School Library Journal Review
Wariner, whose deceased father had 42 children, grew up in a polygamous Mormon cult town in Mexico. Even though it was the 1970s, having electricity and plumbing in the house was a struggle, and many of her siblings were developmentally disabled, and Ruth had to care for them. Her family moved often-California, Texas, New Mexico, and back to Mexico when all else failed. Schooling wasn't important, but learning how to make fresh bread and to clean house for her future husband was. In honest, posttherapy fashion, Ruth explains how her mother didn't divorce her stepfather after physical spousal abuse and repeated sexual abuse of his daughters; the girls were supposed to forgive him instead. With no self-pity, Ruth doesn't apologize for her mother's actions-she is grateful for the love of her mother and siblings, though she knows that escaping their stepfather is what ultimately saved them. Teens will root for Ruth and her siblings to survive, cry when the young woman is abused, and fear for the family when things go wrong. VERDICT Fast-paced, sincere, and gut-wrenching, just like Jeannette Walls's The Glass Castle; this is a must-purchase memoir for high school libraries.-Sarah Hill, Lake Land College, Mattoon, IL © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Wariner is her mother's fourth daughter and her father's 39th child. So begins this intense memoir of growing up in a sect of polygamous Mormons who are striving to build a utopia in the Mexican desert. The men tend the cows and do odd jobs in the States, while the women tend their children and their pregnancies and make regular trips into El Paso to pick up welfare benefits. Wariner's dad is murdered by a rival when the author is three, and her mom replaces him with Lane, whom Wariner comes to abhor. Poverty and jealousy are enormous stressors. Sister-wives fight for resources, and Lane isn't much of a provider. A fight over which wife deserves a new showerhead leads to Lane viciously beating Wariner's mother, and she flees with the kids to her parents' home in California. The author spends blissful months enjoying chocolate ice cream and hot showers before her mother succumbs to Lane's charms and her own convictions and returns the family to the colony. Squalor and child abuse follow, and the family grinds apathetically along until Lane's mismanagement of life brings a final crisis. By age 15, Wariner has had enough. Fed up with hearing "It's God's will" whenever something goes wrong, she rescues herself and then eventually writes this memoir, which condemns using religion to evade moral responsibility. This well-written book is hard to put down and hard to forget. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Library Journal Review
Wariner's first book, relating her childhood bouncing between El Paso, TX, and Colonia LeBaron, a polygamist Mormon colony in northern Mexico, depicts the events that led her to flee from the colony at age 15, when she and her older brother smuggled their younger siblings across the U.S. border to escape her neglectful and sexually abusive stepfather. The author's complicated relationship with her late mother; her observations about the inner workings of a polygamist community; and her questions about family, faith, and what it means to be on the right life path take readers on an intense coming-of-age journey. After settling in the United States, Wariner raised three of her younger siblings on her own. Told from the perspective of Wariner as a teen, this account is at turns poignant and tragic; a raw, engrossing chronicle of inner strength and survival. VERDICT This book will appeal to memoir lovers as well as readers interested in polygamist culture or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.-Crystal Goldman, Univ. of -California, San Diego Lib. © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.