I heard about this book from a video of the arrest of Jodi Hildebrandt and Ruby Franke. Boze linked Shari Franke’s book, so I decided to read it. There is no better way to see how someone is feeling and dealing with everything than to read it in their own words.
(here’s one of Boze’s videos about the case while promoting the book)
A lot of the book reflects on how deeply her mother affected her life, and how emotional abuse primed her for a coerced sexual relationship with a man she had once deeply respected. She runs through everything chronologically, occasionally even pulling from her journal of those days to show her precise thoughts. It’s a study in how gaslighting and manipulation is used.
Shari Franke relies on her religion— Mormon, by the by— to give her a steadiness, but she also points out the fallacies of an incorruptible church due to the treatment they had of her during her trials.
Here’s an excellent video that talks about how the religion could have informed Ruby Franke’s abuse and slipping into the cult following ConneXions, and also reviews the documentary about what happened:
Annotations & Excerpts
This is how the book begins. It picks up right where someone may have heard of the case regarding the abuse of her younger siblings, reminds them why they likely picked up the book, and then tells the reader where she was during the event.
I hadn’t actually known too too much about the case and somehow, this spells out a lot for me.
Who the fuck does this?
Jesus
Ruby Franke’s later adopted philosophy is very easily integrated because she already behaved in this way from the beginning.
Growing up reading a lot of cooking blogs, I did often wonder how they managed to always get it done. I did consider some of them faked it, but having it dropped here amuses me.
Oh my god. I didn’t start getting anxiety pains until my early twenties. This poor child.
It’s true. I still have a anxious, fearful response to some things because of my own issues.
Harsh, brother.
Being nonreligious, I do often wonder how faith can reassure a person so much. I understand that many people feel safer having faith in a higher power and find solace in their religion, but for me I can’t really connect it.
I actually see this a lot in LDS folks. Joseph Smith is, well. This.
This made my stomach hurt.
Yikes… and then she did it and everyone saw.
Fuck, dude. These two excerpts are illustrative.
Honestly, it was the journaling that probably started Shari suspecting things were wrong. Why try to gaslight people who take meticulous records about things?
Bro my mom used to do that sometimes, and then she would have us hold a pushup in the middle. I got punished by her… alongside another student. We both had to do pushups at her pace and she would have us stop and hold.
This is a study in minimizing one’s own struggles.
I’m 32 and I can’t imagine having had six kids by now. Ruby Franke did a speedrun into Mormon motherhood.
Hence why Shari Franke is helping to push a bill that would protect children starring in social media.
I hadn’t thought about this before, really. I had read before (remember that book about influencers I read when I started this blog? I do) that there seems to be a large, almost disproportionate amount of family bloggers and social media stars in Utah, especially in the Mormon community. Shari Franke 100% explains it here in one simple paragraph.
This sort of thing frightens me. Sculpting your personal space to suit viewers and commodifying your entire life! It’s poison for the brain, something I’ve seen other YouTubers speak about. Monetizing things you do is a dangerous, dangerous slope.
It’s fascinating and also terribly sad how brands will jump onto people so easily.
After this, we start going into Jodi Hildebrandt’s destruction of the family. I took this first major one here:
Thus damaging the family’s reputation solidly.
Canceled!
This shows just how easy it is to slip into cultic thinking and language. Jodi is speaking to kids from a place of authority, one that is approved and encouraged by Shari’s parents. Of course she is trying to embrace it to win the approval of everyone.
This is mortifying to say to someone currently coping with abuse. In fact, it’s mortifying to say to any child.
Like I said: who tries to gaslight people who keep meticulous records?
Babies are barely cognizant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Jodi shut the FUCK up
Again: horrifying. Not even a second thought. No consideration for her kids. Jodi is possessed so of course we’re going to plop her into the house, around children.
I did not know this about Mormon preppers.
Mortifying. I keep saying that, bit it’s true.
The hatred in my heart for Ruby Franke could not be soothed.
Shari actually theorized that Ruby Franke and Jodi Hildebrandt were lovers, and it is mentioned in Ruby Franke’s diary that Jodi needed physical attention. The implications of this feel so deeply wrong here; although being closeted can cause people to act in the other direction to mitigate people “suspecting”, it just feels so, so wrong.
That. That thought. It makes me want to cry for her.
WE LOVE ANIMALS IN THIS HOUSE. My cats are my family!
This, again, is mortifying. Leaving the kids behind like this.
The helplessness abuse instills in a person is so… there. Being scared to move, mentally and physically, weighs so heavy on a person sometimes. Not knowing what to do or where to go, especially when reaching out for help caused terrible repercussions before? Horrible.
The intense isolation around the Franke family and the kids is so scary.
Like I said… reaching out returned nothing for Shari.
So we know Shari was reviewing a lot of footage that was just horrible…
The fact that she saw her situation in a true crime documentary is monumental. Sad. Scary. This was also the wake-up call for her, the realization that the relationships in her life could go very sour.
If you’ve seen the photos— I discourage you strongly from looking at them— then you know how absurd the statement is. The condition of the children was heartbreaking.
Now, I stopped taking annotations, but please rest assured that everyone appears to be doing better and both Ruby Franke and Jodi Hildebrandt are in jail and are not allowed to see each other.
