Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

Lost Boy: The True Story of One Man's Exile from a Polygamist Cult and His Brave Journey to Reclaim His Life by Maia Szalavitz, Brent W. Jeffs

3 reviews

freigruber's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative sad tense medium-paced

5.0

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cdraider's review against another edition

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emotional informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

I have read numerous books about the FLDS cult and this book by far is the most informative.  Brent takes his time to explain to you the beliefs that lead to the practices and sites his references.  This is done phenomenally well. He does such a great job of showing how the faith got to the point it did. 
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merrrry's review against another edition

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dark sad tense

3.5

I’ve heard about the Mormon compounds and cults living in isolation away from society, so it was interesting and saddening to see a personal account of life in an extremist group. In general, this book felt like Brent Jeff’s way of processing everything that happened to him as a child in the FLDS then as a lost boy. It was also great to see how receptive to therapy his entire family was. What this book lacked in emotional impact, it made up for in its pacing of events. I picked this up mostly because Maia Szalavitz co-wrote it, so I hoped for some depth about childhood trauma and its effects. While it was definitely a large theme, it wasn’t really dug into. This book was presented more as a story and less of an educational thing, which is fine, just not what I went in looking for. Still a great read tho! I was genuinely cheering whenever Warren Jeffs got taken down a peg. As the main perpetrator of many people’s trauma and suffering, I found him to be the most interesting character; Manipulative, spoiled, power hungry, clever, but surprisingly cowardly. I really wonder what happened in his life to make him what he was. 
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