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| Stolen Innocence: My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs | 
 enlarge | Authors: Elissa Wall, Lisa Pulitzer
Publisher: William Morrow
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $10.98
You Save: $14.97 (58%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  74 reviews
Sales Rank: 5179
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 448
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.4 x 1.5
ISBN: 0061628018
Dewey Decimal Number: 289.3092
EAN: 9780739496343
ASIN: 0061628018
Publication Date: May 13, 2008
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| Customer Reviews:
 Could Not Put It Down May 18, 2008
14 out of 15 found this review helpful
I bought this book to read on a long flight but decided to take an advance "peak." I could not help myself - I just kept reading page after page until I finished it over the course of one afternoon! Melissa Wall tells her story in such an easy to read style, giving the reader a fascinating insider's tour of a completely different way of life. The book is respectful and dignified while it tells a shocking story of abuse and betrayal. The poignant description of a family's turmoil not only touches the heart but it also provokes deep thought. It raises questions of what is most important in life: struggles between faith and independent reasoning, tensions between family and church, between husbands and wives, between parents and children. This book is informative, entertaining, challenging, moving and disturbing. By revealing the intimate,inner experience of one girl's broken heart, it issues a powerful cry to all of us to protect and nurture children.
Sarah Chana Radcliffe, author, "Raise Your Kids without Raising Your Voice"
Couldn't put it down... May 25, 2008
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
This book is a first person account of a stifling, controlling and sometimes horrifying and criminal community of Mormon fundamentalists.
The Fundamentalist Church of the Latter Day Saints is rooted in fear of the "end of times", which always seems to be just around the bend. As we discover in the book, the "religion" or cult is very controlling of women, holding their salvation over their heads for ransom. This utter devotion by some of the women leaves many of the children who hit their teens and feel something is wrong - out in the cold, literally. My anger at Elissa's mother was raging at times. I wanted to shake her shoulders at times. I couldn't sacrafice my children to starvation, rape and other dangers just so I could be rewarded in the next life - and this women had FOURTEEN kids to mess up with - and she did with most of them, in my opinion. Elissa tried to take a forgiving Zen-like approach to the outrage anybody should feel towards her mother, but I am less forgiving I suppose.
I bought this book on a Friday and finsihed by early Sunday afternoon. I couldn't put it down I was in such disbelief at the torments that Elissa faced and how boldy they objectified, controlled and used women. It's archaic to say the least. Elissa's inner moral compass kept telling her somthing was wrong and she should follow her heart, and she did. That's something we have in common.
The co-author probably had a lot to do with how well written the book was since Elissa didn't get much of an education.
You did get the distinct impression she was telling her side of the story and I was nearly cheering out loud that she finally had a voice.
The author is also now helping others who want to escape this oppressive and controlling way of life.
There were several editing errors - from a period in the middle of a sentence to the wrong tense and the wrong work, in the case of "peak" which should have been "peek" - I was actually surprised at the number of errors. In any other book I probably would have stopped reading at the fourth or so error in a non-fiction book. The material in this book was so compelling I couldn't stop reading it.
(My first review didn't get published, so I guess it wasn't acceptable, not that anybody told me so, which they should - here's to trying again.)
 Pruriently interesting May 27, 2008
8 out of 21 found this review helpful
This was an interesting read. Giving outsiders or "Gentiles" an inside view of the very secretive FLDS. In light of the recent raid and surprising order to return the children to their parents in the sect, it is of interest and very informational. The books is obviously mostly ghost written and it's easy to differentiate the two voices of the authors. My main objection to the story is that at times the author tries very hard to prove her case as the wronged victim. She resorts at times to ridiculous childhood dramas. Her future husband let her fall in the snow when they were children, he called her names. These silly n incidents place her in more of a bad light than they do him. Overall, however, I recommend it just for the glimpse inside a sect that is able to totally control its members through fear.
 Fascinating and Anger-Inducing May 31, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
This book was fascinating in a very emotional and anger-enducing way. I was horrified to learn more about how this cult lives, how the women are so inferior to the men, and the things they do all in the name of God.
A few points I would like to make - we know she was forced to marry her cousin and that she was miserable in the marriage, and for that I felt very bad for her. But...after she decided to completely avoid him, after awhile she seemed to really bloom with empowerment and spent a lot of time doing what normal teens do (but FLDS teens weren't supposed to): going into town and hanging out with friends, buying CDs, drinking beer, going to the movies, dressing more normally, etc. etc. to the point where she was very rarely at home - sleeping in her truck, going to work, and she had many friends who were supportive and helped each other do FLDS-contraband things. So my question would be, why not try to escape? Even if the entire police department in her remote town was all FLDS, she obviously had the means to go into other towns apparently without getting into any trouble, so why not go up to someone NOT FLDS and say, "Hey, I need some help, I'm being raped". There are safe harbors everywhere for abused children and women. She could have looked in the Phone book? Yellow Pages? A hospital?
She visited Canada, and even boarded a plane and had extended visits with defected relatives. Once she was there, couldn't they have helped her stay there? Could she have just stayed there? Why did she go back? Once physically out of the cult, it seems to me to be half the battle!
I also found myself feeling somewhat bad for Allen. He really didn't seem like a bad guy, just misguided and brainwashed. He is a product of his society. He was following the "prophet's" orders to go and multiply, thinking it would get him into heaven. He really seemed to want the marriage to work and seemed confused that his (which is the "prophet's" way) wasn't working and pushing Elissa away even more. Also I was wondering why Lamont did not get charged with statutory rape as she was only 17 when she conceived their first child. He was 23. I'm not sure what the laws are in that state - but she WAS still a minor.
I can't believe these parents and how they allow their children to enter a marriage, and without ANY knowledge or expectation of what sex entails!! Elissa's mother didn't protect her daughter and I find that inexcuseable as a mother myself. I hope her 2 little sisters are spared this fate.
Warren Jeffs should rot in jail forever. This story is only one person's story. Imagine how many more are out there that do not have the guts to do what Elissa did? I might not agree with everyhting she did, (such as not trying harder to escape, etc.) I still realize that she was only 14 when this all started, and handled all of this in the best way she knew how.
If ADULTS chose to live this lifestyle, so be it, but forcing 14 year olds to marry adult men is nothing short of criminal. They need to be old enough, mature enough, and exposed to enough different things to know if they want to chose this lifestyle for themselves, and certainly that doesn't happen by the ages they are marrying these young girls off.
A Must Read for an understanding of the FLDS June 2, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
For weeks now we have been treated to the whining of the "mothers" about the loss of their children in Eldorado, TX. In point of fact without DNA testing it will be impossible to determine who are the parents of a specific child. As Elissa points out the FLDS have been trained to lie, about everything, to outsiders. If you are a child in a polygamist home you have a caretaking mother that, in most instances, will not be your birth mother so when asked to identify their mother many children will err, or worse, lie.
This book reads like a Stephen King horror story, well crafted and with characters that seem to come right out of fiction - only sadly, this is a true story. From Warren Jeffs - a person that I cannot believe anyone would follow - to Elissa's "husband" Allen to the current mouthpiece of the FLDS, Willy Jessop (who shows up in the story as well), the book breaks open the seal of silence about a group that way too little is known about.
I have been writing about and been involved with exposing the FLDS in Colorado City/Hildale for over twelve years and making people understand that these are sad, pathetic, brainwashed woman and girls, forced to "marry" wife-beating, pedophiles is a difficult task.
Mainstream Mormons claim no resposibility for this mess, but it has been the Mormon Church through the State of Utah that has allowed the practice of polygamy to continue unabated since the SHort Creek raid of 1953 and this bunch of pedophiles is now the result of looking the other way.
Kudos to Elissa and her husband Lamont for having the courage to go to court and bring down the "prophet" Warren Jeffs.
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