Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent, 27 May 2009
My husband brought this book in a book sale and when I read the back cover I was really interested. From the very first pages I was hooked and couldn't put it down - I've never finished a book so quickly. It certainly opens your eyes, its unbelievable to think that this kind of thing still goes on in todays society. I have great admiration for Elissa Wall for having the courage to get out of the FLDS church at such a young age and after everything she went through. A complete page turner and I thoroughly recommend it.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
GIMME THAT OLD TIME RELIGION..., 16 Mar 2009
I recently became intrigued by the patriarchal Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) and the strange metamorphosis it has undergone by virtue of the twisted and skewed leadership of Warren Jeffs, an unprincipled and greedy man whose love of power seemed to have no bounds. Always a strange subculture because a central tenet of its beliefs was polygamy, under Warren Jeffs the FLDS seemed to go to new lengths in its extremism.
This is the story of one of those FLDS women, Elissa Wall, who tells the story of growing up in a polygamous household, where her mother was her father's second wife, and she was but one of her father's twenty-two children. She speaks of the complexity of polygamous families and the underlying tensions in her own home between family members, tensions that became exacerbated when her father took on a third wife, culminating in the tearing asunder of her family under the guidance of Warren Jeffs.
The author attended the Alpha Academy, which was a school run by the FLDS for children of the FLDS, in which the principal at the time was Warren Jeffs. So, the author lived her entire life being indoctrinated in FLDS beliefs and way of life. Meanwhile the tensions at home were such that her mother was eventually told by Warren Jeffs to leave her husband and take her children to live in Hildale, Arizona, an FLDS enclave, with Fred Jessop, who lived with his fifteen wives and children in a forty-five bedroom home. The author's mother would eventually become one of Jessop's wives. Shortly thereafter, when the author turned fourteen, she would receive the most devastating news of her life, when she was ordered to marry her first cousin, Alan Steed, whom she detested. She tried everything she could to persuade those in control of her destiny to change their minds, to no avail.
Wed she must, and she was joined to her husband though it was not by choice. Now, I will say that her husband, who was twenty years old at the time, did exhibit a certain amount of patience with her reluctance to marry him. She definitely treated him badly, and he eventually treated her in kind. Neither seemed mature enough to enter into the bonds of matrimony. She was trapped in a loveless marriage, as was he. Marital rape and violence were a constant. This was, indeed, a recipe for disaster. A fortuitous encounter with another member of the FLDS community would eventually prove to be a lifeline for her, as they developed a friendship that would give her the strength and courage to move her life in another direction, one that would not embrace the FLDS way of life.
That her decision would give rise to the eventual arrest, prosecution, and conviction of Warren Jeffs and expose his perfidy to the world is one positive outgrowth of the step that this young woman took on the road to self-realization. Moreover, she has been able to form a life for herself on the outside with the help of her friend, whom she eventually married. I am sorry to say, however, that I did not find the author to be all that likable an individual, finding her be limited in her ability to understand the viewpoints of others and somewhat vapid and self-absorbed. This could, of course, be a result of her age, scanty education, and limited exposure to the world. Notwithstanding her own personal shortcomings, her book is one that is of great interest because of her insider's experience in the world of polygamy and her ability to describe the horrific changes wrought in the FLDS community by the notorious Warren Jeffs. Moreover, without her cooperation with the authorities, he would never have been brought to justice.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Unmasking Warren Jeffs, 21 July 2009
This review is from: Stolen Innocence: My story of growing up in a polygamous sect, becoming a teenage bride, and breaking free (Paperback)
A highly significant addition to polygamist horror stories, as the author was directly responsible for the [unfortunately too short, 10 years] incarceration of Warren Jeffs, the current head of the FLDS. I found a photo on the Net of the author at 14 - she looked more like 10 - taken just months before her Jeffs-forced marriage. A graphic account of the trap into which FLDS women are tied, hand, foot and mind. Should be read in conjunction with Escape and Shattered Lives.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
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2.0 out of 5 stars
Overlong and unengaging
This book made it onto my to-read list because I'm interested in the Fundamentalist LDS Church, but I didn't realize until I actually picked up a copy that it was being marketed...
Published 3 months ago by Nicola
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5.0 out of 5 stars
What a fascinating yet disturbing read!
I bought this book on the back of reading "The Nineteenth Wife" and I have to tell you that although shocked by what I read, it held me captive for several days while I took every...
Published 6 months ago by A. Nealon
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5.0 out of 5 stars
FASCINATING
Superb highly recommended read from Elissa Wall. Wow - what a brave young lady to take the self professed prophet Warren Jeffs to court to answer the very serious charges against...
Published 11 months ago by J. WALKER
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Stolen Innocence
It is shocking how brainwashed people can be living in todays fast and well informed world. It makes the actions that this young women took all the more brave.
Published 14 months ago by J. A. Crawford
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