“Guter yid: But, if you do have connection to torah as you said, how come you don’t see anything wrong in this filthy book, and you side and fight for this evil writer, how do those 2 things go together??”
You obviously haven’t read the rest of the thread because if you had, you would have seen the answer to both questions.
I am, and have been, modeh that the book is disgusting and wrong. But it also begs the question: Why did she write it? So, many people in this thread were quick to call her a money grubber, spreading her “lies” for a quick buck, but that’s not what I saw when I read her book. Incidentally, she does say that she saw her story as a way out, a way to acquire the means necessary to “escape” from her marriage and her chassidishe life, but upon reading the book, that’s not what jumps out as the primary motivator.
How to even begin describing what I felt and what I thought while reading that book…
I see a person whose mother walked out on her. I see a little girl ashamed of her mentally deficient father and the stares, tsks, and “oy, what a rachmanus”s they got walking down the street together. I see a budding teenager raised by grandparents who couldn’t possibly understand her; her grandfather the unreachable, unattainable archetype. I see a young girl almost being raped by her older cousin. I see her crying in her bedroom, crumbling under the brunt of that terrible secret. I see her tossing and turning in bed as demons invade her dream.
I see a kid wondering why her cousin is being locked in a room rather than receiving treatment for schizophrenia. I see a young woman thrust into a marriage before she was ready. Someone who had her marital issues trotted out before the rest of her family like so much dirty laundry.
Now ask yourself this: After all that, who wouldn’t feel disenfranchised? Who wouldn’t be resentful toward her community? I’m sure she knew better when she wrote her book, but we all do aveiros and we all know better. Think back to the last time YOU sinned, ask yourself if you knew better? Did you know better the last time you told lashon hara? Why did you say it then, because it was a juicy story? Her excuse is better than yours.
What I just said doesn’t justify her book, it explains it. Her book, not through what it does say but rather through what it doesn’t, reveals many serious flaws that we have in our communities. UNorthodox is, perhaps, an improper method of presentation, but I believe there is what to be learned from it.