Melaina's review
Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist's Wife
by Irene Spencer
Melaina's review
Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist's Wife by Irene Spencer
Melaina's review
rating:
It was so interesting! Sometimes you hear news stories about Mormon polygamists, but it was so compelling to hear a woman share her real-life experience of it. By the time her husband died, at the age of 51, he had 10 wives and 58 children. Irene herself had 13 children- most of the time they lived in complete poverty, with no electricity and running water, with clothes made out of flour sacks. Despite the bleak physical conditions, the thing that seemed to be the most profoundly difficult for her was having to share her husband with so many other women- how incredibly difficult it was not to have her emotional needs met. Irene counters our culture's perception of plural wives as meek doormats- Irene definitely is full of spunk, passion, rage.....she's a regular woman, trying to live the life she was taught and do the best she could to live out what she believed. This was an amazing book about a strong, funny woman overcoming the most difficult of circumstances.
