REVIEW: The Earth Is Flat?! And Other Things My Mother Taught Me by Susan Huckle

Reviewed by Chanda Daniels

I was always curious about how conspiracy theories start: are they ideas that just spark, or rumors that spread so wide enough that if enough people believe it, it must have some truth? In The Earth Is Flat?! And Other Things My Mother Taught Me by Susan Huckle (Bootsie Glines Books; April 2026), I learned that sometimes it’s a much simpler answer: what you hear, when it goes unchallenged long enough, becomes truth and who we become once we decide for ourselves.

Through a series of essays written as short vignettes, Huckle takes us through the slow unlearning of some of the fringe ideologies instilled by the evangelical church. Raised in an ultraconservative evangelical home, Huckle recounts her early years as an only child who was homeschooled, with nearly all of her social interactions taking place within the confines of her family and church. This upbringing lays the groundwork for the intense beliefs she developed and the worldview her mother steadfastly instilled in her.

As we read, Huckle’s world gradually opens up. From homeschooling in elementary school to attending high school and interacting with students her own age for the first time, and eventually moving on to college, then on her own in LA, each new experience expands her understanding of the world. As her world grows bigger, the threads holding together her tightly woven evangelical beliefs start to fray and unravel.

Reading this book during our current moment in history was illuminating. I, myself, grew up very religious, though in a different way. My religious foundation was rooted in using Christianity to question conformity and fairness. I understood Jesus as a disruptor, someone meant to challenge institutions and systems in order to promote equity. Yet, when we look at religious extremism and evangelical culture, questioning is often presented as a threat to belief, while certain ideas are treated as unquestionable fact. Both perspectives cannot easily coexist, and that conflict is central to the author’s journey toward finding her own beliefs in the space between what she was taught not to question and what she eventually learned is not true at all.

That balancing act brings a sense of relatability to a very unique coming of age story. This memoir is about choosing expansion when your family expects to follow a similar path. A questioning of what is the truth, and to go out beyond the comfort of what you know to learn things for ourselves. That is an issue that transcends just the single author into the wider landscape. As we have self sorted ourselves through beliefs where too many are bought into ridge beliefs without recognizing the patterns, we are a mirror for the sake of belonging, while overlooking the new realities we find ourselves in.

The process of becoming is a rattling experience, and Huckle explores it in depth as old beliefs collide with new experiences and actions. The struggle to find your identity after growing up under the influence of your family is universal, but what makes this memoir compelling is the tension between the person Huckle pretends to still be for her parents later in life and the person she is outside of that. That tension reaches a boiling point that is deeply relatable, particularly for anyone who has had to reconcile their own growth with the expectations of the people who raised them.

This memoir asks us for empathy and understanding in places where I naturally tend to find myself being stingy to give it. Through her raw honesty, even in the less than flattering moments, it helped me hold space in her evolution. While I will never believe the earth is flat like her mother, there is a distinction between recognizing the spectacle of ignorance and extending genuine curiosity about how someone came to believe what they do. This story reminded me that the answer is often more interesting than the blanket judgments I’m accustomed to making. Politics, religion, and personhood are so intricately intertwined, and some of the book’s strongest moments come when Huckle looks beyond her own experience to reflect on how values presented as righteous and good can cause lasting harm beyond the seemingly black and white repercussions religion can construct around them.

There are also themes of grief and loss that remind us of the fundamental things we all have in common, as well as the stakes of being human. Readers who are sensitive to these topics may want to approach the book with care.

For readers who liked Educated by Tara Westover, this book will give you a similar candid peek into a life that may feel far away from yours, but through the lens of someone who evolved from it. Huckle doesn’t hate her mother, but instead reflects on what their paths looked like, she reflects on what might have been possible if her mother, too, had been given the opportunity to expand her world in the same way. I, for one, had mine opened through this book.