“In Wordly Girls, [Jong’s] striking debut memoir-in-essays, Jong unpacks her indoctrination and subsequent disillusionment with the religion that formed so much of her identity—as well as her adult struggles with depression, infertility and estrangement—with remarkable vulnerability.” —Winnipeg Free Press 

“Jong is unflinching in her exploration of grief and while she guards her privacy, grace and her dignity, she lets the reader into the room of loss and longing, allowing us to sit beside her.” —Lisa De Nikolits, A Turn of Phrase Substack 

“Thoughtful meditations highlight not only Jong’s gritty tenacity but also serve to document her ongoing endeavour to live an authentic and meaningful life.” —The Miramichi Reader

“Worldly Girls unfolds like a series of controlled explosions, each essay detonating just enough certainty to reveal what lies beneath—the stubborn persistence of love amid doctrinal wreckage, the strange comfort found in abandoned rituals, and the peculiar freedom that comes from having nothing left to lose.” —The New Quarterly

“Worldly Girls contains stand-alone essays that feel like fragments of a whole, a puzzle you only to realize is incomplete when you discover the missing pieces, what has been dropped, lost, or perhaps never packed into the box.” —Junction Reads

“Jong responds to her years as a believer with curiosity, openness, and nuance. For some readers, Jong’s temerity will be what gives the book its sparkle. She writes not as an authority, but as a student of her own life.” —McKenzie Watson-Fore, Full Stop

In a story that traverses a wide range of potent themes—alcoholism