#shari franke

[spurgie-cousin]

Honestly in Utah, which is ground zero for problematic religious family vloggers, this is such a huge deal. So proud of Shari for taking action and making a difference.

[bookquotesfrombooks]

“No child should have to earn a parent’s affection. And no amount of achievement can ever fill the void where unconditional love should be.”

Shari Franke

The House of My Mother

[jasper-book-stash]

I'm not done reveling in my end-of-year book stuff just yet. I have decided that, out of my favorite books that I read in 2025, I'd like to offer my favorite from each category. All thoughts about these books can be found by digging through my reading wrap up tag, this is just a list of what I think are what I would point to as my singular favorites from the year. Nonfiction gets two because I want it to.

Science Fiction: Starter Villain by John Scalzi

Mystery, Horror, Paranormal, Thriller: none this year

Contemporary, Historical, Western: Ban This Book by Alan Gratz

Religious Text, Mythology, Occult, Magical, Spiritual: Backwoods Witchcraft: Conjure & Folk Magic From Appalachia by Jake Richards

Romance, Erotica, Adjacent: Song Of The Crimson Flower by Julie C Dao

Fantasy: The Teller Of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong

Science Fantasy: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Poetry: none this year

Nonfiction: The House Of My Mother: A Daughter’s Quest For Freedom by Shari Franke The Serviceberry: Abundance And Reciprocity In The Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer

So that's it for 2025! Hopefully 2026 will bring some interesting reads for me to share along the way!

[litandlifequotes]

Sometimes, family isn’t just what you’re born into – it’s also what you build in the aftermath of loss.

The House of My Mother: A Daughter's Quest for Freedom by Shari Franke

[rosegardendeprofundis]

The House of My Mother by Shari Franke Review

Date Read: July 10, 2025

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Genre: Memoir

2025 Reading Goal: 58/100

While I did not keep up with 8 Passengers and Ruby Franke’s controversies when the YouTube channel was active, I was very interested in this book when I first heard about it because I believe the phenomenon of children being exploited on social media is a serious problem that will only get worse if something is not done about it. In the memoir, Ruby’s oldest daughter Shari Franke does a remarkable job of articulating how the lack of privacy and autonomy she had growing up affected her life and mental health.

Although Franke is known for 8 Passengers, this memoir is much more than a recap of the channels’ controversies. Rather, only a small portion of the book focuses on the channel while the rest focuses on Franke trying to navigate her young life in the wake of her mother’s abuse. It is clear that Shari feels strongly about protecting (what remains of) her youngest siblings’ privacy as she expresses her disapproval of the public’s true crime fascination with her youngest siblings’ abuse.

One thing that stuck out to me in this memoir is Franke’s journey with her faith and Mormonism. I have read and heard many testimonies about abuse under the guise of religious teaching in LDS church, and Franke is no exception. However, I was touched by how much support she was able to find from her found-family community and impressed with the way Franke was able to recognize the faults within the institution and reject corrupt religious leadership while maintaining a strong personal faith. This is a perspective I haven’t seen a whole lot in narratives that deconstruct Mormonism, and I am happy that Franke seems to have found peace.

I believe this is an important book in the era of family vloggers, and I highly recommend it to people who enjoyed Tara Westover’s Educated or Jennette McCurdy’s I’m Glad My Mom Died. It is a pretty fast-paced book with short chapters (I knocked it out in a day), but there is potentially triggering content if you are sensitive to depictions of child abuse, SA, or mental illness.

[hotmessrat]

The House of my Mother

By Shari Frankie

A must read, 8.5/10

I have always loved reading memories, and this one is of a topic I have been passionate for a while. Family blogging and the exploration of those children, and the abuse behind the scenes. I think this is a topic, while has been picking up speed, will be an unavoidable conversation in the next 5 years.

Shari does her do diligent in this telling of her life so far. He struggle mentally, how the dynamic in the home affected her.

I really appreciate that she doesn’t want to make her much younger siblings the apart of this story. Her eldest brother is but is a consenting adult. To take a stand and do what her mother didn’t, protect them. This is mostly about her and her journey with her mother and Shari’s internal and external struggles.

She broke my heart over and over again in this memoir. Doing a great job of laying out the foundation of how her mother was not turned evil by family blogging, but it gave her a platform to create an echo chamber of Ruby’s parenting decisions. How the perception of being a good mother, having complete control, and the love and acceptance of strangers was more satisfying than love, well being, and happiness of her children.

I could say so much about her father, and how he is just to blame as the Ruby is. Absentee and complacency. He is not innocent or the savor, while his hand in decisions was limited, he didn’t try to be advocating, and followed Ruby’s orders.

It’s still so new and I don’t want to put in any spoilers but if you want to talk about this book with me message me please, I need to talk about this book.

[endearingsalt]

I’m reading The House of My Mother by Shari Franke right now, and I’ve gotten to where Jodi Hildebrandt, the therapist who turned the mom’s abuse into true cult involvement, has entered the family’s life. This woman has my same grad degree and license type. At the time of the story, she’s board-licensed in Utah.

What’s most unsettling about hearing Shari recount her individual sessions with Jodi is that Jodi used a recognizable clinical modality. When the phrase “cognitive distortions” came up, I knew it was a term from CBT, obviously, but the thing is that I assumed Jodi’s list of distortions wouldn’t reflect reality. They do though. They’re being applied wrong, but they’re a genuine list of known cognitive distortions. The way she’s instructing Shari to use them is genuinely a kind of thought record, another CBT intervention.

I use cognitive distortions in my own practice. I have had them used with me as a client. As a client in undergrad, being exposed to them hurt me, because it created clinical language for the voice in my head to use against me before I had the coping skills to deal with that. Because of that experience, I approach with utmost caution when I utilize them as a therapist myself. Reading Jodi twist them into such an efficient tool of abuse is so unsettling because it’s something that I have tried to use for good, that I’ve seen inadvertently used for bad in my own life. Here, it’s used for evil. I don’t like that a tool I use myself can be used so easily to brainwash and manipulate.

I may use cognitive distortions as an intervention in my practice, but I don’t use CBT otherwise, and a large reason why is that as a cult survivor myself, even the by the book real method of keeping a “thought record” in CBT turns my stomach. I’ve known therapists who use true CBT to brilliant effect, but given my past, I can’t find it in myself to do it. After reading this book, my resolve on that is even stronger.

[allthegothihopgirls]

shocked but not surprised to learn that ruby franke and jodi hildebrandt most likely shared a physical relationship at one point. it definitely makes everything about the '8 passengers downfall' make just a little more sense.