I have mixed feelings about this book. The story is, without a doubt, compelling, captivating, and horrifying; the telling of the story is dramatic and inconsistent, however, and that is what keeps me from giving this book a 4. I felt that overall the voice in which the book is written was a bit sensationalist when that was absolutely unnecessary - the horrors that Carolyn Jessop and her family endured stood on their own without the dramatic writing style she (or her ghost writer) used to relay them. The over-the-top tone only damaged her credibility (for instance, how are we supposed to believe that her sister Nurylon was "indescribably close" to her when we first are introduced to her on the day of her death?). Other inconsistencies and confusions arose towards the end of the book, and I was often left wondering if Carolyn herself partook in the violence she described in her husband's family (she hinted about other ways in which she had participated in the culture of her megafamily but never addressed her own role in the abuse head on, which I found curious [and perhaps telling:]). Despite all of these misgivings, it's a story worth reading - the kind of book where you have to constantly remind yourself that it's not fiction.