Escaping Cult Entrapment by Gabriella Gallo

Escaping Cult Entrapment: (Our Journey to Victory), Gabriella Gallo.  Bloomington, IN.:WestBow Press: 2012.    e-book, 190 pps.

Escaping Cult Entrapment is about one cult: The Children of God which later changed its' name to The Family or The Family International.  This book is a testament to the author's mother.  The author's parents (the Santinos) were young and poor with a couple of kids and one on the way.  A commune ran by The Children of God took them in.  Sometimes the mom wanted to stay in the cult and sometimes the dad did.  The dad was into flirty fishing and sharing partners.  Mom wasn't.  They lived in a few C.O.G. communes and in a bus and at times in a car.  There were some more kids born and the Santino family became COG missionaries in Mexico.  Dad dumped Mom with all of the kids and took off for parts unknown.  After a couple of false starts, Mom and all nine kids settled in Texas in their own rickety trailer.  They were firmly out of the cult by then and a local non-cultish Christian church helped them fix up their trailer.  The author and her brothers and sisters grew up.  Through the actions of a younger now adult sister, their dad was found to be living in another country with a new wife and nine more kids and still in The Children of God cult.

Throughout all of the bad stuff and the poverty, the author's mother remained committed to her children and did the best she knew how with them.

sapphoq reviews says: Gabriella Gallo says she is not a professional writer.  She more than succeeded at communicating her experiences growing up as a child in a cult and later a child out of a cult.  Highly recommended to any former members of The Children of God and anyone else interested in reading about cults.