Jill Duggar Dillard Carried Her Book Around In A Plastic Bag While She Figured Out What She Wanted To Say About Duggar Family Drama

Jill Duggar and Derick Dillard being interviewed for Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets
(Image credit: Amazon Studios)

The public troubles for the Duggar family that began around the time that their hit show, 19 Kids and Counting was pulled off of TLC have only grown over the past several years. Josh Duggar is now serving over a decade-long prison sentence after being convicted on child pornography charges, while more and more family members have been coming forward to share what it was like to grow up under their very conservative parents, who lived by the controversial teachings of the Institute in Basic Life Principles. Now, as the release of her memoir draws near, Jill Duggar Dillard is talking about carrying her book around in a plastic bag while deciding what to share.

What Did Jill Duggar Dillard Say About Her Upcoming Book?

It was just a few weeks ago that the documentary, Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets, was released to those with an Amazon Prime subscription, and saw some family members open up about their upbringing. One of those people was Jill Duggar Dillard, who revealed that she never got paid for participating in the long-running series that made the family stars, and admitted she felt “again” like she was “bearing the burden and the weight” of keeping her family’s reputation afloat with her 2015 interview about being molested by her brother.

The star is now preparing to reveal even more to the world in her own book, Counting the Cost, which will be available in September. Her recent Instagram post sees her open up about the difficulties of writing her story:

While it might seem odd for the mom of three to have toted a copy of her book around while it was sealed up in a plastic bag as she made edits, it makes sense on at least a couple of levels. First, writing any kind of book is very hard to do, and getting things just right takes a lot of effort. So, being able to have it with you all the time whenever you think of something to add or remove likely helps a lot, and that will be an easier task if you can keep the manuscript as pristine as possible during your day to day life. Since she just had printed pages and nothing that was bound with a cover, the “baggie” is understandable.

Secondly, well, it’s very obvious by now that her book is going to be filled with some very difficult things. As she noted, she “cried and prayed over” what to include in it. While she’s clearly very ready to have her story out in the world and tell it on her own terms, seeing it in print also meant the realization that she was really doing it and that everyone would be able to see just what her upbringing was like. It was, and will likely continue to be, “an emotional journey” for her, so having that plastic bag was probably useful to keep her own tears from the printed pages.

We’ll be able to see what further details will be revealed about the family when her book is released on September 12, and while Jill Duggar Dillard has had a hard road when it comes to opening up, at least it seems that she’s proud of her work and ready for everyone to read her story.

Adrienne Jones
Senior Content Creator

Covering The Witcher, Outlander, Virgin River, Sweet Magnolias and a slew of other streaming shows, Adrienne Jones is a Senior Content Producer at CinemaBlend, and started in the fall of 2015. In addition to writing and editing stories on a variety of different topics, she also spends her work days trying to find new ways to write about the many romantic entanglements that fictional characters find themselves in on TV shows. She graduated from Mizzou with a degree in Photojournalism.