I just finished her memoirs "The Regional New York Mormon Halloween Dance" and was amused but saddened too.
Her Dad seemed to take great pains to give them a chance to see the world through "reality eyes", but her Mom came across as a real nut job. Elna seems to get a lot of mileage out of her childhood but has anybody seen her act in real life? Does she continue to milk the "crazy"of her Mormoness?

I gave my kids a trip to Yugoslavia one to Guam, Australia, Micronesia and Europe,but they all turned religious on me.
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/14/2012 12:28PM by librarian.

I read that book too, and I gave it to my daughter, who's now 19. Elna's mother in the book really bothered me too. Elna herself is no longer Mormon, she left the religion fairly recently. I have no idea how she incorporates it into her standup act now, but it will probably be an ongoing thing in her life with her family and all.
It's interesting, I saw a wedding photo of Elna's sister, with Elna as one of the bridesmaids. Her sister married someone from Turkey, not Mormon in ANY way shape or form. The groom's family looked very traditional; they weren't wearing western style clothing. I can only imagine how Elna's TBM mother felt about that, but hey, the times, they are a'changin' whether LD$ Inc likes it or not.

I read the book a couple months ago. I liked her humor and the fact that she openly acknowledges that Mormonism is a weird religion. And she was very honest about the struggles of being a single, independent Mormon woman. But my issue was that the entire book she kept wavering back and forth between wanting to be Mormon and not wanting to be Mormon. And she never really made a choice, at least not in the book. Although she's out now, so I guess if she re-wrote the book it would have been a better ending.

yes, I was bothered by that and was going to tell my daughter to read it, but changed my mind.
it would seem like I was always focusing on her weird religion in book choices.
right now I am almost through another book, The Holy Ghost Girl, and the story of David Terrel spools out in a very familiar manner, with chicanery and more than one wife!
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