After We Were Stolen by Brooke Beyfuss

 

Avery thinks she is nineteen although she couldn't say when her birthday was.  She has never been off the compound so she knows nothing of modern culture.  She does know how to read but her father would be furious if he knew her mother had taught her.  Avery has been shunned for the past year; while everyone else stays in the compound housing, she has been relegated to a tent where she must make a fire for heat, find water for drinking and sleep on the ground.  But she comes to realize that there was a reason for this.  Her parents have picked her as one of the oldest girls to become the new babymaker for the cult as her mother is getting too old to do this.

After the first night that her father comes to her room, Avery can't believe this is to be her life.  She is sickened and frightened  The only person she trusts on the compound is her brother Cole who is the single person in the world she is closest to.  The two start to make plans to run away but that night Avery wakes to find the compound on fire.  She and Cole manage to get out although most of her sisters and brothers aren't as lucky.  They hide when the emergency units arrive and then they run away through the woods.  

The two live on the streets for a while but eventually are taken into custody and put under the care of Social Services.  When they learn that their parents on the compound might also have survived, the two are frightened as they know if that's true, their parents will be looking for them.  Can Avery and Cole learn to live in society?

This is a debut novel by the author.  She does an excellent job of portraying life inside the cult and the tremendous amount of work it would require to shelter and feed a group of people.  She also helps the reader imagine what life in a cult would be like and to have no freedom to plan your life or even your day according to your desires but rather to always have to obey a leader whose vision of life and what it means varies from that of society.  I listened to this book and the narrator did an excellent job.  There are surprises that await Avery and Cole when they are integrated back into normal society and the reader will be fascinated to learn the truth behind the lies the two have been told all their lives.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.