Escape by Carolyn Jessop

(4 out of 5)

Reading Level: Adult

If I had to describe this book in one word I would say UNBELIEVABLE. Carolyn Jessop was born into a polygamist cult. Her family were members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), the radical sect of the Mormon Church that had settled in small communities along the Arizona-Utah border. Carolyn believed in her religion and she believed in polygamy. Her grandmother would tell her stories about how wonderful it was to have a husband with many wives. That she would be doing the will of God and of the church. The more wives a man had the more powerful he was and was in favor with God. Women only got to heaven with the permission of her husband. If she wansn't in harmony with him when she died she would experience a second death and live in a type of Hell. At eighteen Carolyn became the fourth wife to Merill Jessop a fifty-year-old man. Within the family Carolyn was as old as some of Merill's daughters and she was targeted by his favorite wife Barbara. The wives would jockey for attention, snitch on each other, and had the right to discipline each others children. If you complained to Merrill he would say you deserved it and that you were not in harmony with him. Withing fifteen years Carolyn had eight children and the new leader coming to power Warren Jeffs was preaching the apocalypse. His rules and laws became more and more dangerous and ridiculous. Carolyn knew she had to escape. Finally in April 2003 she had the opportunity to round up her children and escape with their lives.

I had the same feeling reading this book as I did when I read Dave Pelzer's books. Their stories are very different but they are both like train wrecks. You know you shouldn't look as it happens because it's painful to watch but you are riveted and can't look away. Her story is in many ways so sad it was hard to read at times but I just knew there had to be a light at the end of the tunnel. And there was a light. She escaped and had freedom for the first time in her thirty five years of living. It was definitely worth reading.

On the back cover of the books is a quote by the author John Krakauer, "Escape provides an astonishing look behind the tightly drawn curtains of the FLDS Church, one of the most secretive religious groups in the United States. The story of Carolyn Jessop tells is so weird and shocking that one hesitates to believe a sect like this, with 10,000 polygamous followers, could really exist in twenty-first-century America. But Jessop's courageous, heart-wrenching account is absolutely factual. This riveting book reminds us that truth can indeed be much, much stranger than fiction." Mr. Krakauer I couldn't agree with you more.