Girl at the End of the World: My Escape from Fundamentalism in Search of Faith with a Future

Lost Boy

Brent W. Jeffs, Maia Szalavitz · 256 pages

In the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS), girls can become valuable property as plural wives, but boys are expendable, even a liability. In this powerful and heartbreaking account, former FLDS member Brent Jeffs reveals both the terror and the love he experienced growing up on his prophet's compound--and the harsh exile existence that so many boys face on

Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape

Jenna Miscavige Hill, Lisa Pulitzer · 416 pages

Jenna Miscavige Hill was raised to obey. As the niece of the Church of Scientology's leader David Miscavige, she grew up at the center of this highly controversial and powerful organization. But at twenty-one, Jenna made a daring break, risking everything she had ever known and loved to leave Scientology once and for all. Now she speaks out about her life, the Church, and her dramatic escape, goin

Banished: Surviving My Years in the Westboro Baptist Church

Lauren Drain · 300 pages

"In the tradition of Escape and Stolen innocence, the first look behind the curtains of the Westboro Baptist Church, by a young woman cast out from its clutches"--Provided by the publisher. Lauren Drain's childhood seemed average American, but when her liberal-minded father set out to film a documentary about the audacious and cultish hate group, the Westboro Baptist Church, he found himself se

I'm Perfect, You're Doomed: Tales from a Jehovah's Witness Upbringing

Kyria Abrahams · 339 pages

Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear

Jinger Duggar Vuolo · 221 pages

All Who Go Do Not Return: A Memoir

Shulem Deen · 299 pages

Shulem Deen was raised to believe that questions are dangerous. As a member of the Skverers, one of the most insular Hasidic sects in the US, he knows little about the outside world--only that it is to be shunned. His marriage at eighteen is arranged and several children soon follow. Deen's first transgression--turning on the radio--is small, but his curiosity leads him to the library, and later t

Stolen Innocence: My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs

Elissa Wall, Lisa Pulitzer · 438 pages

In September 2007, a packed courtroom in St. George, Utah, sat hushed as Elissa Wall, the star witness against polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs, gave captivating testimony of how Jeffs forced her to marry her first cousin at age fourteen. This harrowing and vivid account proved to be the most compelling evidence against Jeffs, showing the harsh realities of this closed community and the lengths

Not Without My Sister

Kristina Jones, Celeste Jones, Juliana Buhring · 432 pages

Triumph: Life After the Cult--A Survivor's Lessons

Carolyn Jessop, Laura Palmer · 279 pages

I Fired God: My Life Inside - and Escape from - the Secret World of the Independent Fundamental Baptist Cult

Jocelyn R. Zichterman

This book is a compelling memoir and investigation into the Independent Fundamental Baptist church and its shocking history of religious abuse. Jocelyn Zichterman was born, raised, married into, and finally, with her family, fled the Independent Fundamental Baptist church. Founded by the fiery preacher Bob Jones, with several hundred thousand, IFB members are told they must not associate with memb

Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith

Jon Krakauer · 399 pages

Jon Krakauer's literary reputation rests on insightful chronicles of lives conducted at the outer limits. In UNDER THE BANNER OF HEAVEN, he shifts his focus from extremes of physical adventure to extremes of religious belief within our own borders. At the core of his book is an appalling double murder committed by two Mormon fundamentalist brothers, Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they receive

The Sound of Gravel

Ruth Wariner · 352 pages

The true story of one girl's coming-of-age in a polygamist family. Ruth Wariner was the thirty-ninth of her father's forty-two children. Growing up on a farm in rural Mexico, where authorities turn a blind eye to the practices of her community, Ruth lives in a ramshackle house without indoor plumbing or electricity. At church, preachers teach that God will punish the wicked by destroying the world

God's Callgirl

Carla van Raay

Stormie: A Story of Forgiveness and Healing

Stormie Omartian · 188 pages

My Story

Elizabeth Smart, Chris Stewart · 308 pages

"For the first time, ten years after her abduction from her Salt Lake City bedroom, Elizabeth Smart reveals how she survived and the secret to forging a new life in the wake of a brutal crime On June 5, 2002, fourteen-year-old Elizabeth Smart, the daughter of a close-knit Mormon family, was taken from her home in the middle of the night by religious fanatic, Brian David Mitchell and his wife, Wand

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

Jeanette Winterson · 240 pages

Memories of the author about her difficult childhood as the adopted daughter of an English mother with strong religious convictions, and her subsequent search for her biological mother.

Confessions of a Latter-day Virgin: A Memoir

Nicole Hardy · 295 pages

Nicole Hardy, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, explores how she came, at the age of thirty-five, to a crossroads regarding her faith and her identity.

Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show (While Also in an Actual Cult!)

Bethany Joy Lenz · 303 pages

The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness

Karen Armstrong · 336 pages

The author relates her decision to leave her convent after failing to find religious fulfillment, her struggles with depression and epilepsy, her realization of her calling, and her career working with sacred texts.

Breaking Up With God: A Love Story

Sarah Sentilles · 244 pages

"Sarah Sentilles relationship with God was not a casual one. When it began to unravel she was in the ordination process to become an Episcopal priest. She was a youth minister at a church in a suburb of Boston and a doctoral student in theology at Harvard. You might say they were engaged and that the wedding was all planned- the church reserved, the menu chosen, the flowers arranged. Calling it of

Foreskin's Lament

Shalom Auslander · 310 pages

Shalom Auslander was raised with a terrified respect for God. Even as he grew up and was estranged from his community, his religion and its traditions, he could not find his way to a life where he didn't struggle against God daily.Foreskin's Lament reveals Auslander's youth in a strict, socially isolated Orthodox community, and recounts his rebellion and efforts to make a new life apart from it. A

Nice Girls Don't Win: How I Burned It All Down to Claim My Power

Parvati Shallow · 256 pages

Deconverted: a Journey from Religion to Reason

Seth Andrews

A Grief Observed

C.S. Lewis · 67 pages

Written after his wife's tragic death as a way of surviving the "mad midnight moment," A Grief Observed is C.S. Lewis's honest reflection on the fundamental issues of life, death, and faith in the midst of loss. This work contains his concise, genuine reflections on that period: "Nothing will shake a man -- or at any rate a man like me -- out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional b