Adopted as a baby and raised by a devout Jehovah's Witness family, Joy Castro was constantly told to always tell the truth, no matter the consequences, for she must model herself on Jehovah, and Jehovah does not lie. Dutifully she studied the truth book, a supplemental religious text that contains the principles of the faith. When Joy was 10, her parents divorced, some time after her father had been excommunicated from the congregation for smoking. When Joy was 12, her mother remarried a respected Jehovah’s Witness brother, a man with an impeccable public persona. Behind closed doors at home, however, he was a savage brute. Joy and her younger brother Tony were abused mercilessly—to the point where they both thought they would die. Their battered mother did nothing to protect them, nor did their church, to which Joy had appealed. For two years they suffered, until one day Joy reached out to her father, and together they planned and executed the children’s daring escape.

In her very own Truth Book, in prose beautiful in its simplicity and captivating in its honesty, Joy Castro bears witness to a childhood lost but a life regained.