I grew up in Arizona, so I hung out with a lot of Mormons and the FLDS towns in northern Arizona were always in the news. That's why I was interested in this book (also: I like to read about cults). For some reason I thought this book would be less about the history of Mormons and more about the specifics of FLDS communities. The Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints are a separate sect that broke away from the mainstream Latter Day Saint church after the LDS church denied its doctrine of polygamy.

This book is about 60:40 Mormon history:specific individuals whose lives were involved in FLDS sects (there are various). The author Jon Krakauer grew up on the west coast (thus his interest in Mormons) but he himself is agnostic and skeptical of religions in general because of their ability to brainwash followers. So he posits that because of LDS history of violence (both towards them and towards others... but mostly towards others) and its continual revision of its doctrines, it will continue to inspire devout believers to break away into extremist/fundamentalist groups despite its best efforts to steer itself towards being a mainstream and suburban religion. I mean, if you are a devout believer, you have to decide that either the founder Joseph Smith is not the unerring prophet who the LDS leaders teach he is, or that God changed his mind several times in the past hundred years and thus is able to completely change the enitrety of the religion and holy books at any moment, or that LDS leaders after Brigham Young were wrong in what they "heard from the Lord" and thus the church should go back to the fundamentals of its faith (which includes polygamy and that people with dark skin are cursed by God). Krakauer's other point is that many Mormon heroes sanctioned lying, stealing, and murdering non-believers for the benefit and continued growth of the religion, so FLDS members today also have no problem in justifying these crimes if they believe that it is for a holy reason. This latter belief is not unique to Mormonism, as we can see with any extremist sect of major world religion: Islam is usually the first that comes to mind nowadays, but if you do some basic searching you will find that Hindus, Buddhists, etc and political beliefs can inspire this mindset as well.

It is well written and interesting, especially if you are familiar with the geography of Utah, Arizona, and Nevada. The audiobook narration was so-so.