Counting the Cost is a 2023 memoir by Jill Duggar and Derick Dillard, ghostwritten by Craig Borlase. Duggar (whose married surname is Dillard) is the fourth-eldest child of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, an American couple famous for having 19 children. Dillard, her husband, is an accountant and former missionary. Borlase is an English writer who specializes in collaborating with celebrities and other memoir writers. Duggar’s memoir focuses on her upbringing in a Christian fundamentalist family, her experiences being a star of TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting, and her choice to distance herself from the show. Counting the Cost also describes the various scandals and court cases involving Josh Duggar, Jill Duggar’s older brother. This is Duggar’s second book; the first, Growing Up Duggar: It's All About Relationships (2014), was cowritten with her sisters Jana, Jessa, and Jinger Duggar.

This guide uses the 2023 Gallery Books ebook edition of Counting the Cost.

Content Warning: This guide includes discussions of sexual, spiritual, physical, and emotional abuse; rape; sexism and misogyny; miscarriage; child molestation; anti-gay bias; anti-trans bias; racism; school shootings; and gang violence. 

Summary

Counting the Cost opens with an account of Jill Duggar and Derick Dillard’s life just before their engagement. The authors explain that, according to the Duggar family’s strict rules, the two are not permitted to spend time alone together or hold hands. The account then shifts to Jill’s childhood: At the time, her parents forbid her and her siblings from dancing, lest they should draw any inappropriate attention to their bodies. Despite the extreme control her parents exert over her life, Jill idolizes her parents and seeks their approval. As more children are born, Michelle, Jill’s mother, develops a “buddy system” where older children take care of their younger siblings. From a young age, Jill spends a lot of time parenting her siblings. Michelle homeschools all of her children. She and Jim Bob carefully limit their children’s contact with the outside world.

The memoir continues to explain the Duggars’ life. The parents’ strict rules about modest dress even extend to beach trips, where all the children wear full-length skirts and pants. They have no TV. All of these rules, and many more, come from the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP), a Christian ministry sometimes described as a cult. Families involved with IBLP homeschool their children using IBLP materials. When Jill is 11 years old, her older brother Josh (age 14) admits to molesting her and some of her sisters. He is temporarily sent away to do construction work as a form of rehabilitation. Around this time, the family appears in a documentary called 14 Children and Pregnant Again! This marks the start of a new era, as the Duggars become famous and begin to have more TV appearances.

The family becomes the subject of the TLC show 17 Kids and Counting (later changed to 18 and then 19 Kids). One of Jim Bob’s conditions for the show is that it foreground the family’s Christian faith. Jill finds the pressures of filming to be challenging, but she and her siblings enjoy getting access to more expensive food and travel opportunities. After years of living in a three-bedroom house, the family builds a much larger house, with Jim Bob and the children completing the bulk of the construction work. The show becomes extremely successful. One day when Jill is in her early 20s, Jim Bob introduces her (over the phone) to a young man named Derick Dillard who is currently working as a missionary in Nepal. After a few months of Jill and Derick having supervised phone conversations, Jill and Jim Bob fly to Nepal with a film crew to meet Derick in person in late 2013. The meeting airs on TLC, and they start a formal courtship. 

Derick and Jill marry in June of 2014; their wedding is the most-watched episode of 19 Kids and Counting at the time. The day before the wedding, Jim Bob asks Jill to sign some papers; she signs but does not know what they are for. Jim Bob is vague about their purpose. The filming schedule remains grueling for the newlyweds, and they are not getting paid for their contributions to the show. When Jill gets pregnant, she has to tell TLC before telling her family. She fights hard not to have the birth filmed but is only partially successful. In 2015, tabloids learn about Josh Duggar’s abuse of his sisters. Jill agrees, under duress, to an interview with Fox News in which she minimizes the harm of her brother’s actions. The show rebrands as Jill and Jessa: Counting On. Jill and Derick travel to El Salvador to work as missionaries. They often worry about gang violence in the area, and they sometimes have to come home for filming commitments. 

When they push back against TLC and Jim Bob, Jill and Derick are told they are under a contract they signed just before their wedding. Nobody will send them the contract. Jill’s relationship with her family, especially her father, fractures. After much back and forth, Jim Bob finally tells his adult children they can each have $80,000 as financial compensation, provided they agree they and their children (including future children) continue to work on the show in perpetuity. Although they need money, Jill and Derick refuse. After more arguments, Jim Bob eventually gives Jill the $80,000 without further obligations but still refuses to let her see the original contract. She and Derick miss out on missionary opportunities because they cannot prove they are not beholden to TLC, even after they leave the show. Jill’s second pregnancy ends in a traumatic birth, but she and her son survive. 

Jill starts the painful process of pulling away from her family’s influence. She starts wearing pants and pierces her nose. She tries to have mediated discussions with her parents, but they go badly. Therapy for her and her husband is more successful. Eventually, Jill gets access to the contract she signed in 2014. She requests further financial compensation from her parents but instead receives an itemized list of all of the money they have spent supporting her over the years, particularly after she became an adult. After even more arguments and with help from a lawyer, Jill and Derick finally receive $175,000 for their contributions to the show and are freed from any further obligations. Jill chooses to send her sons to public school and starts drinking alcohol occasionally; both of these actions are major departures from how she was raised. She gradually works to rebuild her relationship with her parents. Josh Duggar is arrested and convicted of possession of child sexual abuse materials. Jill gives birth to her third son. She continues the challenging process of healing.