Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com

The dramatic first-person account of life inside an ultra-fundamentalist American religious sect, and one woman’s courageous flight to freedom with her eight children.

When she was eighteen years old, Carolyn Jessop was coerced into an arranged marriage with a total stranger: a man thirty-two years her senior. Merril Jessop already had three wives. But arranged plural marriages were an integral part of Carolyn’s heritage: She was born into and raised in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), the radical offshoot of the Mormon Church that had settled in small communities along the Arizona-Utah border. Over the next fifteen years, Carolyn had eight children and withstood her husband’s psychological abuse and the watchful eyes of his other wives who were locked in a constant battle for supremacy.

Carolyn’s every move was dictated by her husband’s whims. He decided where she lived and how her children would be treated. He controlled the money she earned as a school teacher. He chose when they had sex; Carolyn could only refuse—at her peril. For in the FLDS, a wife’s compliance with her husband determined how much status both she and her children held in the family. Carolyn was miserable for years and wanted out, but she knew that if she tried to leave and got caught, her children would be taken away from her. No woman in the country had ever escaped from the FLDS and managed to get her children out, too. But in 2003, Carolyn chose freedom over fear and fled her home with her eight children. She had $20 to her name.

Escape exposes a world tantamount to a prison camp, created by religious fanatics who, in the name of God, deprive their followers the right to make choices, force women to be totally subservient to men, and brainwash children in church-run schools. Against this background, Carolyn Jessop’s flight takes on an extraordinary, inspiring power. Not only did she manage a daring escape from a brutal environment, she became the first woman ever granted full custody of her children in a contested suit involving the FLDS. And in 2006, her reports to the Utah attorney general on church abuses formed a crucial part of the case that led to the arrest of their notorious leader, Warren Jeffs.

Average Customer Rating:

impossible to understand	Customer Rating:
what an unbelievably horrible way for a woman to have to live. they must be born with NO backbone whatsoever. those men should all be locked up where they cant hurt anyone else much less keep on reproducing themselves. what a disgrace to the feminine gendar. very readable but sickening book.

Interesting but poorly written	Customer Rating:
While Carolyn's tale is interesting, horrifying and even compelling the story suffers from poorly constructed sentences, BORING redundancies and just plain bad writing. WHERE was this woman's editor?? If it were not for the fascinating insight into this secretive society I wouldn't have been able to trudge through the whole thing. Alas, the story itself saved the book from it's writer.

Free at last

Customer Rating:

Having lived in Arizona most of my life I have been following stories about the FLDS for years and watched as much of the story has unfolded and steps were taken to try and stop some of the corruption and abuse that occured once Warren Jeffs became prophet. Carolyn Jessop's book had me glued to it - I could not put it down and it still haunts me a bit as I have gone into the FLDS Truths website and it is eerie how they are still trying to discredit her. It is a true story and her former husband still wields incredible power over the sect and it was scary watching the women speak at the YFZ ranch after the raid. Carolyn is very brave and I hope much good will come of her stepping out of the box and coming forward with her story. I know a lot already has and I hope more follows - anyone who likes this book should watch the documentary "Banking On Heaven".

Loved it!	Customer Rating:
I LOVED this book. I ordered it after seeing her appear on Oprah. I couldn't put this book down. Carrolyn really goes into alot of detail about her marriage, and her life in general growing up on a compound. I didn't know much about polgamy before I read Carrolyn's book, and now I can't read enough about it. I think it is a very intresting way of life.

Poorly written, whiny, but interesting	Customer Rating:
The book was hard for me to read because it's so poorly written. It's disjointed and whiny, but describes a way of life comletely unknown to me so I worked my way through it. I think it could be a good story if it was written in a less one-sided, less whiny, more cohesive style.