Stolen Innocence by Elisa Wall

This was the most incredible story. It is the autobiography of Elisa Wall, the young woman whose testimony put Warren Jeffs in prison. Elisa grew up in the FLDS, Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints--a polygamist cult.









She was forced at 14 to marry a 19 year old first cousin she didn't like and he raped her and abused her for 3 years until she met a young man who treated her right and helped her leave the cult and start a new life.









The story gives a vivid inside look at the community--the way the households with multiple wives function, the jealousies and politics going on in the family environment, the way some kids pit their mothers against each other or manipulate the father. It really is a no brainer that the set up of a family with more than one wife would be utterly chaotic emotionally--the human jealousy instinct has to be so strong, in spite of what any sister wife might tell you.









Elissa had tons of siblings of course, and 3 mothers. Then her mother was arbitrarily told by the prophet that she was no longer the wife of her first husband and sent to a totally different town to be married to a man with over a dozen wives. One of Elisa's sisters was married to Rulon Jeffs, a man in his 80s with 20 or so wives. AT age 18. The way women are treated in the FLDS is shocking and angering. They were told to "keep sweet" and put their troubles on a shelf at all times.









The part of the book outlining Elisa's marriage were particularly sad. She begged and pleaded to be excuses from her marriage at age 14. It was disgusting the way her stepfather, mother, and Warren Jeffs kept using their version of "God" to force her hand. Not to mention that the husband was a 19 year old cousin. Poor Elisa suffered 3 miscarriages and a still birth by age 17. Probably due to the fact that the close cousin relationship would indicate genetic difficulties resulting in the problem.






But Elisa's story has a happy ending. She met another young man who grew up in the cult who was also dissatisfied. They ran away together, got married, and have 2 healthy babies. Through the encouragement of older sisters who had already left the cult, Elisa reported her underage marriage and abuse and Warren Jeffs was arrested and convicted. He was sentenced to 2 5-life sentences, guaranteeing at least 10 years in prison, possibly more.



Sadly, Elisa's mother and two younger sisters remain in the FLDS at the time the book was published in 2008. Elisa and her older sisters put out missing persons reports on them, but their cult leaders simply surrounded them, took them to check in at the police station, and the police had to be satisfied with that legally. Elisa has also sued Jeffs, the church, and the UEF "church bank." If she wins the money, she will use it to help her foundation that helps other victimized young girls and women to escape the tyranny of the false prophets of the FLDS and help them be free.

Dr. Death by Jonathan Kellerman

The Alex Delaware mysteries by Jonathan Kellerman are some of my favorites. Alex is a child psychologist who lives with his girlfriend, Robin, who builds guitars and other stringed instruments. Alex's best friend, Milo, is a homicide detective for LAPD so Alex consults on cases with Milo when the criminal is especially mentally disturbed, or children are involved, etc.

In Dr. Death, Alex has a conflict of interest when Milo seeks his help. A doctor who offers people assisted suicide is found brutally murdered. Due to the violent nature of the crime, Milo thinks that Alex should help give a psychological profile of the killer. The suspect list includes the widowed husband of a woman who the doctor supposedly help commit suicide. Alex knows the family because after the mother's death, he treated the woman's daughter.

As Alex explores the family dynamic further, he knows there are darker secrets and the possibility that the murdered doctor didn't even help the mother die. There are three layers of mystery in this book--who killed the doctor, who helped the mother die, and what caused the mother's depression that lead to the suicide.

I thought this book was great, it had lots of twists and turns and the three mystery threads keep every chapter speeding along. The Alex Delaware mysteries are darker than a lot of my "fluff" series that I enjoy, and I like going into Kellerman's mind every so often and read the more grisly and intellectual mysteries.

My Life in France by Julia Child

So after reading Julie and Julia a few months ago, I had to read the other book that inspired the movie I loved, so I read Julia's account of how she got into cooking while living in France with her husband, Paul.

I love food and cooking and I think for some reason the idea of French food has always turned me off. Not in the snails and frog legs kind of turn off, but the idea that hoity toity people like French food and it's considered "classic" and so I didn't want to jump on that snooty bandwagon. But reading Julia's book, while French is a technical cuisine to prepare, it is really just another nationality of rustic, local tradition.

I enjoyed reading the tales of Julia and Paul finding their way in life as Americans stationed abroad in France and later Norway and Germany. It was the late 40s, early 50s, a time when Europe was rebuilding and the Marshall Plan was in place to boost Europe back after the war. Paul was in the diplomatic corps, but (IMO) a more fluffy job area helping with art, culture and basically propoganda projects. He was an artist and it suited him. Julia was bored so she went to culinary school at Le Cordon Bleu. After she started a cooking school with 2 friends and then they tackled the multi-year task of writing Julia's famous cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cuisine.

The parts about living in foreign countries and finding apartments and trying to make friends and the trips they took were great. So were the parts about cooking school. But writing about writing a cookbook got a touch boring after a point. I understand *why* writing the book took so long but argh, it was just pages and pages about how she had to test lots of recipes many times to figure out how American products would translate in the French cooking.

The book pretty much told the rest of Julia's life, even after she became well known and moved back to America and settled in Boston. There are short parts about the making of her TV show, but even though a TV show creation is more active than writing a cookbook, she goes into far less detail about that production. I wouldn't have minded hearing some of that minutae, since I'm sure the primitive TV production was quite a challenge at times for someone cooking live on camera.

This book is far superior to Julie Powell's, and I enjoyed it quite a lot. It makes me want to learn how to make a buerre blanc and crepes.

Prairie Tale by Melissa Gilbert

I am a junkie for a tell all book about a child star/former celeb. So I was jazzed when I saw that Half-Pint from Little House on the Prairie wrote a book.

LHOTP may have been a wholesome show, but Ms. Gilbert's life was nothing but. She was on drugs, slept around, went through divorce, tumultuous relationships, etc.

I am a huge fan of the LHOTP books, but I think the show is garbage in terms of faithfulness to the Ingalls novels. So I've never really liked the show as anything but mindless cheese. I think it is very interesting to read about the making of the show and how Michael Landon had a vicious temper and in spite of being famous for family TV shows and playing saintly characters on them, he was quick to scream at employees on set and left his wife and several children to be with his on -the-side girlfriend.

I thought the book was interesting as a life story goes. I wasn't a huge fan of Gilbert and her show to start with, so I wasn't let down by her tell-all book. What I mean is, I didn't have dislike for her before or after, but I didn't think she or the series or Landon were awesome, so hearing their flaws didn't bug me too much.

I think the biggest lesson from reading yet another child star Hollywood book is that they all have the same journey in a lot of ways--stage parents, drugs, too many lovers, and then they usually grow up, go to rehab, and find a good spouse. (Those of course are the happy endings.) I think sometimes kids in America think being a celebrity or an actor/performer is the be-all end all and something to strive for, but reading these types of autobiographies always makes me so glad I'm obscure.