Bad Mormon: A Memoir

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I don’t know, man, maybe she just was like “teehee I have a blank Google docs that needs to get to 18,000 words, what should I say?” Maybe she truly just had no agenda and was feeling incendiary for some reason. Love your hair, Heather, can’t wait to have this book be talked about next season. No one's ever asked me to write my story before, and so when the opportunity came up, I jumped at it," the Bravo personality exclusively told Us Weekly ahead of the book's release. "But I really felt like it was important if I was going to break the legacy of generations before me, I wanted to make sure that I told it with my voice, with my experience, from my perspective ... and that I left no stone unturned. And it felt like the only way to do that was with a book."

Drinking and Tweeting meets Unorthodox in this vulnerable memoir about The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star’s departure from the Mormon Church, and her unforeseen success in business, television, and single motherhood. Gay is already defending her words, as she’s in active litigation with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon Church, over her trademark of the book title. There were a few references to LGBQT support and a super cringe chapter on the temple. It’s interesting that was her beef and main talking point, mostly because as much as I think that place is about as close to a great and spacious building (money laundering at its finest) as you can get, with a bit of Masonry yet mostly uplifting things going on inside, the temple is probably pretty far down on my shelf and also, growing up in the church, whether you believe in the temple or not, it is still a holy and sacred place (to many) and IMO not really something that I would throw out in a book. I mean it’s all out there on the internet anyways. That Mormon fear/guilt just reared its head. Yeah, the temple is definitely off limits Heather. 🙈 I think it gives them a lot of understanding about their parents, why we got divorced, why I made the sacrifices I made and how much they are loved,” she says. I do want to ask you some Housewives -specific questions: In the book you write about your time at BYU, where Lisa Barlow is the first Housewife who shows up in your story. How well did you really know each other in college? Would you have categorized yourself as friends?I...liked this? Surprise surprise, but honestly not very surprising because I had a feeling I would, just based on the title and well, I was right.

No stone goes unturned” ( People) in this memoir about The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Heather Gay’s departure from the Mormon Church, and her unforeseen success in business, television, and single motherhood. The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star, 48, released her first memoir, Bad Mormon, on Tuesday, February 7. The book covers everything from her childhood and post-college stint as a missionary to her marriage to ex-husband Billy Gay.And it was in that moment I realized that if you give a mouse a cookie, she takes the whole damn gâteau. I promptly repaid my mission president’s trust by immediately betraying it. I've read quite a few Mormon books now, whether mainstream or offshoot, and it feels like in every single branch the kids are confused about what happens in the Temple. Like a universal experience I guess? So I'm very thankful that Heather decided to share what actually goes on inside for everyone reading this. I felt peace. I felt calm. I felt more like myself and closer to God in that theater than I had felt over the past sixteen months of prayer-filled, scripture-filled missionary service. No prior feeling in France compared to the tranquility I had while cloaked in the sanctity of the theater watching the iceberg sink the ship. Here's the thing about rating memoirs: I feel bad when I have criticism because I am genuinely not trying to criticize the ~person. I am impressed by her tenacity and clear business sense, and it wouldn't be easy to be a single mom entrepreneur publicly leaving the church on national television. I do think she is a badass. That being said, I have some issues with this book.

What’s going to happen? You tell me. What are your parents going to do if they see me? Are they going to spit on me? Are they going to turn the other way? You know what I mean? Utah businesswoman and reality star Heather Gay was raised as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints but publicly left the religion during the first season of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. In her memoir, Gay discusses her faith journey and her departure from the LDS faith.If you decide to read Bad Mormon to learn more about the LDS church and the Mormon faith, it's a mixed bag. Gay may gloss over her personal life, but she is very candid about her experience in the LDS Church. Gay was not a fringe LDS or an extremist; her life was very much in the realm of the typical mainstream Mormon experience. Although she tries to explain terms to laymen, you might get lost in the Mormon lingo and cultural references. No stone goes unturned” ( People ) in this memoir about The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Heather Gay’s departure from the Mormon Church, and her unforeseen success in business, television, and single motherhood. Gay’s proposed trademark is trying to capitalize on the fame of the Mormon marks registered and controlled by the church and suggests a connection to the church under trademark law. “Bad Mormon” intends to create a false suggestion of connection to the church “by conveying stories of alleged former or existing members of the church behaving immorally, badly or otherwise contrary to the teachings of the church,” the filing stated. First off, let's talk about the quality of the memoir. I thought Gay was a pretty good writer for an amateur. She uses an overabundance of pop culture references and she has a tendency toward repetition, especially when she is trying to make a point. Some reviewers have complained that she is "playing the victim," but I thought she was in line with every other celebrity memoir I've read. I feel that every memoir must be taken with a grain of salt because they are, by nature, only one side of a story. And humans always tend to paint themselves in, if not the best light, then at least a more flattering one.

As seen in The New York Times, People, The Cut, Vulture, The Daily Beast, Today, Bustle, Us Weekly, Life & Style, and Interview

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Bad Mormon” also is a term so close to the marks controlled by the church that allowing its use for commercial gain could cause mistaken identity or deception, especially since Gay’s products and the church’s likely would move among similar markets and consumers, the filing stated. Now, no reason to read on unless you are interested in my unique perspective about Heather Gay, the LDS Church in relation to this memoir and living on the edge for most of my life. I would need to see her be authentic in a television space. Because as long as we’re on television, I just don’t see how we can navigate a relationship with any trust. But I think being off camera would probably be safer waters. That’s the dynamic. It’s the circumstances that have created the distrust, and those circumstances aren’t changing if we’re both filming. With writing that is beautiful, sad, funny, and true, Heather recounts the difficult discovery of the darkness and damage that often exists behind a picture-perfect life, while examining the nuanced relationship between duty to self and duty to God. Exposing secrets she once held sacred, Bad Mormon is an unfiltered look at the religion that broke her heart. I was so mesmerized by the sweet relief of anonymity and darkness, that I failed to see the connection.