Escape
 

Escape

by Carolyn Jessop, Laura Palmer

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... (read more)

Top tags: memoirpolygamynonfictionreligionwomen (all tags)

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Other Reviews

Amazon Reviews (5)
 

Most Helpful Reviews

Liked It

1 of 1 members found this review helpful.
Laura T
  • Rated 4 stars

Truth truly is stranger than fiction. I could not put this book down. It's not incredibly well written- the sentences are short, choppy, and repetitive, but the story is morbidly fascinating.

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Didn’t Like It

1 of 1 members found this review helpful.
sarah kay
  • Rated 1 stars

A revealing and disturbing story that is horribly written and edited. While some explanatory information is necessary for readers to understand the FLDS culture and doctrines, Jessop goes overboard, repeating information to the point that it becomes distracting. The author (and her editor) need to give readers a little more credit. We are not your second graders, Carolyn; we can hold information about important characters in our heads from chapter to chapter. Perhaps this memoir was rushed...

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Community:
  • Rated 4.071038 stars
Amazon:
  • Rated 4.75 stars
 

Newest Comments

  • Teresa T

    teresa t said:

    As I'm getting more into the Elisa Wall story, I'm changing my mind about her abuse. It is a horrid story. She is focusing more about emotional abuse than physical abuse. I don't know if I agree about conditions being ripe for these type of stories...maybe this it's about time we read about these women's stories. These are nothing short of abusive situations.

    posted Friday, June 13 2008
  • Mitchell Books

    mitchell books said:

    I believe that it is different for every woman just as with any type of family matters.

    posted Friday, June 13 2008
  • Marianne F

    marianne f said:

    This book was difficult to put down, and I so admire this woman's courage to stand up and fight for the lives of her kids.

    posted Saturday, June 7 2008
  • Andrea

    andrea said:

    “I am shell-shocked after reading this non-fiction memoir. Carolyn Jessop provides an intimate raw look into her thirty-five years of being in the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (the TV-worthy and current media focus, FLDS.) The inhumane treatment which Carolyn, her extended family and eight children endure is shocking and saddening. The words on the page leave the reader feeling like a watcher at an accident site. I read this four hundred-page book in four days. At times I couldn't believably grasp that what the author has witnessed and endured could happen in America today. Half of the book focuses on Warren Jeffs rise and then attainment of power and the madness that this "profit" expelled into the already bizarre FLDS community. This is a read that will stay in my mind forever.

    posted Friday, May 30 2008 ( | view 1 reply )
  • jlwyman

    jlwyman said:

    Very relevant to what is going on in the news today.....Fascintating reading,,,,also read Under the Banner of Heaven.

    posted Sunday, April 20 2008
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