Customer Reviews

Daughters Of Zion: A Family's Conversion To Polygamy

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Kim Taylor's life started out typically enough in small town America in the 50's and early 60's. Until the day her family became caught up in the LeBaron clan's fundamentalist cult, whose leader saw himself as a "prophet of God".

Joel LeBaron's charisma and seeming goodness drew people to him and involved them in his plan to create a "heaven on earth" at his colony in Mexico. He, along with brothers Ervil and Verlan convinced their followers that is was God's will that they live a polygamous lifestyle.

Taking lust and trying to turn it into a Biblical principle caused nothing but pain and emptiness for the many wives and children involved.

Power struggles between brothers Joel and Ervil take Taylor's saga on a deadly turn.

In an era when most girls Kim's age were worried about what they should wear to the Prom and getting their homework done on time, Kim Taylor was often responsible for the care of her sisters' many children, running her own household, and making grownup decisions.

During an tumultuous time in Kim's life, she traveled with her parents to the states to help her grandfather. The goodness and manly strength of her grandfather and the love he had for her was in sharp contrast to what she had been experiencing in Mexico as a part of the LeBaron cult. This caused her to question everything she had been believing.

I couldn't put this book down. (I stayed up till 1:00 A.M. more that once!) It is well written and includes suspense, intrigue, romance and even murder. I felt like I was experiencing everything right along with Kim. It was a world I didn't know existed.

After reading all the books I could get my hands on about Polygamy, the LDS and Mormonism, I found this book very refreshing. Not that the other women who had the courage to escape and then write about their horrible and harrowing life were not powerful. But this book takes you into the second generation of the cult. The children born to these men and women. Kim Taylor talks so openly and honestly about her whole life, not just bites and pieces. She brings it all together. The LeBaron brothers along with the tragedy they brought on themselves and so many others. About the life of a little girl, teenager and then a woman in the places like Colony LeBaron and Los Molinos.
She made me feel like a fly on the wall. Watching while all the other real people in all the other books I had read moved around me alive and speaking. And she did this while also writing about and dealing with her own demons. This book moved along so fast, I was at the end, sadly, before I knew it.

A rare nonfiction that reads like a novel. The true accounts of a young womans captivating and troubling past, made it hard to put down. I would find myself in the wee hours of the night smiling at her sweet memories and wiping away tears at her difficult ones. It is truly a moving and inspirational story. I have recommended it to all I know.

Loved the book. VERY well written. It's a page turner and I couldn't wait to find out what would happen next. Took me behind the scenes of real life polygamy and cultic life.

This book is a must read for anyone who wants to begin to understand what goes on in polygamist families. Kim Taylor's story is both touching and riveting.

Mind boggling! This cannot be real! But Daughters of Zion is not fiction. And this is why it is so scary!
On the one hand, Daughters of Zion is an interesting biography of a young girl, raised in a normal mainstream Mormon family in Utah, as she grows up in modern-day Mormon polygamist commune after her family decided to convert to a new brand of Mormonism. Kim's writing style makes you feel like you are sitting at the kitchen table as she tells you about what she did only yesterday. All of her friends and relatives become your friends and relatives, making it easy for the reader to relate to the concept of relatives in a polygamist community.
But more importantly, it is the most candid description of life in a Mormon polygamist commune ever. Told from the eyes of a little girl as she grew up, a child whose own mother was not even a Mormon, allows Kim to put the things she experienced into crystal clear perspective.
Differences between the modern mainstream Mormon Church and those of the traditional Mormon Church condemned by American society become clear. But this is not a book about the 19th century. It is about today! So more importantly, the difference between the contemporary Mormon Church and the few remaining polygamist colonies, both inside the U.S. and those in Mexico and Latin America, are revealed.
Based on this detailed description of the day to day experiences of an innocent girl, it is easy to understand many of the incomprehensible events of the late 20th and 21st centuries which continue to occur sporadically in both the United States and Latin America with increasingly regularity. As I continued to read, my blood went cold as I connected Kim's descriptions to some of America's recent cult-related tragedies.
One final piece of advice. Just when you think Kim is starting to cool down at the end, she isn't. Read to the final end. It will bring you back to Kim's real world.
I give Daughters of Zion 6 stars out of 5!

When I first started reading this book I was immediately struck with the freshness and charm of the first few chapters. THEN the truly intriguing tale began! I simply could not put this book down as the fascinating details of Kim's unimaginable new life in a polygamous colony are revealed. Simply an extremely captivating and amazingly unusual true story!

I couldn't put the book down from start to finish. Kim is a wonderful storyteller and packs her book with details of women living in polgamy. Loneliness, hunger, and lack of medical care were only a few of the things these women and children had to endure. But, Kim was able to find humor, freindships and some bright moments among the poverty in their Mexican colony. The contrast of her Godly Grandparents commitment to each other and their children was a path for her to follow to her own special relationship with her husband and children. This book is an inspiring read.

In Daughters of Zion, Kim Taylor vividly portrays a woman's joys and sorrows, rights, and lack of, and responsibilities in a polygamous society. The youngest of four sisters, her perspectives as a child and through her teen years, along with observations of her sisters' marriages, gives the reader a unique view into these religion-based cults.
Taught to accept without question the teachings of the leaders, she experienced ridicule from men, and many of the women, when attempting to voice her inner conflicts. The reader will be facinated, and at times outraged, as we follow the author's journey to finding where she belonged.

Reviewed by Janet & Keith Boucher; Londonderry, Vermont

This is one of the best books about polygamy.
Kim is an excellent writer and storyteller.
The words just flow. I just can't praise her
enough.

Kim's dad was converted the FLDS in a LDS
church parking lot by the LeBaron group and to
his dying day he regretted what it did to his family.

Two of Kim' s sisters would marry cult members and
1 sister married Joel the Prophet. Kathy the Prophets
wife would have the most horrific sad life. Kim's mom
never converted and her dad never took a 2nd wife.

Kim is courted by Verlan LeBaron but she does not
get trapped. She is very good friends with Mark and
Rena Chynoweth. Mark and Kim are a little in love with
each other but mostly they just share a love of music.
Mark and Rena become killers for Ervil LeBaron.

Kim is safe from many of the bad aspects of the life
because she and her parents travel away from the com-
pound to work. There is never enough money. These
compounds have wells, outhouses and no electricity.
Many residents are starving. No medical care.

There is a horrible family tragedy brewing between the
LeBaron brothers. Ervil LeBaron goes completely in-
sane. ZION BECOMES HELL.

Kim survives. You must read this book to see how she
does it.

Later in life she will meet a wonderful man and together
they will put her destroyed family back in 1 piece.

*Read ..SHATTERED DREAMS-Irene Spencer & FAVORITE
WIFE-Susan Schmidt to learn more about the LeBarons.
Dorothy Solomon writes about the Allred group in-
DAUGHTERS OF THE SAINTS.

**Read The 4 o'clock Murders by Scott Anderson. This is
about the Evil Ervil.