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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: 4754
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: 1 page has a smudge
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| Customer Reviews:
 FLDS and Women's Studies June 14, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I finished this book last night after not being able to put it down. It is just as compelling as Escape, by Carolyn Jessop. I'd recommend reading both. This book is not as detailed when it comes to her childhood. There are a great deal of vague statements. I would have liked to have known the details as Jessop revealed in her book. Overall, the book felt relatively topical, yet detail heavy dealing with specific subjects. Jessop spells the beliefs out, this book you have to do a lot of critical thinking to pull the belief system out and apply it. I was transfixed with the portions about Warren Jeffs. This book gave me a better understanding of who he is and what he has done to these people. A good read.
 Will open your eyes! Great read June 26, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
With hearing about the whole FLDS in Texas and underage brides, I was curious. I saw this book at Target and picked it up. I probably read the covers and looked at her pictures for a good 10 minutes, I totally forgot I was standing in an isle in a store lol. This book will really open your eyes on this for of religion. How it's almost inexcapable. As tough as it all is, Elisa is strong and finds the good in all of it. It makes me think that if I were in her situation, married at 14 to a jerk, I would do the same thing. This was a very very good book.
 Great Outcome, But Not a Great Book July 2, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
The author should be commended for her instrumental role in getting Warren Jeffs behind bars, and it is good to have an additional voice in the battle against the FLDS. That said, the book itself left a lot to be desired.
I agree with a previous reviewer who wondered why Elissa did not seize upon her many earlier opportunities to flee. Yes, she was raised with the FLDS mindset, but she disobeyed and rebelled against the rules over and over. For all her claims that she believed she had to obey the "prophet," she was not afraid to speak up, even to Rulon and Warren, when she wished. She also led a life that was completely alien to most of its members (not that that's a bad thing). It certainly seems that it was her affair with Lamont that propelled her to leave and not the abusive lifestyle she endured, or she would have attempted to earlier, given that she was hardly the model of a submissive FLDS wife and daughter. Furthermore, she excuses her mother's dreadful behavior by constantly saying that her mother was raised in the FLDS, believed in them, and this lifestyle was all she knew. Then why doesn't the same go for Allen? He was raised in the FLDS, this is all he knew, too, and he completely believed that Elissa was his wife and that he had a right to sexual relations with her. I think what her mother did was much worse. She abandoned Elissa and her other children many times and never even explained to her what consummation of a marriage would entail. Had she done that, Elissa would not have been so shocked and unprepared. Of course it is a horror and a crime that a 14-year old would have to be married, but Elissa says that the worst part of her wedding night was that she didn't understand what Allen was trying to do. Yet Elissa forgives her mother and praises her, understands her mindset, but does not extend this understanding to a young man who was told that this was his duty. I think he really struggled to understand his young wife and was hurt by her. I hope that he is able somehow to escape the FLDS because he deserves a shot at life, too.
Finally, though in the acknowledgments the copy editor is thanked for her "meticulousness," the book is riddled with errors.
This is a one-star book to which I am giving three stars, strictly because at least she did help bring Jeffs to justice.
Amazing, Courageous Story July 7, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I was given this book to read by my mother in law. I dont' read a lot of memoirs but I can tell you that this one was amazing. No one should miss this opportunity to learn first hand about what goes on in this FLDS 'religion'. This group of people, this culture, is based upon the men dominating the woman. The religion proclaims that a man's key to heaven is to obtain three or more wives and keep them in the children ruled over with a firm hand. The woman's key is to 'keep sweet' and obey your husband at all cost, never let anyone see that you are less than perfectly happy in your subordinate lifestyle. And if the men don't honor their part in the religion? They can lose thier wives, children, home and money. Sometimes their jobs. Young boys who question the religion are tossed out, literally onto the streets, some as young as twelve. There is much more to learn, a lot of it pretty shocking. Elissa Wall grew up in this culture; she lived in a house with three mothers. When she turned fourteen, the 'prophet' Warren Jeffs, forced her to marry her 19 year old half first cousin. They share the same grandfather. When Elissa faught the marriage, she was mentally beaten down and had no escape. After repeatedly telling her 'husband' she wanted no physical relationship, she was raped. Repeatedly raped, and physically abused at times as well. Here we learn what lead to her escape from the religion and how she came to fight Warren Jeffs in court and save many future children from him. Elissa made MANY sacrifices along the way, and her story is heartbreaking. I cried at several points of the book. I plan to try to learn more about the history of these people and how evil or misguided men obtained such powerful and total control over thousands of followers. We need to stop this from happening to youth who don't know a way out. Elisssa's story can definitely help. The only reason this book got a four star rating rather than a five is because the writing is weak. Points are often repeated far too often. I think the editing and professional help Ms Wall employed could have cleaned the story up as far as the grammatical problems went. Otherwise, an unbelieveably quick but humbling and eye opening read.
The case that got the ball rolling. July 8, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The awareness of the public regarding polygamy and its harmful effects has increased dramatically since early April, 2008, when Texas authorities raided the FLDS compound at El Dorado. Several books have been written in the last 2 years or so by women who managed to get out of the grip of FLDS or other fundamentalist polygamist sects. No doubt their sales have increased since this raid (at least I hope so.)
This book, though, is the one written by the young woman whose victimization ultimately led to the arrest and imprisonment of Warren Jeffs. You should read all these books. Save this one for last, however, because in a sense it is a culmination, of sorts, of the issues raised in the other stories.
Many elements of these various sagas are similar: raised from birth in the polygamist sect, the same game of mind control and behavior control by a handful of men acting without checks and balances, unhappiness and at times terror in the lives of the young victims (especially women) as they grow, become "married", and are at that point the chattel of their "husband" and expected to become an ever-willing baby making machine.
The story is so familiar, after reading one or two of these accounts.
Elissa's account is different. She figured out at a young age that something was grievously wrong with this culture and its mores. She knew instinctively that all of this was wrong and harmful. Even more astoundingly, she found the courage to get out. Talk about courage on a battlefield?--read this and see what courage it takes for a young girl to do what is right in the face of friends and family condemning her to Hell.
The lesson for the rest of us similar to that in the other accounts. One is never wrong to think for oneself; to question those who claim an absolute authority over a person's life and body (especially when they claim a religious authority to do so.)
Given the odds stacked against her, it is amazing that the outcome led to Jeffs' imprisonment. She is a remarkable woman. You should read her book.
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