Reviews tagging 'Infertility'

Breaking Free: How I Escaped My Father-Warren Jeffs-Polygamy, and the FLDS Cult by Rachel Jeffs

5 reviews

chloesbooked's review against another edition

5.0

This woman could be one of the bravest women to share her story for the world. Rachel Jeffs, one of the many daughters of Warren Jeffs, shares her story of surviving and leaving the manipulative church known as the FLDS. She was abused as a child, then forced into a marriage. She then endured more pain at the hands of her father, the leader of the FLDS church, even after his arrest. Her bravery and resilience was inspiring to say the least!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, Infertility, Sexual assault, Confinement, Pedophilia, Rape, and Sexual violence

lignjahal's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Incest, Misogyny, Sexual harassment, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Infertility, Pregnancy, Confinement, Death, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Emotional abuse, Violence, Cancer, Miscarriage, Sexual violence, Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Gaslighting, Grief, Pedophilia, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Abortion, Blood, Body shaming, Cancer, Bullying, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Medical content, Toxic friendship, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Infidelity, Kidnapping, and Stalking

Minor: Suicidal thoughts

punkhunk's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

Rachel Jeffs depicts her life, from her childhood with her father Warren Jeffs, her relationships with her own mother, her mother's sister wives, and her siblings. She describes the rate at which her family grew larger and larger as she grew, her grandfather (the previous prophet of the FLDS before Warren) passed, and her father reacted to the law and his own actions.

I was floored by this book. Jeffs wastes no time in throwing the reader right in- from the prologue she gives the reader a warning of what is to come- her abusive relationship (sexually, emotionally, and spiritually) with her father within the FLDS cult. Once i was about a third of the way in, I had trouble keeping the book down and ended up staying up late just to find out what would happen next.

Jeffs ends up with quite a happy ending despite this being an overall dark memoir. Much of the book is filled with her trials and tribulations as she navigates life in the FLDS church, but she maintains strength and dignity throughout. I highly recommend this book to those who appreciates dark memoirs- my friend recomended it to me for those reasons and she hit the nail on the head.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse and Adult/minor relationship

Moderate: Animal death, Blood, Cancer, Car accident, Death of parent, and Miscarriage

Minor: Bullying, Chronic illness, Infertility, and Medical content

much of part one contains Jeffs' major graphic experiences of child sexual abuse and incest. it is not graphic later in the book, but is mentioned throughout the text. this is mostly obvious, but the whole book is about Jeffs' experience in the FLDS cult, which was not a choice of content warning. there are a few points at which her children are hurt badly and cannot go to the hospital due to FLDS rules, im not sure whether to mark that as "medical abuse" (which i thought was doctors/medial professionals abusing their power over patients).

lelyreads's review against another edition

challenging dark informative sad tense medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pedophilia, Misogyny, Grief, Incest, Pregnancy, Rape, Sexual assault, Child abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Gaslighting, Sexual content, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Death of parent, Infertility, Injury/Injury detail, and Mental illness

Minor: Car accident, Cursing, Cancer, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Stalking, and Suicidal thoughts

crownofsage's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative slow-paced

2.75

I fell bad giving a memoir such a low  rating, but the rating is of the book and quality of writing, NOT of her life story. The story itself was compelling and consistently horrifying. However, the style of writing was very dry and boring to me. Sometimes the monotony seemed to play into the content of the book (endless days where fun, affection, games, etc were banned and life was endless chores and loneliness). But most of the book was a struggle to get through. 

In addition, the first ~80 pages of the book contains fairly graphic CSA content about the author and her father. It’s an important part of the story for sure, but I felt like this section (many chapters) was uncomfortably long, and not particularly well written either. 

Overall, I drudged through trying to get to the end to see her talk about what life was like after escaping. I was very disappointed to see that the book ends only a couple short pages after her escape and doesn’t get into her recovery or growth from that point forward at all. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Gaslighting, Child abuse, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Incest, and Death of parent

Moderate: Sexual content, Injury/Injury detail, Infertility, Pregnancy, Emotional abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Religious bigotry, Rape, Miscarriage, and Medical content