Shari Franke Tells Her Story of Survival in ‘The House of My Mother,’ Available in Print and Audiobook

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It’s a tragedy that’s become familiar but no less heartbreaking — behind the scenes of a picture-perfect family is something much darker. Ruby Franke‘s family vlog, 8 Passengers, told of an idyllic life in the Church of Latter-Day Saints, before her arrest on charges of aggravated child abuse.

Her daughter, Shari, told her side of the story in The House of My Mother: A Daughter’s Quest for Freedom, released last week. In addition to the print edition, the audiobook version, narrated by the author, was released on the same day.

Audiobook

The House of My Mother: A Daughter’s Quest for Freedom

The audiobook edition, narrated by Shari Franke, is the #4 bestseller on Amazon, slipping past Rebecca Yarros’ Fourth Wing.

The book details the increasing influence of Jodi Hildebrandt, who ran a counseling business called ConneXions Classroom and was convicted of aggravated child abuse for instituting increasingly draconian measures on the children of the Franke family. Shari Franke’s mother, who ran the 8 Passengers vlog, was also arrested and convicted. The channel had millions of subscribers before being taken down following the allegations of abuse.

In an interview with Rolling Stone last week, Shari Franke called out family vlogging as a whole, saying, “Making money off your kids [with] no oversight as to how much the kids are getting paid — there’s no way to do that well for me.”

Franke, who is a student at BYU, also emphasized her desire for privacy in her Rolling Stone interview, and saw writing a book as part of that, “Writing the book was a way to take back my privacy, as strange as that sounds. Just because it was Ruby who took my voice away… and then with the arrest, it was the media then that picked a side of me to portray.”

The print edition, published by Simon & Schuster, is available in hardcover and as an ebook from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.