I’M PERFECT, YOU’RE DOOMED: Tales from a Jehovah’s Witness Upbringing

I’m Perfect, You’re Doomed is not only a memoir of her time in a faith often construed as a cult but also a tale of OCD, addiction, and broken families.

For most, Jehovah’s Witnesses mean a knock on the door, an occasional interruption to one’s day. For stand-up comic and poet Kyria Abrahams, the religion was a way of life for her first 23 years. I’m Perfect, You’re Doomed is not only a memoir of her time in a faith often construed as a cult but also a tale of OCD, addiction, and broken families. Jehovah’s Witnesses do not celebrate birthdays or Christmas and believe that those who do (known as “worldly” people) will perish in Armageddon. Abrahams recounts her strict upbringing, her marriage at the age of 18, and a dark spell of drinking and cutting herself when her husband won’t let her work, until, eventually, she finds her salvation in worldly folk. Abrahams tackles her story with deft humor—her riff on how her public-school teachers dealt with her strict religious rules is especially witty—and her comedy is enhanced by just how humorless her life has been. If you’re a believer in the equation that comedy equals tragedy plus time, I’m Perfect may serve as mathematical proof.