Book Review: Escape, By Carolyn Jessop

 RELEASE DATE: October 16, 2007

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.
*Click HERE for the referenced link of the info above. 

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MY REVIEW:

I rarely read for leisure because I feel like there is always something else I should be doing. The last time I really read a book that was NOT self-help was five years ago (this month) when I went on a 30 mile hike/ 3 day camp, to the Wind Rivers in Montana with my friend Angie. I had nothing else I could possibly be distracted with (cell phones, email, text, etc) and read the Kite Runner while we were there.

A couple weeks ago we were at our Utah friends home, Brian & Andria. Andria, was feeling sick and Brian was out of town, so we brought over some dinner and chatted for a minute at the door. She asked me if I had watched any of the reality show, Sister Wives, which I love watching although it is so twisted from my actual religious beliefs with the polygamy and all. If you are not up on what Sister Wives is, here is a clip from TLC about it.

Apparently “Sister Wives” is also part of the FLDS but are a different sect than what Carolyn Jessop came from. At any rate, Andria handed me this book and said, “Read it!” I didn’t know if I would get around to it, but finished it in 4 days.  Once I started, I couldn’t put it down!

The book was maddening and very emotional for me. I gained a greater appreciation for the life I have and am so grateful that I was not born into a situation like that. I have been thinking a lot about it since I finished the book last week and have even gained a greater testimony and appreciation for our church and our church leaders and their goodness and graciousness. I am sickened by the corruption of the men in the FLDS church and how degrading they are to women and how they take their priesthood power as a type of authority over another person. I am baffled how so many people could be totally and completely brain washed into thinking that this is right or OK.  If you get a chance to read this, I would definitely recommend it!

She has a new book out called, "Triumph" to talk about how her life has been after her "Escape". I will have to read that now.