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Jun 14, 2018ryner rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
Ostensibly an account of a 1984 grisly murder in a Utah community, by alternating chapters of the present with those of the past Krakauer also provides a detailed history of the Mormon faith and its connection to the crime. This book is simultaneously educational and horrifying. My heart breaks for the FLDS women, whose sole value in life and in their communities is as reproductive chattel. It also caused me to wonder any number of times throughout the text how anyone practicing religion can describe the more outlandish tenets and history of their faith with a straight face. These two unrelated quotes in particular are worth mulling over: "Although the prophecy of this father, Uncle Rulon, that the world would be swept clean in a hurricane of fire by the year 2000 did not come to pass, the events of September 11, 2001, have renewed Warren's [Jeffs] optimism." "I remember wondering about contradictions between what the religion taught and scientific truth. But Uncle Roy told us that the way to handle that was just to avoid asking certain kinds of questions. So I trained myself to ignore the contradictions."