The Sound of Gravel: A Memoir
Written by Ruth Wariner
Narrated by Ruth Wariner
4.5/5
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About this audiobook
"The narration by Wariner compliments the candid nature of her story...A captivating and emotional story delivered in a straightforward way without an ounce of self-pity." — Library Journal
A riveting, deeply-affecting audiobook memoir of one girl's coming-of-age experiences in a polygamist cult.
Ruth Wariner was the thirty-ninth of her father’s forty-two children. Growing up on a farm in rural Mexico, where authorities turned a blind eye to the practices of her community, Ruth lives in a ramshackle house without indoor plumbing or electricity. At church, preachers teach that God will punish the wicked by destroying the world and that women can only ascend to Heaven by entering into polygamous marriages and giving birth to as many children as possible. After Ruth's father--the man who had been the founding prophet of the colony--is brutally murdered by his brother in a bid for church power, her mother remarries, becoming the second wife of another faithful congregant.
In need of government assistance and supplemental income, Ruth and her siblings are carted back and forth between Mexico and the United States, where her mother collects welfare and her step-father works a variety of odd jobs. Ruth comes to love the time she spends in the States, realizing that perhaps the community into which she was born is not the right one for her. As Ruth begins to doubt her family’s beliefs and question her mother’s choices, she struggles to balance her fierce love for her siblings with her determination to forge a better life for herself.
Recounted from the innocent and hopeful perspective of a child, The Sound of Gravel is the remarkable true story of a girl fighting for peace and love. This is an intimate, gripping audiobook resonant with triumph, courage, and resilience.
Ruth Wariner
RUTH WARINER lives in Portland, Oregon. After Wariner left Colonia LeBaron, the polygamist Mormon colony where she grew up, she moved to California, where she raised her three youngest sisters. After earning her GED, she put herself through college and graduate school, eventually becoming a high school Spanish teacher. She remains close to her siblings and is happily married. The Sound of Gravel is her first book.
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Reviews for The Sound of Gravel
501 ratings47 reviews
What our readers think
Readers find this title to be a heartbreaking and inspirational memoir about a woman's fight for survival and the lives of her siblings. The author's storytelling is excellent, and the book offers a glimpse into a world that is different from societal norms. While the events depicted are sad, the story is a testament to the human spirit and the ability to overcome overwhelming odds. Overall, this memoir is compelling, well-written, and unforgettable.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Really sad story. It was a good book and I’d highly recommend!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The author did a good job portraying the highs and lows of polygamy in the Mormon faith, family struggles, happiness that can come with family. And how people interact and cope with struggle and trauma.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wow wow wow! I’m speechless! Phenomenal memoir that left me taken aback till the very end.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5After reading so many books about cults, this one was the hardest. It's so honest and painful. I wanted to both cry and be intensely angry throughout. Worth it.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Great sad story. So glad Ruth survived to tell it.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5"I slowly walked toward my mother's grave. I picked up a large handful of gravel and rolled the hot pieces of stone and sand in my hand, thinking about the place..."Ruth Wariner blew me away with this captivating memoir. I started it one night, late, with the thought of reading a few pages to get the flavor of the story and found myself reading until I just couldn't stay awake any longer.What immediately struck me was the dire poverty as compared to other polygamist enclaves I was aware existed. I just couldn't wrap my head around her mother; her deeply entrenched belief that husband was a prophet and her need to raise her children in such squalor. I would love to have been inside the minds of these sister wives. Rhetorical questions keep popping into my mind one after another. What kind of moral example does a parent send to their children when they illegally leach social assistance from the US as a means of survival? How can anyone consider this a religious lifestyle; overlooking sexual predators, murder, malnutrition et al? What drives a man to yearn more and more wives and more and more children that they simply ignore or abuse?The story is made more powerful as the narration begins when Ruthie is five years old. The horrors and dangers she must overcome are almost unimaginable and made more so as viewed from a young child's perspective; especially a child as perceptive and engaging as Ruth. As we listen to Ruthie's story, as she ages, it becomes unbearable to witness the adult community immune to the needs of these children. Again, I ask, when given the opportunity several times to make her children's lives more comfortable and safe, why does Ruth's mother return the family to the horrors of Colonia LeBaron?Ruth packs more than a lifetime of emotion and strength of character in this amazing memoir. And most importantly, we are asked to question our definitions of religion, trust, love, happiness, loyalty, family tradition, and more. This book will have you thinking about a lot of things for a very long time.Highly recommended. This brilliant work is a book club must read. I want to thank the publisher, Flatiron Pres via edelweiss for the free advance e-reader copy in exchange for my honest review.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The book was very interesing and well written, but almost all events vere very sad. I listened this book as a audiobook when I went for my daily walks and I find myself feeling quite depressed afterwards.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Harrowing. No child should have to go through this . Ruth triumphed along with her surviving siblings against the odds.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Oh my!! What an eye opening story of a brave young woman in the fight for her life and the lives of her siblings.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This story will stay with you a long time. The heartaches these children endured brought me to tears more than once while reading. Ruthie (the author) is a brave and strong woman!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is the 3rd autobiography of women of the same polygamist cult family based in mexico. (The first 2 were sisterwives) this is from a child's perspective growing up. She clearly overcame the limitations of her upbringing because her writing reflects her ability to write remarable imagry of a difficult often horific childhood. It does bother me, however, how horrible her mother treated her and at the end she writes about how much she loves her.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Oh my word! What a life. This book will stay with me forever. Gulp!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The author is such a strong and amazing woman. I appreciate her sharing her story.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I really can't find the words to express how I feel about this story. I am at an absolute loss of words here. This story has plagued me and I can't stop thinking ahout it. I can't even begin to fathom what Ruth has been through and while I'm glad she and her remaining siblings are doing well today, I still feel empty and hollow after experiencing her story. Her story definitely should be heard and I am thankful she had the strength to share it. Just wow. I am completely shaken after this.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sad, gripping, well written. A vivid glimpse into a foreign world.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5First, let me say that I rarely read memoirs - it's just not something that I enjoy. I am so glad that I made an exception with this book. Ruth Wariner's story is one that will stay in my mind. How she survived her childhood is amazing. At the start of her book, she tells us that she is the 39th of her father's 42 children and is part of a polygamous cult in Mexico. She lived in a run down home with no electricity with her mom and brothers and sisters, several of whom were special needs kids, she was a happy child even as her family's life spun out of control. The book was amazing and even though it was difficult to read in parts, I am very glad that I read it. The author does an amazing job of telling her story and the one word that comes to mind when I think of her is RESILIENCE.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 39th child in a fundamentalist LDS family escapes plural marriage, extreme poverty, and incestuous pedophiles in a remote polygamist community in Mexico.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Heartbreaking story. I would highly recommend. I learned so much.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An excellent and unforgettable memoir! Having the author do the reading added a dimension of authenticity rarely found. The ability for Ruth and her siblings to overcome overwhelming odds should be an inspiration for anyone.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I truly loved this book. I am so happy that Ruthie saved her brothers and sisters from such an awful life. What an awesome tribute to her mother.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Heartbreaking and inspirational. Thought about Ruthie for days.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5So tough to read but what a story of survival and strength and commitment to family. Wow!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Couldn't stop listening to this book - what a horrific story for this woman to live through! She is an inspiration and a hero!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Both fantastic and heartbreaking...A true story of the human spirit.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Disturbing memoir of a woman who was raised in a polygamous LDS sect in Mexico. She described her mother as a 'woman who wanted nothing more than to be loved' while I saw her as a brainwashed woman who subjected her children to her pedophile second husband (not that her first husband was stable - he had visions of the US being destroyed). The fact that she said that he should be 'forgiven' for his sins was enough to make me want to throw the book across the room. I realize that, in the end, the author was a brave woman who made sure that her siblings were safe and is deserving of praise, but part of me wonders if her life as a young, poor, abused child growing up with a group of religious zealots somehow affected her permanently.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I love memoirs and this one doesn’t disappoint. If you enjoyed Hillbilly Elegy or Educated, you will appreciate this one. Ruth Wariner is an excellent writer and storyteller.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I read this book pretty quickly; it is a very compelling memoir. Some parts were hard to read, but it wasn’t too graphic or anything like that. It was just so hard to read knowing this was real, and had happened to the writer. It was well-written, and I would love to read more from Wariner, especially if she wrote about the gap from the end of the memoir to now.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A very compelling memoir about the very dysfunctional life of an off shoot Mormon sect family , depicting horrible religious practices and beliefs along with child abuse including sex abuse. Written very matter of fact and not at all sensational.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Was a compelling story. Some parts were extraordinarily sad and painted a picture of love and loss. It was very humbling. I particularly enjoyed peeking into this world so different to societies standards. This book is very well writen, will be looking at more from this author.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ruth Wariner spent the majority of her childhood and teen years in a rural polygamist community in Mexico, where she was the 39th child of her father's 42 children, and the 4th child of her mother's 10 children. Following her father's death shortly after Ruth's own birth, her mother marries a second time, and Ruth(ie) is forced to live with a stepfather who takes turns spending the nights with his various wives. Meanwhile, all of his wives and children live in poverty and struggle to stay fed while living in homes usually without indoor plumbing or electricity. Spending some time with her mother's somewhat estranged family in the United States and living portions of her childhood in Calilfornia and Texas, Ruthie knows that her family's way of life is not necessarily typical outside of her own community, and as she becomes older, she yearns to escape. Stories like this make me very angry. It's really very difficult for me to have patience for women who subject themselves to the chauvinistic behavior of men who use religion to brainwash and achieve what they want. While the men in these communities anger me as well, it's the women who anger me more for their weak and spineless behavior. I realize I'm looking at this from an outsider's view, but still. This is a heartbreaking memoir which nearly brought me to tears on several occasions. I thought it was fairly well written, and while the author read her own audiobook, I felt that her voice was too monotone to really do this story justice. I doubt that this will ever make the big screen, but I'd love to see it there someday.