Flap copy from ARC:"Thirteen-year-old Kyra has grown up in an isolated community without questioning the fact that her father has three wives and she has twenty brothers and sisters, with two more on the way. That is, without questioning them much---if you don’t count her secret visits to the Mobile Library on Wheels to read forbidden books, or her meetings with Joshua, the boy she hopes to choose for herself instead of having a man chosen for her.
But when the Prophet decrees that she must marry her sixty-year-old uncle---who already has six wives---Kyra must make a desperate choice in the face of violence and her own fears of losing her family forever."
This excellent novel of silent rebellion and the power of choice follows 13-year old Kyra, a young girl living in a polygamist cult that is growing ever more hostile to the outside world. Kyra is a silent rebel- her trips to the mobile library have opened her eyes to a world outside, and her secret meetings with a teenaged boy on the compound threaten the power structure of the cult. After the prophet declares that God has chosen Kyra to become her 60 year-old uncle's seventh bride, Kyra is faced with an unspeakable choice between her family and her freedom.
This thought-provoking novel is a must-read for anyone interested in the concept of free will or in the inner lives of girls in polygamist cults. The novel presents all sorts of choices that people make in order to benefit or protect themselves and their family. As Kyra's family fails to protect her, she is forced to make the difficult decisions for herself. This book is violent in parts, but not unrealistically so, and faces head on the issues of immature child brides.
Highly recommended.
1 comment:
Oo, looks interesting. I just got through reading Paul Auster's The Brooklyn Follies, and I finished feeling like I wanted more cult. I can't wait to read this one!
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