Stolen Innocence

Elissa Wall's memoir is long--over 400 pages--but I finished it in under 24 hours. I couldn't stop reading this true story. Wall was a member of the Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints, or FLDS, a polygamous sect that broke off from the mainstream Mormon church. When she was fourteen, the leader of the sect, Warren Jeffs, arranged her marriage to her first cousin, who was nineteen at the time. Although Wall herself was not in a polygamous marriage, she was essentially forced into becoming a child bride. The story is not yet over, as Jeffs still awaits trial on a number of counts of aiding and abetting child marriage. News of the sect is still a very current issue. Wall herself has a strong personality and a compelling voice, so it's not just the subject matter that kept me reading. However, I'm looking forward to beginning another book by former FLDS member Carolyn Jessop. I'm interested to see another side of the story.