Breaking Free

How I Escaped Polygamy, the FLDS Cult, and my Father, Warren Jeffs

De: Rachel Jeffs

Narrado por: Rachel Jeffs

In this searing memoir of survival in the spirit of Stolen Innocence, the daughter of Warren Jeffs, the self-proclaimed Prophet of the FLDS Church, takes you deep inside the secretive polygamist Mormon fundamentalist cult run by her family and how she escaped it.

Born into the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Rachel Jeffs was raised in a strict patriarchal culture defined by subordinate sister wives and men they must obey. No one in this radical splinter sect of the Mormon Church was more powerful or terrifying than its leader Warren Jeffs—Rachel’s father.

Living outside mainstream Mormonism and federal law, Jeffs arranged marriages between under-age girls and middle-aged and elderly members of his congregation. In 2006, he gained international notoriety when the FBI placed him on its Ten Most Wanted List. Though he is serving a life sentence for child sexual assault, Jeffs’ iron grip on the church remains firm, and his edicts to his followers increasingly restrictive and bizarre.

In Breaking Free, Rachel blows the lid off this taciturn community made famous by John Krakauer’s bestselling Under the Banner of Heaven to offer a harrowing look at her life with Warren Jeffs, and the years of physical and emotional abuse she suffered. Sexually assaulted, compelled into an arranged polygamous marriage, locked away in ""houses of hiding"" as punishment for perceived transgressions, and physically separated from her children, Rachel, Jeffs’ first plural daughter by his second of more than fifty wives, eventually found the courage to leave the church in 2015. But Breaking Free is not only her story—Rachel’s experiences illuminate those of her family and the countless others who remain trapped in the strange world she left behind.

A shocking and mesmerizing memoir of faith, abuse, courage, and freedom, Breaking Free is an expose of religious extremism and a beacon of hope for anyone trying to overcome personal obstacles.

A Family Tree PDF accopmanies the audiobook.

Heart breaking addition to the FLDS cult story

I first say Rachel Jeffs on the TV show "Escaping Polygamy" (she talks about writing the book on the show in an interview.) I think most of the reads who pick up this title do so because they've read autobiographies by Carolyn Jessup and Elissa Wall and "Under the Banner of Heaven".

Rachel said in the afterward that she wrote this book to help her process her life inside FLDS as the daughter of the prophet, Warren Jeffs (making her FLDS royalty), as a 3rd wife and mother of 5, and as a collateral damage in Jeff's well-publicised fall from grace.

Rachel describes a sequestered childhood with her beloved sisters, and her father's manipulative sexual and mental abuse. (While not described in graphic terms, it is disturbing!) I think I feel connected to Rachel because we're almost the same age. I couldn't help but think that I was beginning college when she had her first child.

The book is read by the author. Rachel is softspoken and has the cadence of many from the same background. The story is heartbreaking, but honest; matter-of-fact, but gentle in it's handling of difficult things.

Like I said in the title, this is a heartbreaking addition to the FLDS cult story.

Excellent book.

Very well written. An inspiration to anyone who feels trapped in any way. Rachel you are an inspiration.

God bless you Rachel.

It was amazing to hear the story of a woman who had been able to escape the abusive and evil culture that she was raised in. I liked being able to know some of the inside of the story that was so publicly reported about the FLDS cult.

Painful story

This shows that the world must change the laws, so to protect the innocent children!

Truly Touching

This story touched my heart in a way that many have yet too. You can hear in the rhythm of her speech and the way she tells her story that she grew up in an entirely different world. I am truly sorry for the pain that she's gone through and I am joyful of the life that she's making for herself and her children.