Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith

Jon Krakauer produces such interesting reads. This one hits home in Utah. Great read and an eye opener.

I didn’t read it. I watched the series. If fucked me up a bit and greatly increased my suspicions of LDS/Mormons as well as organized religion in general. All Cults!

I grew up around Mormons and have read The Book of Mormon. I was interested in more of the history and this book gave it to me.

I love Jon Krakauer just as much as everyone else. Everything he writes is at least engaging even though he may be a tad biased and afraid of stating the brutal truth at times. He's a great writer and this is a great story that he improved many times over by adding the historical explanation for Mormonism.

The only thing this is missing is frankly pages. It's an excellent book that is a great history lesson and experience. Yet I kinda wish we had more interviews and opinions to fully set up the murder mystery town and setting. This is jumping in time and place so once we get back to the murders we stay there for only a few pages with mainly a factual overview with even more modern day examples of Mormon crimes mixed in. It's a tad jarring and I'm not always feeling or understanding the story. The TV show is nearly fully fictional yet actually shows you more about how they lived and how they were thinking where here he merely mentions it.

It's a great book and I'm hyped for reading much more about Mormonism now which shows just how enticing his writing is. I also think the short length is great. Yet for the topic at hand he could have used more pages.

Learned do much about the Mormon church and its history.