

Beholden to The Family’s strict rules, Daniella suffers physical, emotional, and sexual abuse -masked as godly discipline and divine love -and is forbidden from getting a traditional education.Īt fifteen years old, fed up with The Family and determined to build a better and freer life for herself, Daniella escapes to Texas. Her mother, at thirteen, was forced to marry the leader and served as his secretary for many years.


Her great-grandmother donated land for one of The Family’s first communes in Texas. In the vein of Educated and The Glass Castle, Daniella Mestyanek Young's Uncultured is more than a memoir about an exceptional upbringing, but about a woman who, no matter the lack of tools given to her, is determined to overcome.īehind the tall, foreboding gates of a commune in Brazil, Daniella Mestyanek Young was raised in the religious cult The Children of God, also known as The Family, as the daughter of high-ranking members. "A painful and propulsive memoir delivered in the honest tones of a woman who didn’t always think she’d live to tell her story." -The New York Times
