Review: Troublemaker by Leah Remini
Leah Remini grew up in Scientology, was inside the church for over thirty years, and finally left in 2013. Troublemaker is her account of all of it, from her mom dragging her into Scientology’s Sea Org as a kid, through her acting career, through the slow accumulation of red flags that eventually became impossible to ignore. I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Remini herself, and I’d recommend that format. Her voice is the whole thing.
This memoir works because Remini is exactly as blunt as her reputation suggests. She doesn’t pose as a victim and she doesn’t pose as a hero. She acknowledges that she was a true believer for a long time, that she said and did things she now regrets, and that leaving was complicated by friendship and family ties more than by belief. The Tom Cruise / Katie Holmes wedding chapter has gotten the most press, and yes, it’s wild, but the more affecting material is quieter: the way her mother is still in, the way old friends stop returning her calls, the financial bleed-out that reads as almost mundane after a while.
Where the book is weaker is the structure. Remini is a memoirist by necessity, not by craft, and the timeline jumps around in ways that occasionally trip you up. Some of the celebrity name-dropping feels included because publishing demanded it, not because it serves the story. And the ending, written before the documentary series that came later, leaves you mid-stride.
But honestly, that’s nitpicking. The point of this book is testimony, and as testimony it’s powerful and useful and not the kind of thing that gets written without cost.
For who? Anyone curious about Scientology from the inside, fans of cult-exit memoirs (Going Clear, Educated), readers who appreciate a narrator who swears.
Recommended. Listen to the audio.