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.

Among the Mad by Jacqueline Winspear

I began reading the Maisie Dobbs series about 4 years ago. When I began, all I knew was that it was about a young woman detective in the 20's and 30's. With a name like Maisie, I had an impression before reading them, that it was going to be kind of a light, historical Nancy Drew-ish series.

Wow, was I in for a surprise. The Maisie Dobbs books are exquisite. They are mysteries, but they have many other layers that help them rise above that genre into the plain of simply great novels.

Maisie is not a fluffy blonde sleuth as I might have thought originally, but a brilliant psychologist and detective, a former nurse, and a woman who has suffered greatly in her life and risen above adversity in a way that is rare in her time period.

She is the daughter of "below stairs" types in England, a father who is a horse groom and a mother who was a maid. But the wealthy Lady that employed her parents saw a spark in the girl and sent her to a good school after Maisie's mother died. This lead Maisie to make friends in the upper echelons of society, as well as become more refined than her station might have allowed without the patronage of the wealthy friend.

After school, WWI broke out and Maisie served as a nurse in France. The horrors of war came too close at one point, nearly killing Maisie and her fiance, a doctor in the field hospital. Her fiance was left a shell of a man, unable to speak or take care of himself. He eventually passed away in a sanitarium in one of the volumes of the series.

So Maisie, trained by a Sherlock Holmes-like figure, a psychological detective Maurice Blanche. She worked as his apprentice and then began her own business when he retired.

Now that I've given a long background on this character, I am now brought to this newest installment in the series, Among the Mad. Maisie is called in on an important case, a man has threatened the government of England if money and assistance is not given to the WWI vets who are injured in mind and body and cannot find work. Working with Scotland Yard, Maisie follows all manner of leads to track down the madman who wants to unleash nerve gas on London if his demands are not met.

In addition to the general mystery story of finding the bad guy before it is too late, this book explores several interesting aspects of the era in London. Taking place in 1932 and into the New Year holiday of 1933, the Depression and issue of war vets with 'shell shock' are deeply examined. Maisie's psychology and nursing backgrounds lead her to several mental hospitals where former colleagues give her information about the mental injuries suffered by the WWI vets and how the horrors of the war affected them and continue to cause them problems over a decade later.

WWI is often the less written about war, because WWII had a much larger scope, a longer US involvement, and more tragic stories to tell. But WWI caused WWII and the war time trench conditions were very terrifying and horrid for the men who fought there for four long years. In the US, our men were only there about one year, and so we didn't have as many vets, or as many shell shocked victims as in England. The issues of WWI vets are a prevalent theme in the Dobbs series and I find it fascinating that it doesn't really matter what war it is, the horror of it is overall the same no matter what time period, or country of origin for the soldier.

There is also a plot thread in this book about Billy Beale, Maisie's loyal assistant. In a previous book, Billy's toddler daughter died of a childhood disease and in this book, Billy's wife, Doreen, still cannot cope with her grief. She finally becomes a danger to herself and must be put in an asylum. The first place she is sent is the stuff of horror stories, with medieval "treatments" that do more harm than good. Maisie is able to help Doreen get into a more modern facility, where talk therapy and more conventional methods are employed. But this plot adds a richness to the historical setting, showing how the 1930s were very much a time of transition in the field of mental health.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book as I always enjoy a Dobbs story, and I look forward to the next installment, hopefully soon!

Assault and Pepper by Tamar Myers

I've been reading Tamar Myers' Magdelena Yoder mysteries for about two years now (or is it 3?) and this one blew me away, mystery wise. I always enjoy these books, they're short, very witty, and Mags is a hilarious character to read about. She owns a lucrative inn in the PA town of Hernia, where the population tends to be either Amish, like Mags' ancestors or Mennonite, like Mags herself.

In this book, I would say that Myers really shook up the town of Hernia in a really big way. Normally the murder mysteries that occur are related to inn guests or other outsiders, so that the town characters themselves remain fairly unchanged. But in this book, Myers drastically changed the lives of four of the "regulars" in her books.

The mystery revolves around the murder of Mags' minister, Rev. Shrock. Magdelena always liked her Rev., although his wife Lodema was her nemesis. In this book, the Rev. is dead, Lodema goes off her rocker and is institutionalized, and the killer revealed was a huge surprise.

Unfortunately, my desire not to give the book away will lead to the fact that this review is suddenly cut a little short, since talking much about it will no doubt give it away to someone who likes Myers and hasn't read this one in the series yet.

Suffice it to say, I found the ending a big surprise, something that doesn't happen much in low key mystery series like this one. I don't always figure them out, but it usually isn't quite so shocking as this particular book. But yay for Tamar Myers! As I've said before, I like the series that go forward in time the best, and the deaths and arrests in this book will give some fresh blood and new plot lines to the series that should really shake things up and make it more interesting to read future volumes!

Julie and Julia by Julie Powell

Well.... I haven't written about this book yet even though I finished it a week ago, because I am not sure how I feel about it.

First let me say that I read the book AFTER I saw the movie. Very good thing. I adored the movie. It was 2 hours of bliss. I am glad I saw the movie first because I think I liked the book better than I would have had I not an image of Julie Powell via Nora Ephron's movie.

But this is a book blog, not a movie blog, so I'm just gonna get to the book. I love the idea. Julie Powell's cooking project is very interesting and fun to read about. But the rest of Julie? Not so much. She's kind of a big whiner. I think it is because she wanted to be an actress and ended up a secretary. She clearly believed herself better than her job. I understand that most people don't aspire to secretary-hood in their lives, but I just wonder why Julie thought she was SO awesome that she was having a life crises over the fact that she didn't like her job. She had her health, a nice husband who put up with her, income enough to buy all the stuff needed to make all Julia Childs' French food, friends, and family.

I know it is probably not fair to criticize a blogger/autobiographer for making something all about them, but somehow, Julie Powell did it in a very obnoxious way. I have read TONS of books by people writing about themselves, and Julie Powell did not succeed in the way others have. The best comic "blogger" style writing is self-deprecating. Take the late, Great Erma Bombeck. A really smart, clever woman, but she was always the butt of her own jokes in her books in a way that made you want to be her daughter, sister, next door neighbor, etc. Julie admits faults but at the same time seems to either not believe them or feel she's justified in them. I was pretty put off by her.

I know I may have readers of all political stripes here on this blog, so I am not in the business of making politics part of the discourse but I have to say one thing--Julie Powell, a self-avowed Democrat working for a government agency during the Bush administration, was very hateful and nasty toward Republicans. She made snide comments about the GOP as though it is common knowledge they have no style of dress, enjoy being mean or cruel, generally making them her personal punching bag on numerous occasions in the book. It's obviously a-OK for Powell to love her political views and think she's right, but I don't understand why a political ideal or view makes a person automatically horrible and unworthy of respect. I would be just as annoyed if she had been a Republican dissing Dems, it was a glaring example of Julie Powell's inherent unpleasantness. She even had an aunt in the book that she admitted to loving very much but STILL harped on the fact that aunt was a Republican as though that was like admitting that the aunt was also a criminal or something. Totally uncalled for and obnoxious. I guess given Powell's attitude, I should just assume she wouldn't want the likes of me reading her books, and therefore if I'm offended it's my own fault?

Whatever. Point is, I didn't like the book very much even though I was very excited to read it. The cooking passages were entertaining whenever she wasn't whining about something while writing about cooking.

I do, however, have Julia Child's memoir, My Life in France, on hold at the library and I dearly hope that it is NOT a disappointment.