Review: "From the Ground Up" by Noell Jett

From the Ground Up by Noell Jett
Published March 2022 via Thomas Nelson
★★

Jett grew up without a lot of money but with a whole host of religious restrictions, and when that particular form of religion fell out of the picture, things got harder for a while—and then she learned to monetize her life and build her dream house out of sponsorships and sponsorship money.

I read this because I enjoy house-building adventures as long as they're vicarious, and I also have an interest in cult memoir. Unfortunately, though this might be a good book for someone looking to be an influencer, it wasn't really the book for me—there's actually startlingly little about the house (I learned that there are porcelain counters and a brick accent wall, and...that's about it), which would interest me, but lots and lots about how to put your life on the Internet to get brand deals, which...doesn't interest me. I think part of this is because the book deal came about because someone reached out to Jett about writing a book, which is to say that the she took an opportunity that came to her rather than knowing that she had a story to tell in book form and telling that story. And obviously there's nothing wrong with that and she's found her readers—but it results in a different sort of story, and I ended up not being the reader for it.

I suspect, having read this, that the other book Jett got out of that collaboration might have more details about building the house, but I'm here for story rather than how-to, so I don't think I'll go looking for that one.