Author: Mayci Neeley
Year published: 2025
Category: Adult nonfiction (memoir)
Pages: 288 pages
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Location: (my 2025 Google Reading map): USA (UT, CA)
Summary: Mayci Neeley and the women of MomTok burst into the center of pop culture when Hulu’s The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives took the world by storm. But the show barely scratched the surface of Mayci’s personal story. From becoming a mom at twenty, to losing her son’s father in a tragic car accident, to going back to college as a single mother, she’s only ever given us glimpses of the challenging things she’s been through. Now, finally, she’s ready to tell us everything.
In this inspiring and darkly funny memoir, Mayci lifts the veil for readers on what growing up Mormon is really like and how it’s strict standards completely blow up for many young people when they get to college. When Mayci arrived at BYU on a tennis scholarship, she was unprepared to manage the temptations she’d been taught were sins. She found herself drinking too much, stuck in an abusive relationship, and on the verge of falling down a dark and dangerous path. Suddenly, she was pregnant at nineteen and mourning a boyfriend she’d been building a future with. Mayci captures the period from college to adulthood with brutal honesty, grace, and humor, offering up a heartfelt portrait of a woman finding her voice and her strength.
All of these trials led to her current love story, her journey with IVF, and of course the inside story of MomTok. Fans looking for a juicy play-by-play on the friend group drama will get everything they want—and then some—but more than anything, readers will walk away with a sense of confidence in themselves and an ability to wear their scars proudly.
Review: This is not the sort of book that I would normally choose to read (memoir of a reality show person, Mormon, how I turned my life around, etc), but it was on the Book of the Month list and I had a free book so went for it.
Neeley writes in a very straightforward manner, which somehow makes the reading of abuse (sexual, alcohol, drugs) easier to read. But it does not take away from her horrible experiences. The Amazon summary above says it is darkly funny, but I think it's more practical; a telling of what happened with her emotions sparsely sprinkled throughout.
Neeley is blunt about her time at BYU, how much she broke the rules with drinking, drugs, and premarital sex. She is also honest about how she allowed herself to continue the behavior even though she didn't think she should be doing it, but she liked living on the edge. However, the edge can overcome us and it certainly did for her. Abuse at the hands of boyfriends is a central theme: Neeley trying to be happy, to make other people happy, and not knowing how to stand up for herself. As I read the memoir, I felt she was stand-offish about her experiences, but I think that is how she got through it all. If I distance myself from it, it's easier to handle.
She does end up in a good place though I think her choices to be on a reality TV show and put everything on TikTok are probably a way to get validation, support from online communities, and, yes, to help financially support her family. Luckily, Neeley has a very supportive family who help her through the trauma.
Challenges for which this counts:
- Diversity--Mormon (not my religion)
- Literary Escape--Utah
- Nonfiction
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