Stolen Innocence: My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs
by Elissa Wall, Lisa Pulitzer | Biographies & Memoirs |
ISBN: 9780061628016 Global Overview for this book
ISBN: 9780061628016 Global Overview for this book
1 journaler for this copy...
Purchased new in hardcover through paperbackswap.com. Looks very good.
Stolen Innocence: My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs
That's the entire title of this extremely sad memoir of a young girl, who grew up in a polygamous sect in Utah, who is married off to her first cousin at the age of 14, and ultimately escapes.
The book is poorly written and at times annoying, but when you think of the lack of education of this girl, Elissa Walls, and her lack of exposure to books and writing, it works itself out.
Elissa came from a family with several mothers, and a mixture of relationships that are impossible to keep track of, but which were very normal to this little girl. She was feisty, intelligent and yearned to learn and do something with her life. Several brothers who for one reason or another had left the sect, had set a precedent, just a thought in the back of her mind that there was something else out there rather than the bizarre teachings, the restrictive lifestyle, the cruelty and incongruities of life in the midst of the FLDS sect. A world that she had been told was wicked, a world where she would never attain a place in heaven, and a world devoid of her beloved mother.
When at age 14, Elissa is ordered by Warren Jeffs to marry Allen, a boy she can't stand, she makes attempts to stand up for herself, but is shot down, told to stay sweet, obey her prophet and keep her nose to the ground. Her bewilderment at the entire sexual aspect of a marriage is heartbreaking and more so because she rejected and rejected the ploys of her husband. At times the book sounds a bit whiny, but I'm not sure that Elissa has grown up enough to make clear assessments of her predicament. She was a little girl who clung to the safety of her mother and sisters and who was not equipped to deal with her situation. It would have been different had she at least liked her husband or if she had been a submissive little girl, but that was not her makeup and it lead to a very unpleasant few years of struggle.
There is a lot said against Allen, the husband, but my feeling is that he was just doing what he was brought up to do-- make babies to populate the sect and use the wife as property. I can't entirely blame him for doing the only thing he knew to do, I doubt he even thought for a moment that what he was doing was what in the outside world is called rape. I entirely blame the elders who perpetuate this form of life and repression of women.
It's all in all a very sad story. To top it off, Warren Jeff's sentence has been overturned in an appeals court as of July 2010 and he awaits a new trial.
That's the entire title of this extremely sad memoir of a young girl, who grew up in a polygamous sect in Utah, who is married off to her first cousin at the age of 14, and ultimately escapes.
The book is poorly written and at times annoying, but when you think of the lack of education of this girl, Elissa Walls, and her lack of exposure to books and writing, it works itself out.
Elissa came from a family with several mothers, and a mixture of relationships that are impossible to keep track of, but which were very normal to this little girl. She was feisty, intelligent and yearned to learn and do something with her life. Several brothers who for one reason or another had left the sect, had set a precedent, just a thought in the back of her mind that there was something else out there rather than the bizarre teachings, the restrictive lifestyle, the cruelty and incongruities of life in the midst of the FLDS sect. A world that she had been told was wicked, a world where she would never attain a place in heaven, and a world devoid of her beloved mother.
When at age 14, Elissa is ordered by Warren Jeffs to marry Allen, a boy she can't stand, she makes attempts to stand up for herself, but is shot down, told to stay sweet, obey her prophet and keep her nose to the ground. Her bewilderment at the entire sexual aspect of a marriage is heartbreaking and more so because she rejected and rejected the ploys of her husband. At times the book sounds a bit whiny, but I'm not sure that Elissa has grown up enough to make clear assessments of her predicament. She was a little girl who clung to the safety of her mother and sisters and who was not equipped to deal with her situation. It would have been different had she at least liked her husband or if she had been a submissive little girl, but that was not her makeup and it lead to a very unpleasant few years of struggle.
There is a lot said against Allen, the husband, but my feeling is that he was just doing what he was brought up to do-- make babies to populate the sect and use the wife as property. I can't entirely blame him for doing the only thing he knew to do, I doubt he even thought for a moment that what he was doing was what in the outside world is called rape. I entirely blame the elders who perpetuate this form of life and repression of women.
It's all in all a very sad story. To top it off, Warren Jeff's sentence has been overturned in an appeals court as of July 2010 and he awaits a new trial.
