle. Required reading.

The Autobiography of Solomon Maimon

This book is the first OTD memoir ever written, from 1793, and it is just wiiild. It's about someone from a very frum family in Eastern Europe who leaves for Berlin and the burgeoning Haskalah movement.

It's just a wack book. He gets married at eleven and tries to stomp on his new wife's foot to show that he'll dominate her, but she stomps on his first! At one point, he learns Kabbalah to figure out how to turn himself invisible. Thinking he's invisible, he smashes a pot of milk on his mother-in-law's head, whom he hates. Spoiler alert, he learns he wasn’t actually invisible and his mother-in-law has milk sopping down her face.

He eventually ditches his family to become a wandering shnorrer so he can become the great philosopher genius he was meant to be. He explores Chassidus, with a firsthand account of meeting the Maggid of Mezeritch. He claims a Chassid ran in, excited that his wife had a baby girl. The Maggid ordered him whipped because he dared to celebrate a girl. Only a boy should be celebrated.

He tries to get into Berlin, but they turn him away because he's a beggar, and he just wanders. He eventually does get into the Berlin scene and actually becomes a chashuva philosopher who knew Mendelssohn, but it's a crazy journey. His wife then tracks him down and gets him to give her a gett. It's a nutty book. Definitely worth a read. And for its sheer, unadulterated historical insanity, it just has to be S Tier.

Kissing Girls on Shabbat by Sara Glass

Sara Glass's Kissing Girls on Shabbat is such a perfect OTD memoir. It avoids the pitfalls of many in the genre by simply being a good story that grabs you from the first second and never lets go.

The book starts with a bang, with the narrator growing up in Boro Park and secretly making out with a fellow Beis Yaakov girl. From there, the story covers an incredible amount of ground: her marriage to a frummie in Lakewood who wouldn't even look at her when she was in niddah; her life as a single woman, which includes dating a dangerous man who literally holds a gun to her head; her journey to college; and a second marriage to a more Modern Orthodox man from the Five Towns. All of this is interwoven with her sister's struggle with bipolar disorder and her own gradual discovery of her sexuality, which leads her out of both her marriage and the frum community.

What makes the book so powerful is its honesty. The narrator doesn't always paint herself as the good guy. For instance, she shows how her second husband helps raise her up, only for her to leave him after she realizes she's gay, acknowledging the love that was still there for both of them. It's this willingness to portray her own complex and sometimes unflattering actions that makes the story feel so authentic.

Ultimately, this is a fascinating life story that is very well told. It's also clear the author still cares about the community she left. She even appeared on a frum podcast to have a thoughtful conversation about sexuality and OTD, which I really loved. It’s a compelling, honest, and highly recommended read.

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Okay.

Was that actually every single OTD memoir ever published? Probably not. But if you have other recommendations that I missed, please don’t tell me. I’m not reading them! I’m sick of this genre. We get it. You had an intense religious upbringing. Shkoyach. Unless, you actually have a crazy story to tell like Sara Glass or Salomon Maimon, I’m not interested.

And to my OTD readers who are wanna-be memoir writers: please don’t. Please. It’s been done way too many times before. Unless you read every book on this list and still have a truly unique story to tell, just chill. Tell your memoir to your therapist instead. Or go on a podcast. You can also try fiction. Write the next Chaim Potok book instead of your memoir. There isn’t enough good frum fiction out there. Maybe that will be my next book list.