A review by reynoldsreads
Breaking Free: How I Escaped Polygamy, the FLDS Cult, and my Father, Warren Jeffs by Rachel Jeffs

dark emotional slow-paced

3.0

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Incest, Child abuse, Sexual assault, and Sexual harassment

The beginning of the book spends a lot of time describing the sexual acts done by a father to his daughter, 8 years old and up.

It never crosses the line of actual rape, but it comes close. There are brief mentions later on of the same things happening to a 6-year-old.

There are many mentions of underage marriages.

There is also a section that describes (not in great detail, but enough to be disturbing) an orgy involving multiple underage girls.