Elissa Wall grew up in the polygamous sect, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS). She was 9 years old when her father announced to the family that he was going to have a third wife. She already had 21 brothers and sisters, some being half brothers and half sisters. In the FLDS, a man needed at least 3 wives to be able to enter celestial heaven, at death. The FLDS is a breakaway group from the LDS Mormon Church. They broke away from the LDS when the Mormon church banned plural marriages. Shortly before her 14th birthday, Warren Jeffs decides that her father could not control his wives and children and decides to remove Elissa's mother and her brothers and sisters from her father and re-assign them all to another man. This was not unheard of and Warren Jeff did it more and more as he took control of the sect from his father, as his father's health was deteriorating. He wanted to become the new prophet and he wanted to remove any man that could threathen his control and authority over his followers.
Elissa was devastated to be separated from her father and told that she could no longer talk to him, she now had a new father. To make matters worse, she was told at 14, that she had to marry her first cousin which she despised. She new nothing of sex since, although the girls were married young, it was supposed to be the husband's responsibility to teach their new wives everything. She started avoiding him and sleeping in their car and going to British Columbia to visit one of her sisters. She had to get her husband's ok and he agreed thinking it would improve her disposition towards him. She miscarried his babies.
She did succeed to escape the sect at some point, and worked with prosecutors to send Warren Jeffs to prison. She was the first women to ever have the courage to face him in court and tell everyone of her ordeal and how Warren Jeffs forced her into marrage after saying repeatedly she did not want to marry him. Before her, any time the prosecutors thought they had someone who would tell all on this sect and Warren Jeffs, their lives or that of their loved ones were threathen. Some women disapeared to never be seen again.
It is a very good book describing life as a member of the FLDS.