Escape

This month was the one year anniversary of a book club I started last January. It's a select group of women (not really but it sounds good) and the taste in reading material differs greatly.  The book club has been fun and a bit of a reading adventure for me. So many books chosen last year I never would have taken off the shelf and given any of my precious reading time. Now I look back and just smile at the wonderful stories I got to be a part of because of women I adore.

This year we started off with a book by Carolyn Jessop called Escape.  The book is a biography

written by Carolyn as she recounts living in a polygamist family in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS).  She was married to a man quite a bit older than her and she recounts all the abuse and issues that plague the FLDS.  She ultimately escapes with her 8 children and tells her story of how she got to the day she knew she had to get out.

If you aren't familiar with the FLDS, you may know the name Warren Jeffs. He's their leader and is currently in prison for having sex with under age children - he married a 12 year old.

The general consensus of book club is that these extremeist sects are nothing more than cults. And when your born and raised believing one thing, you never have any reason to question if life could be any different. In this world Carolyn was essentially owned by her husband. He controlled everything she did, her money, her children, every single aspect of her life.  He dictated when they'd have sex - and sex was only for procreation by the way, and if she refused she and her children would be punished and mistreated by the other wives and older children. She learned that sex kept her kids safe and ultimately became her currency.

Could you imagine living like that?

The book really opened my eyes to how these communities exist and are not that different from prison camps.  These guys, religious fanatics, who rule and claim to have a direct connection to God just baffles me. Their whims - or sorry visions - change the daily lives of hundreds, if not thousands, and they all fall into line with whatever the new rule is. Subservient doesn't even begin to describe them.

The book is a good read and really does shed some light into a religious group that, in my opinion, really has some issues. Aside from the polygamy - I don't really care if a man marries multiple wives - but to treat women as nothing more than property really gets my dander flaking.

Our next book is Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. It's my pick and I can't wait to read it.