“Less a book and more a confession from a close friend.
“…If Torah can get through what she has, then I can, too.”



What Tim Ferriss
(#1 New York Times best-selling author of The 4-Hour Workweek)
said when he interviewed Torah:
“For those of you who feel trapped because of a job or self-imposed obligations as an entrepreneur, [Torah’s story] will put things in perspective.
“How do you escape your environment if you’re unable to control it? If almost no one on the outside realizes what’s happening?”
Torah’s award-winning story & work have appeared on or in:












How far would you go for freedom? Love? Safety?
This is the true story of an American Amish girl who escaped in the middle of the night at age 15, so she could go to school.
Because the United States Supreme Court said that she had no right to an education past the 8th grade, even though she and 12+ generations of her ancestors were American citizens.
Simply because she was born into the Amish religion.
Yes, you heard that right. This is federal law in the United States of America, since 1972 when the Wisconsin v. Yoder case was decided.
Amish Girl in Manhattan is a true crime collection of stories about an American girl in the Midwest who was forced to flee from the fundamentalist religious community she was born into, without telling anyone goodbye.
She left the only world she’d ever known, crash-landing into one that didn’t speak her language, wear her clothes, and understand her problems.
She gave up everything — family, security, community — in the hopes that one day her dreams might come true.
Who Should Read the Book?
Amish Girl in Manhattan is for you if you:
- Love memoirs, especially about inspiring and courageous women or girls
- Watch reality TV shows, documentaries, or films about the Amish or other fundamentalist religions like Kingpin, Breaking Amish, Amish Mafia, Unorthodox (Netflix miniseries), Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath, etc.
- Can’t get enough true crime
- Are interested in child abuse, sexual abuse, and religious trauma true stories and books like Know My Name, Educated, You Are Your Own, or Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots
- Feel trapped in your job or career
- Are an entrepreneur who feels stuck by self-imposed obligations
You don’t have to be extraordinary to be Extraordinary
This book is to let you know that you don’t have to be extraordinary to be Extraordinary.
If you read it, you’ll find a part of yourself in my story.
It’s for you if you’ve ever felt foreign in the body or culture you were born in.
– Torah Bontrager
Amish Girl in Manhattan (a crime memoir)Did You Know?
100% of the profits of your purchase go to the Amish Heritage Foundation — a 501(c)(3) nonprofit/NGO — to empower women and girls through education, crisis intervention, and mentoring.
What’s Inside

Validation
– Know that you’re not crazy or alone

Encouragement
– Become accepting of your PTSD and triggers

Inspiration
– Understand the trauma process

A Glimpse Behind Closed Doors
– What life is really like for Amish women and girls in 21st-century America

26 Chapters
– In the form of creative nonfiction

True Stories Well Told
– Each chapter can be read as a stand-alone short story — perfect for busy people and those with ADHD!

A True Crime Memoir
– By the Foremost Expert on the Amish who’s born and raised traditional Amish
Chapter Excerpts
“Tomorrow is Christmas,” my mother said, casting a purple stitch. A partial mitten appeared under her knitting needles. Long cracks spidered her hands from the cold temperatures and never-ending daily household chores. Each night, she moisturized with Vaseline—a petroleum jelly— but her hands remained dry and rough. I didn’t like it when she touched my arms or washed my face. Her hands scratched my sensitive skin.
Everyone sat around the living room stove after supper. Joseph slept in a baby basket next to my mother, his pacifier hanging from a string pinned to his homemade dress. In our particular Wisconsin community, little boys wore dresses like the girls until they started walking. Al stacked a pile of wood blocks on the floor. His blond hair, cut in the shape of an upside-down soup bowl, needed an- other trim; the curls were too long and got into his eyes. Rachel pretend-fed milk to her twin faceless Amish dolls dressed in matching dark blue clothes.
“What’s Christmas?” I asked. A picture book slid off my lap and fell on the floor.
. . .
“If you forsake the Amish, God will punish you and send you to hell,” the bishop said. He stood before around eight hundred people seated in a barn. Everyone was dressed in black.
Hard wooden benches with no backs lined the width of the barn and divided it down the middle. Men and boys, their black wide-brimmed hats removed, sat on one side and women and girls, wearing white or black caps with strings knotted below their chins, sat on the other. I was in the women’s section with my mother, my sister just younger than me—six-year-old Rachel—and two-year-old baby Joseph. My father and four-year-old brother Al sat across the aisle with the rest of the men.
Earlier that week, members of the two Amish Church districts in our Wisconsin community had gotten together to prepare for the funeral. They’d moved the bales of hay into a corner and swept the floor clean. But bits of straw floated around from the breeze coming through the open barn door. When the pieces landed, the men and boys leaned down to pick them up. They chewed on the stems—and spit them out—during the long, three- hour service.
A teenage boy lay in the open casket next to the bishop. During rumspringa—a period of time from age sixteen or seventeen until marriage—he’d bought a car and, after a night of drinking and partying, ended up killed in a crash. This shook the community up.
“He was a very bad boy,” my mother had told me when we got the news of the death. She looked grim. “He disobeyed his parents and now he’s going to hell.”
. . .
Around the age of thirteen, I read Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe and learned about the Underground Railroad. Harriet Tubman became my first female role model. In our 300-plus years of history, no female has held a leadership position in the Amish.
Tubman was the first strong, fierce woman I found for guidance in challenging an institution of slavery. What she did for enslaved people inspired me to believe in myself and do whatever it took to set myself free, too. Tubman helped me to see that I could take ownership of myself. I didn’t have to continue obeying abusive masters. I wasn’t someone else’s property. I told myself that if I made it after my escape, I’d help the ones left behind, like Tubman did.
. . .
It’s important to note that there are many good women and men inside the Amish Church who want things to change for the better. An adult or child shouldn’t have to give up the only world they’ve ever known just for a chance at realizing a life of their dreams. The penalty for asking questions, learning, and self-actualization shouldn’t come at the cost of shunning, excommunication, and losing access to and support from your family, community, and heritage.
I want to keep the good parts of my culture and weed out the bad parts. Children deserve safety and love and a chance to make informed decisions about their future. I, as a fifteen-year-old, shouldn’t have had to escape under cover of darkness just to claim my rights to life, liberty, and property. And I shouldn’t have had to lose everything for that chance.
Stand-alone Chapters
Pages
Torah Bontrager is 11 when she decides to leave the Amish.
After four years of planning her escape, she flees in the middle of the night with only the clothes on her back and $170 in her pocket.
Her departure is permanent.
About the Author

Torah Bontrager escaped in the middle of the night at age 15 so she could go to high school. She’s the author of Amish Girl in Manhattan and, to her knowledge, the first female Amish escapee to graduate from the Ivy League. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Columbia University.
Today, as the Founder and Executive Director of The Amish Heritage Foundation, Torah advocates for the right of Amish women and children to go to school beyond the 8th grade.
That work includes developing and teaching Amish cultural literacy courses for people who want to know more about who the Amish really are, or how to effectively serve Amish women and girls.



Want a sample of my memoir?
Look Inside
- Available in paperback (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Ingram, Bookshop, etc.) and ebook on 12+ digital platforms