Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing

I am so glad I decided to read this out of spite.

That's very glib, I'm sorry. I don't want to give you the impression that I haven't thought about this extensively, because I am not the type of person who makes any decision or judgment without overthinking it into oblivion. And I have thought about Lauren Hough and all that surrounds her a lot. Like, an embarrassing amount of a lot. But I don't want to use a review to get on a soap box or make rationalizations or justifications. I really just want to tell you that this book is incredible. I will tell you that after all my overthinking, what I kept coming back to was this - I don't think Lauren Hough is a person who acts out of hate, merely someone who is complicated, who has made mistakes, and is still learning, and still changing. And most importantly, that she is still a person worth listening to.

Also - she had a right to be mad. That's something that, with over a year out from that whole thing where a certain highly-motivated portion of you decided to one-star this book, I feel very unambiguously about. She had a right to be mad, and she had a right to be as ugly about it as she wanted to be. One day, you will all figure that out.

Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing might be one of the best things I've ever read. A memoir in essays, written in a grounded but lyrical prose that worms itself into your head, it is hilarious, irreverent, gut-wrenching and inspiring. I feel a little self-conscious about saying it's inspiring, that it's relatable, that it's validating, when my life was so drastically different from Hough's. I don't typically read literary non-fiction. I meant it when I said I read this out of spite, I am for the most part a genre fiction person. I don't like the idea of wading into someone's trauma for the sake of entertainment. But this isn't trauma porn - this is about class, this is about gender, this is about sex and community and learning to become the person you are when no one taught you how.

“Solitaire,” the first essay is an easy favorite, covering her history in the Children of God, her unreliable hippie parents, her military service and the discrimination she suffered due to her sexuality. I read the majority of it by the pool and found myself wanting to get up and pace like a mad woman. Much like the “Cable Guy” piece that went viral and got her the opportunity to write this book, it is a fantastic and infuriating piece of writing. The book doesn't lose any steam after that. “Slide” and “Badlands” will make you far more aware of the money you make and waste, the food you throw away, the homes and support you take for granted. “Boys on the Side” is incredible for how hilarious it is, despite talking about Hough's rape in the military and the deep fear that came with being young and gay in the 90s. Knowing that this woman had to give herself a pep talk in the bathroom mirror when she had sex with a woman for the first time was so validating for a late-blooming baby gay like me. “How to Make an Enemy” is a brutal disassembly of Hough's own bad habits and coping mechanisms, created by an insecure and abusive childhood that led to an adulthood of hypervigilance and passivity. It is all, like everything, about finding a way to be safe and to be loved.

The book gets harder to read from that point, even when it was already hard, but it is very worth it. I realized that I had to stop reading it before bed because I wouldn't sleep well afterward, as my mind and body would be buzzing. It sneaks up on you. Hough doesn't write like she's trying to make you feel bad for her, or to even make you understand what any of this felt like. The most descriptive she gets is in “Cell Block,” a justifiably brutal portrayal of her experience in jail, after getting into a fight with and making an enemy of a well-connected person in her community. But even through all that, even as she talks about her slide into depression in adulthood, her anger and defiance coupled toxically with a crippling inability to advocate for herself, there is still this desire in her to push through. She says in the final essay, “Everything That's Beautiful Breaks My Heart,” a manifesto-esque examination of our modern world through the eyes of someone who tried her best to be a part of it and found it hollow, “But the thing I know about depression is if you want to survive it, you have to train yourself to hold on; when you can see no reason to keep going, you cannot imagine a future worth seeing, you keep moving anyway. That's not delusion. That's hope. It's a muscle you exercise so it's strong when you need it.”

It's honestly incredible that anyone could come within ten feet of this book and not recognize its brilliance. It is a valuable piece of queer history, a striking portrayal of poverty and working class life, layered with the knowledge and acute perspective of someone who understands cult thinking and cult behavior inside and out. All things that are incredibly important to understand always but especially now. A writer doesn't have to be a perfect person to create valuable work. Most are far from it, in fact. And insisting that everything you read and consume be created by someone as pure as the driven snow is not going to create a world of valuable art. Not to mention, you will also drive yourself insane in the process. Look, I'm not going to try to tell anyone how to live their life, and if it wasn't clear by now, I would probably ride to hell and back for this woman at this point. But let me make a suggestion - you don't actually have to put yourself in contortions over every perceived misdeed. You can just let things be. Understand the “isness,” as Aldous Huxley called it, of something or someone and move forward. Or don't. This advice goes for everyone, by the way.

As for Hough, It doesn't take much to see the very clear throughline between what she describes going on in her own head and what we see her do. She responded to trauma by erasing herself, and letting herself and her identity belong to other people. It was only when she was fighting for someone else that she was finally able to stand her ground. She literally lays this all out in “Badlands,” when she talks about her experiences as a bouncer. It's also not hard to see how once someone like this has the slightest bit of control and power - and the detachment of the internet certainly provides some of that - a similar effect happens. It wasn't until barely a decade ago, according to her, that Hough really began to become herself, to set boundaries, to define herself and take pride in all the ways she is different, as opposed to assimilating.

It's possible she over-corrected.

Or maybe she didn't. Maybe she did what she's always done. Maybe she became exactly what you wanted her to be.