BKMT READING GUIDES
Hidden Wives
by Claire Avery
Paperback : 336 pages
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1 member has read this book
Fifteen-year-old Sara and her beautiful sister, Rachel, are too young to legally drive a car?but are approaching spinsterhood in Utah's secret polygamist Blood of the Lamb community. Having long since reached the ?age of preparedness,? they will soon be married off to much older men ...
Introduction
Fifteen-year-old Sara and her beautiful sister, Rachel, are too young to legally drive a car?but are approaching spinsterhood in Utah's secret polygamist Blood of the Lamb community. Having long since reached the ?age of preparedness,? they will soon be married off to much older men chosen by the hidden sect's revered Prophet.
As Sara, chosen to become her uncle's fifth wife, grows more distraught over her impending incestuous marriage, she begins to scrutinize the faith she has followed blindly her entire life. But for Rachel, who will be married to one of the many powerful community leaders vying for her hand, disobeying the Prophet means eternal damnation. Her friendship with the newest member of the community, the young and handsome Luke, starts as an attempt to save his agnostic soul, but ends with the pair falling helplessly in love. When Rachel is forbidden to see him, her absolute faith in the Prophet is severely tested.
When Rachel's future husband is finally announced, violence erupts, and the girls must find the strength to escape the only life they have ever know?before it's too late.
Claire Avery has woven a stunning tale that could be ripped from today's headlines. Shocking and empowering, Hidden Wives is a page-turning debut that will stay with the reader.
Excerpt
Chapter OneFor as long as Sara could remember, she jolted awake every morning, startled to be alive. Whenever her father looked at her, she imagined him calculating the width of her neck and the degree of pressure he would have to exert in order to snap it. This preoccupation with her own demise had become a morbid distraction, preventing her from planning her life farther ahead than minute by minute. Yet somehow those minutes had stacked up over the past fifteen years, propelling her to this day. ...
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Discussion Questions
From the publisher:1. In the book, Rachel’s physical beauty was detrimental to her safety. Can you think of other situations where physical attractiveness is not necessarily desirable?
2. Can you think of a scenario where a woman may want to live in a household with more than one wife?
3. Explain the significance of the fact that the two people, Irvin and Ernadine, who cared most about Sara and Rachel, were part of the minority group most reviled by the FLDS.
4. Why do you think Sara was able to reach her own independent conclusions about the fallacies inherent in the community’s dogma long before Rachel could see them?
5. If you were a sister wife, would you feel that your husband was cheating on you with the other wives?
6. Is jealously inevitable in a situation where several women share the same man? Is it part of human nature to be jealous?
7. Do you think that the nature of polygamy would create a caste system for wives?
8. The prophet exerted dominance over both the men and the women in Blood of the Lamb community, and he was the final arbiter for all important decisions, including who they may marry. Why would men, who have freedom to leave and more contact with the outside world, accept total domination by another man?
9. In order to separate herself from her blind faith, Rachel needed a cataclysmic event to challenge her entrenched belief system. What are other ways that someone loses his or her faith?
10. How does a belief system taught in childhood affect a person into adulthood? Can a person ever truly let go of the faith of their childhood if it was deeply ingrained in them like it was for Rachel?
11. Rachel’s understanding of her world was through her faith, when she lost that, she began to lose her mind. How important do you think spirituality is to one’s emotional and psychological well-being?
Suggested by Members
Weblinks
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Author Claire Avery's web site
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Claire Avery's Facebook Page
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Claire Avery Interview on You Tube
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Notes From the Author to the Bookclub
Note from the author: Mari Hilburn & Michelle Poché are sisters, writing under the pen name Claire Avery. We spent our childhood growing up in Chicago where we were indoctrinated in a Mel-Gibson type of fundamentalism, Socialism, and a healthy dose of old fashioned guilt. Growing up in this radical community provided us with a real-life cast of characters worthy of a John Irving novel, including Barefoot Guy, an ex-monk who went barefoot even in harsh, Chicago winters as a reminder of Christ’s sacrifice. He even took us skiing … barefoot. As a result of our experiences, we became interested in other “cult-type” religions. We understood the confusion and fear resulting from indoctrination into an extreme form of religion. After watching a documentary about polygamy, the idea for HIDDEN WIVES formed. We were stunned to find forced marriages of under-aged girls by much older men going on in these polygamist communities. We began researching them, particularly the group run by the notorious polygamist, Warren Jeffs. We hope that our book, HIDDEN WIVES, assists in keeping the plight of these victims of polygamy in the media spotlight. We would love to discuss the book via speakerphone or e-mail. Please contact us at claire.avery1@gmail. We look forward to talking with you!Book Club Recommendations
Recommended to book clubs by 3 of 3 members.
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