Escape by Carolyn JessopMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Avg rating: 3.94
Goodreads Summary:
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.
Actual Rating: 5.0
Wow... What an amazing recount of a terrible, horrible existence.
I first became interested in the FLDS "religion" (cult) when I watched the show Escaping the Prophet. I was intrigued and appalled by the imminent control the "priesthood" has over the entire community. In that show a few teenagers attempt to escape the cult by fleeing from the community and taking shelter in a safe house a few hours away. At one point, Carolyn Jessop (author) showed up to the safe house to speak to these run aways. The run aways we're clearly NOT fans of Carolyn. They had been taught that she was an apostate and one of the worst influences to be had on an FLDS member. This really piqued my interest and I have wanted to read this book ever since.
This book was SO good from the prologue to the epilogue and even the interview at the end. My eyes have been severely opened to the beliefs and teachings of the FLDS. I think Carolyn is an extremely strong and brave woman to have overcome everything she has and be fighting to help others do the same. I will highly recommend this book to friends and family and anyone who is interested in having their eyes opened to the terrible things going on just beyond our communities.
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