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Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist's Wife

Irene Spencer · back to the book

What’s in it

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24 books with the same feel

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❤️

His Favorite Wife: Trapped in Polygamy

Susan Ray Schmidt · 445 pages

CultsReligious IdentityMarriage in TroubleMemoir & Biography
❤️

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

Religious IdentityMarriage in TroubleCultsMemoir & Biography
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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

CultsReligious IdentityMemoir & BiographyNonfiction
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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

CultsReligious IdentityMemoir & BiographyNonfiction
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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

CultsReligious IdentityMemoir & BiographyNonfiction
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A Queer and Pleasant Danger: The true story of a nice Jewish boy who joins the Church of Scientology and leaves twelve years later to become the lovely lady she is today

Kate Bornstein · 258 pages

In the early 1970s, a boy from a Conservative Jewish family joined the Church of Scientology. In 1981, that boy officially left the movement and ultimately transitioned into a woman. A few years later, she stopped calling herself a woman—and became a famous gender outlaw. Gender theorist, performance artist, and author Kate Bornstein is set to change lives with her stunningly original memoir. W

CultsMemoir & BiographyReligious IdentityNonfiction
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Cartwheels in a Sari: A Memoir of Growing Up Cult

Jayanti Tamm · 288 pages

In this colorful, eye-opening memoir, Jayanti Tamm offers an unforgettable glimpse into the hidden world of growing up "cult" in mainstream America. Through Jayanti's fascinating story--the first book to chronicle Sri Chinmoy--she unmasks a leader who convinces thousands of disciples to follow him, scores of nations to dedicate monuments to him, and throngs of celebrities (Sting, Pope John Paul II

CultsReligious IdentityMemoir & BiographyNonfiction
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Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology

Leah Remini, Rebecca Paley · 253 pages

Indoctrinated into the church as a child while living with her mother and sister in New York, Remini eventually moved to Los Angeles, where her dreams of becoming an actress and advancing Scientology’s causes grew increasingly intertwined. As an adult, she found the success she’d worked so hard for, and with it a prominent place in the hierarchy of celebrity Scientologists alongside people such as

CultsReligious IdentityMemoir & BiographyNonfiction
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The Witness Wore Red: The 19th Wife Who Brought Polygamous Cult Leaders to Justice

Rebecca Musser, M. Bridget Cook · 352 pages

A gripping account of Rebecca Musser's struggle to escape the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints led by Rulon Jeffs and his son, Warren, and her subsequent decision to take the witness stand against the new prophet of the FLDS in order to protect her little sisters and other young girls from being forced to marry at shockingly young ages.

CultsReligious IdentityMemoir & BiographyNonfiction
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Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots

Deborah Feldman · 272 pages

Traces the author's upbringing in a Hasidic community in Brooklyn, describing the strict rules that governed her life, arranged marriage at the age of seventeen, and the birth of her son, which led to her plan to leave and forge her own path in life.

Religious IdentityMemoir & BiographyCultsNonfiction
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Inside The Kingdom: My Life In Saudi Arabia

Carmen Bin Ladin · 219 pages

"On September 11, 2001, Carmen Bin Ladin heard the news that the Twin Towers had been struck. She instinctively knew that her brother-in-law was involved in these horrifying acts of terrorism, and her heart went out to America. She also knew that her life and the lives of her daughters would never be the same again." "In 1974 Carmen, half-Swiss and half-Persian, married into the Bin Laden family.

Memoir & BiographyMarriage in TroubleReligious IdentityNonfiction
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Religious IdentityMemoir & BiographyCultsNonfiction
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The 19th Wife

David Ebershoff · 528 pages

Faith, I tell them, is a mystery, elusive to many, and never easy to explain.Sweeping and lyrical, spellbinding and unforgettable, David Ebershoff's The 19th Wife combines epic historical fiction with a modern murder mystery to create a brilliant novel of literary suspense. It is 1875, and Ann Eliza Young has recently separated from her powerful husband, Brigham Young, prophet and leader of the Mo

CultsReligious IdentityMarriage in TroubleFemale Lead
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Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return

Marjane Satrapi · 187 pages

187 pages : illustrations ; 24 cmGN500L Lexile

Memoir & BiographyReligious IdentityMarriage in TroubleNonfiction
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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

CultsMemoir & BiographyNonfictionFemale Lead
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CultsMemoir & BiographyReligious IdentityNonfiction
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Not Without My Sister

Kristina Jones, Celeste Jones, Juliana Buhring · 432 pages

CultsMemoir & BiographyNonfictionFemale Lead
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The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir

Elna Baker · 276 pages

A Mormon stand-up comedienne shares her experiences of being a virgin in New York City, describing how she unexpectedly fell in love with an atheist and scandalized her family by engaging in activities contrary to her faith.

Religious IdentityMemoir & BiographyNonfictionFemale Lead
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Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake-Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia

Dennis Covington · 240 pages

It is Scottsboro, Alabama, in the fall of 1991. A snake-handling preacher by the name of Glendel Buford Summerford has just tried to murder his wife, Darlene, by snakebite. At gunpoint, he forces her to stick her arm in a box of rattlesnakes. She is bitten twice and nearly dies. The trial, which becomes a sensation throughout southern Appalachia, echoes familiar themes from a troubled secular wor

CultsReligious IdentityMemoir & BiographyNonfiction
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Vivian Versus the Apocalypse

Katie Coyle · 287 pages

CultsReligious IdentityFemale Lead
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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

CultsReligious IdentityNonfiction
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In the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor's Journey in the Saudi Kingdom

Qanta A. Ahmed · 454 pages

The decisions that change your life are often the most impulsive ones. Unexpectedly denied a visa to remain in the United States, Qanta Ahmed, a young British Muslim doctor, becomes an outcast in motion. On a whim, she accepts an exciting position in Saudi Arabia. This is not just a new job; this is a chance at adventure in an exotic land she thinks she understands, a place she hopes she will belo

Religious IdentityMemoir & BiographyNonfictionFemale Lead
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Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations

Ayaan Hirsi Ali · 277 pages

"In this highly personal follow-up to Infidel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali examines the high cost of freedom - estrangement from her family and country, the loud criticism of her by many Muslims (some of them women), the 24-hour security which came as a result of death threats, and her struggle to come to terms with an often lonely independence. She records the painful reconciliation with her beloved father,

Religious IdentityMemoir & BiographyNonfictionFemale Lead
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Devil in the Details: Scenes from an Obsessive Girlhood

Jennifer Traig · 272 pages

In the bestselling tradition of "Running with Scissors" and "A Girl Named Zippy," Jennifer Traig tells an unforgettable story of youthful obsession.

Religious IdentityMemoir & BiographyNonfictionFemale Lead

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