Trouble Maker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientolgy by Leah Remini

This is not a book I would have normally chosen to read but one day when I was out of books from the library I asked my daughter if she had any good reading material and she gave me this book. So I started reading and almost immediately found myself pulled into this story. Before I read her book I had no idea who was Leah Remini was. I am not a big TV watcher and really don't follow celebrities so I was clueless. I learned that Remini is an actress who played on the show King of Queens,and was on Dancing With the Stars as well as playing various other roles. This book is basically her autobiography but is as much about her experience with Scientology as it is her story of how she became a successful actor.

In this book Leah Remini describes how she was brought into Scientology as a child and her experiences within the organization as she grew up. For much of her early life she truly believed that Scientology was the path to fulfillment and that if she would only work had enough and advance far enough through the levels that she would not only be successful and happy but she would also help to save the earth.

Many of her experiences with the organization were somewhat helpful to her, but that was the very thing that pulled her in so deep that she had a very difficult time extricating herself from the grip of Scientology when she began to realize the fallacy and even danger of many of it's teachings.

Leah Remini is very direct and sometimes confrontational,  but she doesn't shy away from the truth - about her herself or her experiences with Scientology. She is very candid in her writing of her early childhood, her father leaving and her mother joining Scientology, and her experiences growing up in in the Scientology organization. It was a hard life but she truly believed she was becoming a better person and also helping to save the planet. Through her early adult years she continued to take the time consuming and expensive courses required even though she was working very hard to establish her career as an actress. And she gave generous financial contributions as she became successful and even more generous contributions as an established actress. However as she moved higher in the organization she began to see major inconsistencies in how those in the lower ranks were expected to live and act and how the "higher" ranked individuals lived. As she began to ask questions and resist some of the very strange limits imposed on her she began to be treated as someone who was a threat to the organization. She was basically interrogated, lost friends, and lost the support of those she had trusted, causing her to have even more questions.

Eventually Remini left the organization. As she was writing this book a couple years after leaving she still found herself often questioning her own way of thinking and her perspective of the world around her. But as she is learning to think for herself, to realize the extent of the indoctrination and brainwashing, and even abuse that occurred and to relish a life of freedom. She is grateful that her family has stood with her even though they were also Scientology members and that she is able to raise her daughter differently.