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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 Used: $5.45
You Save: $20.50 (79%)
New (72) Used (77) Collectible (2) from $5.45
Avg. Customer Rating:  79 reviews
Sales Rank: 5231
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
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: lightly worn cover/binding; no dust jacket
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| Customer Reviews:
 I could not put this book down! May 29, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Stolen Innocence is a great read and I just could not put the book down. It is sickening just to see the abuse these teenage brides are put through in order to get to heaven. This book provides an inside look at the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints. Elissa Wall tells the true story of what it is like to be a member of this extreme religion, and breaking free of Warren Jeffs. This book really puts my view on this polygamous sect into perspective.
Outstanding June 26, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I just finished this book and found it fascinating and an eye-opener.
It amazes me at how young the author is right now in light of what she has already been through. What she has done has taken a lot of courage and determination, and I applaud her bravery.
This book, along with several others lately, bring to light a lot of things that have been kept secret about this cult--and cult is what it is. The followers, both men and women, appear to do whatever the "Prophet" tells them to. I have a feeling that if they were told that God (through the prophet) wanted them to drink poison, many of them would do so without hesitation--another Jim Jones situation.
What I have trouble understanding is why the federal government doesn't do something about this whole situation. Numerous laws are being broken on a daily basis, not to mention one of their cloaked goals is to undermine the government. What keeps this from being as dangerous as any other instance when someone is trying to destroy our government, other than it is a much quieter, slower way to accomplish their purpose?
Overall, the book was a very good read and evidently, according to other people's comments, has also opened many people's eyes as to what is really going on. It needs to be stopped--the kids can't protect themselves.
 give me more July 16, 2008
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
This is an amazing subject and I really admire Elissa Wall for telling it to us and for appearing in the court case that brought down Warren Jeffs. But for those of us who know very little about this subject, there could have had more detail.
Not of all the traumatic things that happened to her, but of all the every day life in a FCLSD. I wanted to know what they ate (with 14 children), how the sleeping arrangements were organised. I wanted to know what they learnt in their home economics class (since most of us these days have never done home ec). I was curious about their clothing, where they got the material, what was popular amongst the girls, acceptable by the leaders and how they learnt to make them. What were the undergarments she referrred to? I wondered why the photographs were so poorly captioned. Which one was Rachel, Kassandra or even Mother Laura and Mother Audrey? I was confused about the actual nature of the rows in their household. How did they do those hair-dos and what sort of chores were they doing for how long and how often.
I don't blame Elissa, she had lived the life and couldn't see it objectively, but she had a ghost writer (Lisa Pulitzer) and presumably William Morrow gave them an editor, who could have drawn her out for the prosaic details of her extraordinary life.
 Difficult Read / Fascinating Story July 16, 2008
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
Difficult Read / Fascinating Story
While I applaud Elissa Wall for her willingness to share her trials and tribulations in the FLDS, I am totally baffled by the fact that HarperCollins publishers were willing to print a book with a zillion grammatical errors. As a veteran teacher and media specialist, I was shocked by the number of errors. While I realize she only had an eighth grade education, didn't she have a co-author and an editor???? The book had numerous errors such as:
*dropped articles (a, an, the)
*misspelled words
*pronouns not agreeing with nouns
*incorrect verb usage
*run-on sentences
*typo graphical errors (Spell Check does NOT identify misuse of correctly spelled words)
If Americans are truly concerned about our children being educated, let's blame others in our culture besides teachers. Even the sub-heading of chapter 29 is missing the article "a" within a quote from Emily Dickinson!!! I am thinking she would have turned over in her grave with such a glaring oversight. Merril Jessop's name is misspelled in several places (he took over the FLDS after Jeffs' incarceration).
This would have been an excellent book for high school students to read IF it had been written grammatically correct. I would never recommend this book to anyone as it exists today, which is a travesty in my eyes. Her courage to leave the FLDS cult and stand up to the dictator Warren Jeffs could have been a tremendous example to so many people who face insurmountable odds.
However, I would strongly recommend Escape by Carolyn Jessop, Shattered Dreams by Irene Spencer, and Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer.
The most positive aspect of the book was Jeffs' trial and his incarceration.
I kept literally shaking my head "no" as I read all of these books because of my inability to relate to each follower's situation. I kept thinking HOW MUCH ABUSE IS TOO MUCH??? It is extremely difficult as an outsider to understand how Jeff's followers and now Merril Jessop's followers blindly believe everything they are told. I hope that other women and children who are abused will also be able to escape this Evil Empire.
Totally Mesmerizing June 6, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
While I have read books by other wives who've left the FLDS, this one was different in that it was the story of the 14 year old who brought down Warren Jeffs. Though this storyline doesn't happen until the latter part of the book, you feel the tension and stress that she was put under to do what the "prophet" told her to do. There was no choice in the matter and as much as she said she wasn't ready because of her age to marry, and to marry who she was told to marry, it fell on deaf ears. While this also true of other wives, I imagine myself a 14-year old, being told to marry someone I hate and to start a household at age 14. Staggering and stiffling. Some of her writing is a bit overdone (not to minimize the situation she was in) but it hammers home the point to where it's a bit ingenuous - just my take on it. But it is totally a page-turner and makes me all the more grateful that Warren Jeffs is behind bars.
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