Reviews with content warning for Incest - Breaking Free: How I Escaped My Father-Warren Jeffs-Polygamy, and the FLDS Cult

Rachel Jeffs tells her story of growing up in a polygamist cult as the daughter of the man who would eventually take over leadership of the FLDS and end up on the FBI’s most wanted list. She describes in detail the ways he sexually abused her starting when she was 8 years old, and how, later on, he began doing the same things to his underage wives.

When Rachel was 18, she became the third wife of a kind young man, but she was still under her father’s influence. She spent many of the following years separated from her children and/or husband as Jeffs sought to keep control of her so she wouldn’t reveal the secret of what he had done to her.

Gradually, Rachel’s disillusionment with the church and its leadership grew until she finally took the leap to get out and take her kids with her, leaving behind everything she had ever known for the hope that the unknown would be better.

It’s a hard-hitting memoir that fearlessly draws back the curtain on life as a woman in the FLDS and what kind of man Warren Jeffs really is.

Not for the faint of heart, but the worst of it is mostly packed into the beginning chapters and tapers off as Rachel gets older.

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dark emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

4.5/5.0

I find this autobiography to be a stunningly honest reflection on surviving abuse, a cult, and the trauma that comes with it. The audiobook is greatly benefitted by having the author read the book. There is no hiding away from Warren Jeff’s’ actions and the impacts he had with Rachel Blackmore’s words and tones. Her prayer for her family at the end of the book hits hard, but I hope it continues to reach her family until the FLDS is gone forever.

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