I've been reading every book about the FLDS that I can get my hands on. I've read Stolen Innocence by Elissa Wall, Escape by Carolyn Jessop, The Witness Wore Red by Rebecca Musser, Lost Boy by Brent Jeffs, and Breaking Free by Rachel Jeffs.
Outside of the FLDS, I've also read Sister Wife: A Memoir of Faith, Family, and Finding Freedom by Christine Brown Woodley, Unspeakable by Jessica Willis Fisher, Saving Alex by Alex Cooper, Uncultured by Daniella Mestyanek Young, Seductive Poison by Deborah Layton, and Beyond Belief by Jenna Miscavige Hill.
I did try reading Educated, Sex Cult Nun, and Counting the Cost, which were DNFs for me.
Does anyone have any recommendations for books about similar subject matter? Bonus points if there is an audiobook available.
by sapphicsato
26 Comments
Damn you’ve really gone down the rabbit hole with these! Have you tried “The Sound of Gravel” by Ruth Wariner? It’s about growing up in a polygamist family in Mexico and it’s pretty intense. Also “Under the Banner of Heaven” by Jon Krakauer isn’t technically a memoir but reads like one and covers a lot of FLDS stuff you might not have seen before
have you tried unfollow? it’s about the westboro baptist church
Extraordinary Popular Delusions of Our Times by Daniel Martin.
Probably a third of the book deals with religious delusions (the rest is financial and health delusions), but it is interesting to compare the similarities of delusional thinking across different subjects. There is a lot of overlap.
Yes – there is an audio book.
There are a bunch more by Scientologists (with Audiobook). Blown for Good by Marc Headley and A Billion Years by Mike Rinder.
Counting the cost by Jill Duggar
a youtuber named Alyssa Grenfell made a book that’s about her own experience escaping a religion like this!
Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer is about the history of the Mormon church and how its teachings breed fundaentalism.
Not what comes to mind first for many,but the Autobiography of Malcolm X-specifically the latter half.
Hey Hun! is a good one about leaving an MLM, if you’re into that!
Unorthodox by Deborah Feldman (I read it, didn’t think it was great)
Leaving the Witness by Amber Scorah (haven’t read this)
Scarred, by Sarah Edmondson, escaping the freaky NXIVM cult run by Keith Ranieri.
Not entirely sure what FLDS is but Dinner with Vampires by Joy Bentz is a pretty good memoir about a religious cult. The author – and audiobook narrator – is an actor who was on the drama, One Tree Hill so the audiobook version is top notch.
A Member of the Family, by Dianne Lake, it’s about her time entering, in and eventually leaving the Manson family.
Educated!!!
Well Trained Wife by Tia Levings was great. She was IBLP if I remember correctly and her writing is excellent. She’s also active on IG and talks about current events through the fundie lens
How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair is one of my all time favorite author-read memoirs.
The Sound of Gravel by Ruth Wariner
*Jesus Land* by Julia Scheeres.
Also *Jesusland* by Joelle KIdd.
Girl at the End of the World by Elizabeth Esther
Jon Krahauer, Under The Banner Of Heaven. Unforgettable. The book starts with the brutal murder of a LDS woman and her infant daughter.
I know you mentioned Uncultured but Daniella Mestyanek Young has a new book coming out too.
If you are open to ethnographies, I highly recommend Robert Jay Lifton’s Destroying the World to Save It about the Tokyo sarin cult Aum Shinrikyo. He has a new(er) book out that explores the psychological connection between political extremism & religious zealotry. Losing Reality.
The favorite memoirs that I found ~2 years ago are the memoirs of Deborah Feldman(Unorthodox and Exodus). I think she’s amazing and inspiring.
Deborah is a journalist, currently living in Berlin. She grew up in an ultra-conservative Jewish community in New York.
Her books are available in Audible. Her story was also adapted to a six-part series on Netflix.
I got way into reading about the FLDS a few years ago. I have a few that you didn’t list…
Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist’s Wife by Irene Spencer
Secrets and Wives: The Hidden World of Mormon Polygamy by Sanjiv Bhattacharya
When Men Become Gods: Mormon Polygamist Warren Jeffs, His Cult of Fear, and the Women Who Fought Back by Stephen Singular
Favorite Wife: Escape from Polygamy by Susan Ray Schmidt
Fifty Years in Polygamy: Big Secrets and Little White Lies by Kristyn Decker
The Secret Story of Polygamy by Kathleen Tracy
The Polygamous Wives Writing Club: From the Diaries of Mormon Pioneer Women by Paula Kelly Harline
Daughters of Zion: My Family’s Conversions to Polygamy by Kim Taylor
The Polygamist’s Daughter by Anna LeBaron
Not Without My Sister by Juliana Buhring about the Children of God. I don’t believe it has an audiobook.
Undertow, by Charlene Edge. It’s about leaving The Way International.
Star Spangled Jesus by April Ajoy. Great book and her personality really comes out in her writing.