Apocalypse Child: A Life in End Times

by Flor Edwards

For the first thirteen years of her life, Flor Edwards grew up in the confines of a religious sect know as the Children of God, an outgrowth of 1960s counterculture founded in California in 1968. The group's nomadic existence was based on the belief that, as God's chosen people, they would be saved in the impending apocalypse that would envelop the rest of the world in 1993. Flor and Tamar would be 12 years old. The group's charismatic leader, Father David, kept the family on the move, from Los Angeles to Bangkok to Chicago, where the group would eventually disband, leaving the Edwards sisters to make sense of the foreign world of mainstream society around them on their own. Apocalypse Child is a cathatic journey through Flor's memories of growing up within a group with unconventional views on education, religion, and sex. Whimsically referring to herself as a real life Kimmy Schmidt, Edward's clear-eyed memoir is a story of survival in a childhood lived on the fringes.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Cults, Religion, True Crime, Biography Memoir, Biography

224 pages, Paperback

First published March 13, 2018

About the author

Flor Edwards is an author and lives in Los Angeles, California. By age twelve, Flor had lived in 24 different locations across three continents. Always on the move to escape the Antichrist and in preparation for the Apocalypse in 1993, her nomadic childhood prompted her to pen her forthcoming memoir Apocalypse Child. In her debut memoir, Flor movingly describes her early life growing up with her family and 11 siblings as a member of The Children of God, a controversial religious movement that many describe as an apocalyptic cult.

Apocalypse Child is about a girl (me) who grows up in an apocalyptic cult in Southeast Asia. She lives under the control of a dictator-like leader who controls his twelve thousand followers from his top-secret hiding place. Flor never sees the leader and grows up never knowing that she will live to see adulthood. Instead, her future is painted with the promise of a lush heaven precluded by a torturous death since she is one of God’s chosen children who will save the world before the Great Apocalypse when she will be twelve years old. Despite the terror Flor faces, she manages to see beauty around her, but her life is once again jolted when the leader dies and Flor is thrust into the throes of mainstream society and left to make sense of it all.

In 2011, Flor graduated with a BA in Print Journalism. Then she earned her MFA in Creative Writing. She has taught writing at UC Riverside and Santa Monica College. Her debut memoir Apocalypse Child is set for release by Turner Publishing Company on March 13, 2018.

Reviews

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a must-read for me, because of my obsession with cults and people who leave them! The author grew up in the infamous Children of God cult that started in the 60s, capitalizing on the free love idea and pulling people in around the world. Adherents gave up their possessions and reproduced while awaiting the apocalypse, which was scheduled to happen in 1993. Flor and her twin turned 12 that year, and that was also when she started to suspect that maybe not everything she'd been told was completely true.

This is more of a 3.5 stars read. The story is compelling, of course, but it lacks the perspective I wish I had. The author is an adult now, and I wish she'd done more to fill in the gaps of what she didn't know as a child. Much of the memoir still only contains what happened directly to her. The writing also isn't stellar. It isn't bad, exactly, but that isn't the strength of the book. Still, considering that she actually was practically uneducated as a child, maybe this is asking too much.

I uncomfortably discovered that this group is still around, now known as The Family, still asking people for donations and recruiting people to something thinly veiled as Christian beliefs. Buyer beware!

Thanks to the publisher for approving my request to read this ahead of time through Edelweiss. It comes out March 13, 2018.

[Stephanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Apocalypse Child: A Life in End Times had my immediate interest because I love reading and watching things about religious fundamentalism and cult-like groups. I had heard about the Children of God, in a couple different brief instances; most memorably with Sol/Dawn on Tony Robbins' I am Not Your Guru



Clip of Woman From Children of God on I Am Not Your Guru

[Disclaimer: This is not a tribute to Tony Robbins]

I had high hopes that this book might give me some insight into someone like Dawn’s experience, and unfortunately it was a let down for me.

First I will say this: I am so glad that Flor was able to write down her experiences and I hope it was therapeutic for her.

I wish however, since she is an adult now, that she would have tied some history and “what I know now” into her childhood experiences to give the reader a broader understanding as to what was going on inside the families. She did briefly with the flirty fishing, the ages of consent, how David started the Children of God, how her and her siblings were affected when they realized they had grown up in a cult, etc. but it very much just touched the surface of these issues.

Her experiences as a child were horrible to say the least. I hate to say it was boring, but a small child’s view of their world is not enough to engage me through 200 pages. Yes, it was strange. Yes, it was hugely dysfunctional. The main problem for me was that she articulated the world around her as a five year old. If she had written her experiences as a child and juxtaposed her knowledge that she has gained with hindsight and maturity, it would have made the memoir so much richer and given the reader a much better picture as to what was truly happening for little Flor.

I kept reading on, hoping Flor would get older and near the end there was a bit more revelation, but it was a disappointment.

I hope the best for Flor and her siblings, and hope she is living her best life.

[Liralen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gosh. What an odd way to grow up: in a cult spread across the globe, one with an odd mix of freedom (free love encouraged, for example, and it sounds like individual households had a fair amount of lassitude in determining details of daily life...oh, and there's that time that Edwards' mother decides to make a swimming pool out of the master bedroom of the house they're renting) and strict rules: in many places Edwards and the other children weren't allowed to go outside or open the curtains during the day, lest someone realise just how many people are living in one place.

In some ways Edwards was really lucky: her parents stayed together as a unit, and their family was never separated. Moreover, when Edwards and some of her siblings decided to leave the 'church', their parents opted to leave with them. The church started to fall apart (to some degree; it has since rallied and sprung up under another name) when Edwards was still too young for there to be an expectation that she would start having sex and babies, and because of the AIDS crisis the church had also stopped encouraging 'flirty fishing' (women prostituting themselves with the goals of income, conversion, and pregnancy). But in other ways...that's a grim kind of luck, when you're in a position where you haven't been encouraged towards prostitution but others around you have.

It's pretty fascinating material. I wish Edwards had brought more of her adult perspective to it, because although there's some degree of background, most of it is told from her perspective as a child whose knowledge of what was going on was pretty limited. I'd also have loved a lot more info about her family: she was one of twelve(!) kids, but we learn very very very little about their individual personalities. Her parents are treated compassionately in the book, Edwards acknowledging their flaws as parents (like, you know, raising their kids in a cult) while also respecting their goal of making a difference in the world, but I would have liked more complexity from them as well. I think that's again a matter of Edwards writing primarily from a child's perspective—kids have a simpler view of the world, and of their parents.

I'd be curious, too, about Edwards' path once she finished community college—she was accepted to an excellent four-year university to complete her BA when she was eighteen or nineteen (so roughly in 2000), but per her website, she finished her BA in 2011, which suggests that her path remained circuitous for some time. May or may not be relevant to the story, but it piqued my interest.

[Autumn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like reading about cults and end-time religions/practicers so this was quite interesting for me. An easy read about the author's childhood as a member of the Children of God religion. The best part was when she was a teenager and comes to the realization that her family was part of a cult.

[Marika · Rating 5 out of 5]

To constantly live in terror of the apocalypse. To belong to a family that isn't your real family and where sex between adults and children is encouraged. Welcome to the *The Children of God*, a cult that David Berg began in the late 60's. Author Flor Edwards does a remarkable job in shedding light on a cult that damaged so many children. Remarkable in that she writes not from hate, but from love. The recent exposé of Scientology will drive sales of this book.
I read an advance copy and was not compensated.

[Stefanie Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the personal memoir of Flor Edwards, a child who grew up in the Children of God cult. Children of God was headed by a man, David Berg, who went by a host of other aliases. Berg founded the cult in Huntington Beach, California. He influenced his followers to practice "flirty fishing" as a way to influence wealthy men to either join or support the cult. There were a lot of abuses perpetrated towards women and children in this group, which the author outlines in this book. Children were beaten mercilessly and many were treated differently than others. The author really went though a lot as a child, and didn't come to understand her experiences until later in her teen and adult years.

I had listened to a podcast about this cult a while back, and found this book on an Audible sale. I really enjoyed the first hand account of life inside this cult, even if it was through a child's eyes. Children are often more honest in their assessments of things anyway. If you are interested in learning more about this cult, this would be a good book for that. If you get the Audible version, it is about a six hour listen.

[Savannah Pfeiffer]

I feel so bad for innocent children that were born into this cult (not to mention all the others).

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Throughout the 1970s and early ‘80s, pseudo-religious cults seemed to be everywhere. One subgroup—apocalyptic, or “doomsday,” cults—often made headlines, including the Children of God, who were known for “love-bombing” and “flirty-fishing” to recruit new members. Now the grown children (one famous example is actress/activist Rose McGowan) of that cult’s original members are writing memoirs about their strangely unconventional childhoods spent in the cult, where every day the specter of death through martyrdom haunted them.

Flor Edwards spent 13 years growing up in the Children of God, wandering across continents with her parents and 11 siblings, merging with other large member families (birth control was shunned), in search of souls to save before the Great Apocalypse of 1993 struck. The author describes in clear, fascinating detail the rituals, preoccupations (mostly sexual), abuses, and day-to-day doings of the misguided adult devotees and their impact on Edwards. We watch as the author struggles with her growing awareness of ordinary life outside her rigid yet paradoxically fluid, fenced-in existence on various compounds, where terror and pain were all she knew (she expected to die at age 12) and Family included everyone in the cult (there were no emotional boundaries).

This revelatory personal account, brave in its honesty and skillfully written, offers many startling insights into the bizarre apocalyptic cult founded by David Berg (“Father David” to followers) in Huntington Beach, California, spreading quickly across the world and then suddenly falling apart. While the author displays a certain emotional detachment in her writing (probably emblematic of the enormous trauma she suffered), a childlike wonder also permeates this work. It is that glimmer that draws the reader in, rallying us behind Flor in her quest to find a more tranquil, sensible, settled life. One ingredient that could have enhanced this life story is the inclusion of photographs.

This review is based on an uncorrected proof provided by the publisher.

[August Norman · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone fascinated with the often-abused line between organized religion and cults, I bought Apocalypse Child by Flor Edwards as soon as it was released. As a reader who knew nothing about The Children of God or the Family, the two names of the religion Edwards’ parents brought her and her many siblings up to follow, I flipped through pages as fast as possible, relishing in the details of the day to day life of the nomadic world-traveling cult’s missionary work, all the while waiting for the cult’s doctrine and dogma to fail. After all, as the title hints, the followers of this religion have been taught that the world will end by the time Edwards turns thirteen – a ticking clock that this young woman must reconcile throughout her entire youth. Spoiler alert, the world did not end upon Edwards’ thirteenth year and the movement faced the consequences – including the author and her siblings. Told with simple, yet evocative prose, I often forgot that the story was a memoir, rather than a biography, as Edwards masterfully explores the innocence of childhood, the boundaries of faith, and the well-meaning intentions of her altruistic, if not naïve, parents.

[Diana Raab · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was just released in mid-March. It's not often that you read a published book that you can't put down by someone you know. What's also rare is reading a published book by one of your writing students. Many years ago, Edwards took my memoir-writing workshop at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, where I read the beginnings of this memoir and instinctively knew she had a gift for writing. I'm over-the-moon thrilled that she's now sharing her riveting story with the world.

Here's my review on Amazon, which has been excerpted for the book cover:

"An astounding work written with indelible clarity and style.
Apocalypse Child is a brilliant and vivid depiction of what goes on behind the walls of a cult--revealing how terror permeates each and every waking moment. Flor Edwards is a wise and savvy soul who was forced to dance the dance--intuitively knowing it was wrong, but also knew she had to do everything in her power to be set free. A singular achievement."

Highly recommended!

[George Ilsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well-written, surreal memoir. In can be astonishing to contemplate the things children go through.

Always a mystery how some turn out to be survivors and others languish and are unable to cope.

[Krista | theliterateporcupine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Prior to reading this book, I hadn't known much about the Children of God cult, so all of this material was new to me. Told through the innocent but observant eyes of a child, this was an accessible glimpse into the sketchy world of this doomsday sect that encouraged open relationships and required its members to constantly upend their lives and move around the world. Flor and her family obeyed the charismatic but secretive leader, Father David, living in numerous countries and having a large family. Flor discusses what it was like to not only live in the cult, but the aftermath when they left it in the 90s. The epilogue was very well done in my opinion. While not everything was resolved, it ended with a glimmer of hope and the author and some of her siblings reconciling with their parents.

Eye-opening, Intriguing, and Thought-provoking, this book is a good introduction to the Children of God cult.

[Jeri · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book in 4 hours. This memoir was poignant, beautiful and written with clarity that touched your mind, heart and soul. Ms. Edwards story of growing up in a cult was told with naivete of child of acceptancing their circumstance, but growing to question those circumstances. It was riveting reading the teachings of this group and the thought process which people became entranced by the leader. It was truly gripping with strength, love and the harsh reality of trying to find your place in the world. I cannot recommend it enough.

[Terra Trevor · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1967 and 1968 I spent much time with friends on the beach at the Huntington Beach Pier. I remember the Children of God's beginning. I watched in horror and in disbelief as the cult grew and in 1971 landed on the cover of Time magazine. Flor Edwards writes a beautifully told and engrossing account of her growing up years within the cult.

[Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

I admire people who can write about such personal hardships and disturbing memories. The life in this cult is so sad, but the author comes through it and maybe her story can help others. Suicide was and is still a problem for people involved with the COG cult. Cult awareness is so important!

[Summer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Smart, warm, funny. Brilliantly written. It hit all the notes, I laughed, I cried. I finished the book wondering when we will see another book from her. Amazing author! Must read!

[Jake K · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating look into what it is like to grow up and be raised within the Children of God cult, and a glimpse of how one can get their life moving on after

[Haley Kurtz]

DNF, but got really close.
If you’re going to skim the pages just to be done… maybe you should just put it away 😂😂

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fascinating read, one of the best discussions we’re had in book club, and i highly recommend it be added to your list.

[Jill Crosby · Rating 3 out of 5]

A memoir of the author’s childhood spent growing up in an apocalyptic cult, and the aftermath of that cult’s collapse when its leader died and left no instructions for its continuation. The author never met—or even saw—the leader, but lived under his strict rules about remaining separated from society while “evangelizing” neighbors and acquaintances in the various foreign countries her family was assigned as missionaries to. Simple, honest writing; a view of what being born into a cult looks like—-when you’re
On “the inside” looking “out.” I would’ve appreciated more of an adult’s perspective on what the author experienced as a child, as the memoir’s presentation is strictly told from the child’s viewpoint.

[Amy Carver · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was super excited to read this because I'm always fascinated by cults. I read My Sister's Keeper, about the same cult. And loved it. But this, I probably won't finish it. It's more like a stream of consciousness collection of memories strung together than it is a memoir. The writing is competent, but more like what you'd find in fan fiction. If you want to know about the cult, the MSK is much better read.

[Ronnie · Rating 3 out of 5]

In case a natural disaster hit or the Antichrist rose to power, I was ready to escape at the snap of a finger....

From all accounts in this book, David Brandt "Father David/MO Lion" Berg was an emotionally stunted whacko perv stuck mentally somewhere in adolescence with a serious chip on his shoulder and a warped revenge plan for the world because of the bullying he received in his youth and his own basic inadequacies as a human in general and man in particular. Yet after starting his cult in the 1970s, he somehow had amassed 12,000 "followers" by the early '80s, according to Edwards, the gullibility and exploitability of which is just baffling. The cult's precepts are so patently and transparently ludicrous that it doesn't make sense that even 12 people would abandon all else in their life to hitch their proverbial wagon to such a grubby, comic-booky, anti-intellectual, insecure "star." Supposedly, the cult's main mission revolved around preparing folks for the Great Apocalypse that would happen in, randomly, 1993 (Edwards never gives an explanation for why it was that arbitrary year, but that's really the least of the info she omits). One of the best parts is when, at age 15 (I think), it finally dawns on her that she'd been part of a cult only after taking the "Did You Grow Up in a Cult" quiz in Seventeen magazine. The worst part is harder to choose, but I'm going to go with the fact that her parents kept having children--12 of them(!) before the mom became physically unable to bear more. Reading of their persistent procreation when they were subsisting solely on handouts was not just bothersome; the ignorance of it all is unconscionable. Knowing the author had no choice in the matter, it was impossible not to root for her, but with all the missing words and funky punctuation along the way, it felt by the end that the editing team at Turner Publishing Co. really did her a disservice with the crappy proofreading.

First line:
"Shortly after my seventh birthday and before the monsoon season came that year, Tamar, my twin sister, and I took to killing butterflies for fun."

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

I felt that this book was really well written and is an excellent memoir, and I'm not sad that I read it, because I think it's fantastic how resilient children can be, and the sheer ridiculousness of her upbringing is awful, with the indoctrination and her constant fear and anxiety, and her poor mother, popping out children literally each year. For Flor especially, to get two degrees after basically never being educated at all, is quite incredible.

However, this book is written only from Flor's perspective as a child so it kind of fails as an insightful cult documentary. Unfortunately, she doesn't fill in any of the bad details of Children of God that she found out later as an adult, so there's really no other references into the cult besides that of a five to twelve year old (we played a lot inside, we always had to hide, we were super poor, and one time I had to give my only dolly away for Jesus). The stuff I wanted to know was like how the fuck did they feed thirty people a day by begging or distributing comics, or whatever the tracts were that they would pass out for a "donation"?!

And if you've read anything about Children of God, there's the whole sexual "freedom" thing that went waaaaaay too far, and it's touched on but doesn't really come up for Flor (I mean, thank God, but... like, that's why you're moving every four months!)

I really appreciated reading about how her and her siblings felt about learning as teenagers that they were raised in a cult, and how they dealt (or didn't) with it. I think it's remarkable that she doesn't appear to have animosity towards her parents. It's like the book "The Glass Castle"... in my view the parents are reprehensible but the authors of the memoirs head towards forgiveness. Good for them.

[Ela M · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you answer yes to 3 of the 5 questions, then you may have grown up in a cult:
-Did you grown up in a secluded environment?
-Were you under the influence of a charismatic leader?
-Were you coerced to recruit members to your group?
-Were you prohibited from leaving the premises unless you were recruiting members?
-Were you taught the world outside was a forbidden place and did you feel guilty for wanting to leave?

A solid 3. This book was interesting, but definitely lacked detail and depth. I was really surprised to learn the audiobook was read by Edwards herself, as it was super robotic and dry. For growing up with so many siblings, we hardly heard anything about Edwards’ twin sister or her family dynamic. But nonetheless, a true story about surviving a cult where members are taught to live in fear, fantasize about death/heaven, never visit a doctor (because the world is going to end soon anyway,) become subject to humiliating discipline as a “disobedient” child, and to engage in practically public sex with fellow cult members.

“We tried all sorts of facades: Dad was a teacher, John was adopted, we were here on vacation. But never, ever could we make it known who we really were - missionaries on a quest to save the world from the great apocalypse.”

“My world had come undone, but somehow made perfect sense at the same time. How was I going to cope? How I had grown up was not normal - everything I had been taught as a child was a lie. From the apocalypse, to the return of Jesus, to how I was special and chosen by God. This life changing news didn’t hit me all at once - layers of reaction unfolded over time. Days, months, years.”

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Always curious about cults, and because I enjoy autobiographies, I just had to read this book. I read it in a little over a day because it was too interesting to put down.

The author spent her childhood being moved from one exotic locale to another, sometimes at a moment's notice. She knew nothing about the world outside the barricades of whatever compound she and her large family dwelled in at any given time. Their food was bland and their experiences limited to memorizing scripture and preaching the word according to their guru, a self-professed messenger of God that the author never actually met in person. He was a behind the scenes prophet who basically gave orders and collected tithes from his 12,000+ acolytes.

Just as intriguing as her sheltered upbringing in the cult was the account of her culture shock when she came back to the States as a teenager.

It's an enjoyable read. If Flor Edwards continues to write books, I will read them.

[Katie Marecek · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was interesting but weird. Flor was born into a cult. She was a twin and one of 12 kids. They moved around every six months or so and lived with other large families in the Children of God cult. She didn’t realize she was in a cult until high school and that’s the only time she seems to be “mad” at her parents. All other times, she just seems to be presenting data. No emotion. She was scared of dying but “knew” she’d be ok once she was dead. She seems to still carry a lot of trauma that maybe needs some attention. She defends her parents and their choices by stating that once her siblings said they wanted “out” of the cult, her parents listened and they all left together. She seems to be ok with the rest of it - the poverty, the begging for money, the mindfuck of the end of days, the open sex in front of children…listening to it was especially weird bc she read it in such a monotonous tone that it felt like she was void of emotion towards this experience.

[Jennifer Thompson-Thalasinos · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very interesting book from the point of view of Flor, a girl raised in the Children of god cult. For those of you unfamiliar, the Children of god cult is a cult that promotes “flirty fishing” to lure men into the cult, and promotes pedophilia and swinging. This is the same cult the Phoenix family (River, Joaquin), and Rose McGowen were raised in.

Note: Flor states that she was not sexually abused. In addition her parents were unusual as they stayed monogamous with each other. She is aware of abuse and infidelities however.

Flor and her family lived mostly outside of the US growing up, including Thailand. Their leader, David, believed the apocalypse was coming in 1993. Flor was raised her entire life to believe that the world was going to end shortly. After it didn’t end, she and her family had to adjust to the idea that the apocalypse was not coming and how to live in a world that was not ending. For some cult members this was too difficult.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book relates the memories of a girl who was born and raised in a religious cult "the Children of God." Her childhood and teen years were totally strange and a departure from "real" life, but of course she didn't know that since she had never known anything different. Her whole childhood was geared toward preparing her for death and "the End Time." The book shows how people can fall victim to organizations that have a inflexible and warped religious view and then find it difficult to get out. When the cult leader dies and she eventually comes to realize that she was raised in a cult, her whole life falls apart. Eventually she discovers who she really is and is able to move on with recovery and a more normal life.

[Katie Gillott · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
I'm always so fascinated by cults and how people get sucked in and stay. I've read a few other survivor stories and watched documentaries about The Family so I had a decent amount of background knowledge going into this book. I was pleasantly surprised at how little physical and sexual abuse Flor and her siblings faced. She seemed to be 'lucky' in the sense that at the end of the day, her parents loved their children more than their "religion". She goes into detail on what daily life was like in The Children of God and living overseas as missionaries then coming back to the states and having to start over. Being able to overcome her childhood and create a life for herself is an amazing feat.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I receive a free copy of this book from Edelweiss Plus for an honest review.

Apocalypse Child ended up a rather pleasurable read, despite the subject matter. I have read one other memoir about growing up within the Children of God, but both books have their own minor differences. In this book, I felt like the author spent less time trying to explain about the cult, and instead focused more on her life within and outside it. This book is written like a comprehensive stream of consciousness, and mostly in chronological order. I hope the author and her family have found some peace in their lives.