Which Way, Yahweh?

Which Way, Yahweh?
by Hilda Neufeld Schmidt

This book chronicles the story of a young man who fell in with the wrong crowd, and he lost his life for it. This particular crowd, living in various midwestern areas (ending up in Rulo, NE), basically became a sort of religious cult. As a part of their directions from their leader, who claimed he was spoken to by God, the group tortured and killed a 5-year-old boy and a young man named James Thimm. This was really difficult to read, due to the detailed description of abuse the protagonists endured, but I felt it was important to learn what can happen right under our noses. So sad, so very heartbreaking and sad. It's pretty graphic... almost made me upset to my stomach, reading it. The story is somewhat poorly written – grammatical errors, that sort of thing; but the information is pretty complete and detailed. The story gets across with no problem. Considering it was written by the victim, James Thimm's, mother, I let that slide. (Am usually so critical of that sort of thing.) -- recommended by Tracy T. - Bennett Martin Public Library

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try In Cold Blood by Truman Capote; Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry.]

[ "Nightmare in Rulo" Nov 16 1986 article in the Chicago Tribune ]

Have you read this? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewers recommendations!