Customer Reviews

The Sixth of Seven Wives: Escape from Modern Day Polygamy

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

 

 

Mary Mackert tells a poignant and powerful story about her life in Mormon polygamy. The story is presented as a reflection of her life- she was born and raised in a polygamous family and she married into one. The reflection takes place during a time when she had been abducted and held captive in a bedroom after she had first attempted to leave the group. The story gives the reader a view of polygamy from the inside, and it describes a closed society that few Amercans would imagine exists in our midst. It does,and has deep roots in Mormonism and its history. Her story is important reading, especially at a time when another oppressive polygamous culture on the other side of the world (radical fundamentalist Islam) has wreaked such havoc and caused such suffering. Her story is true, and her book is also very readable. It gets a "thumbs up" from me.

Mary Mackert weaves an interesting tale of life as a young, polygamist bride. This book is enlightening, from the perspective of a girl who actually chooses to marry an older man and "poof".

I gave this book two stars because the lack of editing makes the book excruitiatingly painful to read! The grammatical errors and out-and-out typos are distracting and make it difficult to escape into the novel. This book would've been far more entertaining had it been PROOF READ before publishing. Because of the errors, and the large type-face, I felt like the book was over-priced and not worth the read.

This would probably be a good story but it was so poorly written it was impossible to concentrate on it. It was written with a "See Spot run" mentality. I'm surprised a publisher would allow a book to be published without it being proofread. Sentences such as "No on with influence would defend them." , "Missing the physical intimacy my marriage relationship" , "Thinking of something very sad helped my control my silly outbursts" , "The offer was had the children excited" and on and on. There was just no end to the mistakes. When I pay $20 for a paperback I expect it to be readable without having to stop periodically and try to figure out what the author is trying to say.

Reading this book was incredible, I honestly could not put it down until I was done. It is hard to believe that this lifestyle of child brides, muliple wives and abuse is proclaimed to be "Godly" and is accepted by the Morman religion. What a life Ms. Mackert has endured! I can't wait for the next book in her series.

Yes, this book contained glaringly obvious grammatical errors. Beyond those problems, however, lies a wellspring of information about a lifestyle foreign to most of us. Looking beyond the difficulties with sentence construction, one cannot help but taste Mary's despair, so long hidden within the veiled life of a polygamist family.

This book incites questions such as these: How do polygamists "get away" with not educating their children to state standards? Why does Utah (and, increasingly, other states, as the religious polygamous groups are spreading quickly, by Mary's claims and my net research) continue to provide state funds to women who claim to have no husbands-but have larger and larger families every year? How can the business concerns owned by the polygamous families force young children to work as they do? What about the teen-aged girls they trade away into arranged marriages; isn't that *wrong* by all the standards we have today? And what do they do with all those extra boys if they're marrying their girls off to the old men?

At the end of things, i had a big problem with the way Mary so blithely turned to the Christian Baptist faith as the new central authority in her life. As far as i could see she simply traded one paternalistic, authoritarian religion for another. However, it could just be the agnostic in me talking.

This was an illuminating book. I'm glad i read it.

I greatly admired this lady's courage in the face of sometimes terrifying adversity. The book presents a fascinating picture of a polygamist family. Ms. Mackert is a good writer, too. I was shocked, however, by the apparent lack of editing. There are as many as three errors on some pages! If xpolygamist.com intends to keep on publishing these books, and I hope they will, they should hire an editor. I often felt I was reading the draft of the book, not the final version.

I feel this book is poorly written. It needed to be proof read before printing. It was, for sure, not worth the $20. The facts about the polygamists' every day life, & struggles, are very educational, & sad, but there are so many grammatical errors that I had to reread sections for them to make sense. I found myself correcting grammar, instead of taking in the subject matter. I doubt I will be purchasing any more books from this publisher.

Good story and very amazing to see how women like her lived in this kind of life. The book is nicely organized
However, I lived my life thinking Islam treat women like a camel. After a deep 2 years search...I found that Islam give so much value to women that we don't have as ladies in USA Today or we won it not long ago...including keeping her last name when she get marry. Islam didn't come to allow more than one wife (As we here in Media)...Unlike other religions that left number of wives UNLIMITED, Islam came to limit number of wives. A good info...