"Every day is not easy," says Jill Duggar Dillard, "and right now is one of those seasons." As a member of one of reality television's most familiar and unquestionably largest families, the fourth Duggar child spent her formative years playing the role she most wanted to fill, the "good girl," the "Sweet Jilly Muffin." But then she married and began to assert her adult independence. And then the revelations about her brother Josh's abuse emerged.
In her new memoir, "Counting the Cost," Duggar Dillard reveals a complicated, remarkably relatable story of faith and family loyalty — and of finding one's own way forward in ways that diverge from them. The "cost" in her life has been contractual, financial and emotional. She reveals her protective, ambitious, controlling father, who in one stunning confrontation, she tells, "You treat me like the prodigal who's turned her back on you. You treat me worst than my pedophile brother." She reveals the "all encompassing, overwhelming sense of horror" when the details of her abuse investigation were published. And she remains steadfastly faithful and hopeful, a proud mother of three who tries to see with clarity both "the roses and the thorns."
