Not what I was expecting. I think this is the first OSC book I've ever been truly disappointed in. I didn't even read the whole thing, just skimmed through, until I realized that the book IS about the early LDS saints, but it is almost entirely about polygamy in the early years of the church--told from a fictional viewpoint. Call me narrow-minded, but I just think some things are better left alone. I don't think this book does justice to the prophet Joseph, the early saints or members of the church today.

I thought everything was interesting and I like his writing style. However it is difficult to come to terms with him taking so much liberty filling in the gaps. How could he possibly know what Joseph Smith was thinking. If I understand what he was saying, he had Dinah's diary but not Joseph's or Brigham Youngs... I also assumed from how he put things that his writing was historically accurate, but I couldn't find any evidence that Dinah Kirkham married Joseph Smith or Brigham Young. Is this supposed to be true or made up? I have found I enjoy Card's science fiction and other books but don't like his attempts at historical stuff. I remember being bothered years ago when I read his take on Abraham and Isaac for the same reasons as this book. Stick to pure fiction!

I love the Enderverse. I think Orson Scott Card is a master writer. Those are the biases I carried with me as I started this book.

Those biases have not really changed, and yet I never liked this book. The characters frustrated me. Card never convinced me to like Joseph Smith, even though the protagonist loved him--loved him so much she becomes his Celestial Wife.

The plot was somewhat off. Part of the story is historical, so I can't argue with it. But the parts that handle prophecy, etc., were not believable to me. If the story had been written with limited omniscience, I might have accepted these spiritual occurrences as the protagonist's interpretation. However, much of the story is omniscient, since the narrator is himself a fictional historian who has access to journals from multiple characters.

The ending was... well... I was happy when it was done. I feel like the story ended but the book went on for eight to ten additional chapters.

Overall, I still enjoyed the writing. OSC is witty. His characters' thoughts and reactions made me chuckle more than once. But would I recommend this book?

Maybe. If you're interested in learning more about the history of Mormons, then yes. This book will provide you with a very personal picture of the early days of the Latter Day Saints. If you are picking this because you saw it was written by OSC, just realize that the story is a far cry from some of his other work. If you love his style, read it. At least part of it. Perhaps OSC's style will trump the story. It did enough for me to finish the book. If you are expecting a riveting story and you aren't invested in Mormon history, perhaps skip this one. OSC has better books.

Given the title, the book tells about Latter Day Saints. However, it has a very strong beginning in 19th century England. When the Mormon missionaries arrive, the book becomes lighter, less believable, and misses opportunities to continue the strong telling of the lives of the Kirkham family.

1. The conversion by missionaries occurs after one evening.
2. Only attending family members convert.
3. Other family members never get to listen to such a short missionary telling.

These three events start unbelievable situations and character developments. A lot of time gets to be told about Joseph Smith, who becomes a God in the eyes of many in the book, and Brigham Young, who becomes nicer in the book. Less do we learn about the Kirkham family throughout and from there on. Unfortunately.

First book that provided me with an understanding of how Mormon missionaries found success in England and why they struggled to survive in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. Degrees of misery in both locations.

This is not normally a book I would have chosen, but it was recommended to me by a colleague's wife. Weirder still, this is the second book this year that I have read about Mormons. The first book, Jon Krakauer's Under The Banner of Heaven, gave me a solid foundation for this fictionalized account of the early days of the LDS church. The origins of the LDS church (which are questionable) are glossed over and seriously romanticized.

(There is even a contemporary historian fictional character who attempts to rationalize the more bizarre stuff that happened in the LDS church through a 'modern LDS perspective', so LDS readers can feel even better about the glorified history.)

Bottom line: Orson Scott Card is a Mormon, and this book amounts to pretty straight-up LDS propaganda. It is, however, well-written, and provides an interesting study into how one LDS member views their history.

This whole book was written to justify Mormon polygamy, which is a pretty sore subject for me. It claims to be 100% true, but I really question about 90% of it. I tried to Google some information about it to clarify some of his claims but nothing came up. Card is a great storyteller. I really got into it and was pretty passionate about the ups and downs the characters had over their lives. I recommend it if you have a good testimony that isn't easily shaken.

Lines I loved from this book:

She was also tired, but where could she go to escape from her work?

We will read and we will write, and we will think great thoughts because those that don’t might as well be sheep.

What we must we can, and what we can we will.

He could grieve for strangers, but never quite forgave his family for their inconvenient insistence on not behaving as he thought they should.

She knew that her tongue could sting, that she had a knack for finding the weakest place in other people and probing it directly with her daggered words.

Their bodies would not touch in the night, any more than their hearts would touch in the day.

And so she finally slept, praying silently for something, anything to happen that would set her upon the course her life should follow, the path that would lead to a destination worth arriving at.

He wasn’t a bad man, just bad for her.

Acquaintances who, if they understood only half of the subjects on which they have opinions, would be able to replace whole faculties of colleges and lecture endlessly without notes.

Youth was a forgivable sin. Besides, he’d grow out of it.

She had had to live among the poor, but she had never become poor. It was a precious difference to her.

What was rich and poor to her? The money was Matthew’s, and the only way Dinah could influence the spending of it was by persuasion, not by right.

Dinah held her tongue. Mother was merely learning how to be a grandmother, just as Dinah was learning how to be a mother.

The good man and the good woman feel those things, but they know where virtue is. They do their duty, and come to love it.

Sometimes a man needs to have your desire as well as your consent.

The boy could never walk if there was room enough to run.

How can you ask Robert to believe in your dream, when you didn’t believe in his?

There’s something in human nature that says that if someone is going to abuse me for being a Mormon, I’d damn well going to be Mormon until the day I die.

The Lord was using the weak things of the earth to confound the self-anointed wise men who were running the whole she-bang to hell.

Feed them first, then preach.

It was the lost sheep the Lord sought first, not those already safe within the fold.

Whatever the Mormons suffered, they could bear it because it had a purpose.

To know God’s purpose would arm her against despair.

He could bear the pain because there was a reason to have suffered it.

Dinah had to admire the subtlety of his leadership even as he resented the fact that he exercised it at all.

When Charlie had been baptized this morning, it was an act of exuberant faith; but faith could fade. It was hatred and envy that lasted.

I understand that need of a woman to know that she is not utterly alone in the world her husband creates for her.

Forgive the sins of your parents, child, for in time you will beg your own children to forgive yours.

There’s always hope, even when there isn’t any faith. And sometimes, without hope or faith, there must be charity.

Where you Mormons are, you swing the vote, if you all vote together

Joseph noticed the resentment. He had seen it before, when other men rose higher in the Church than some who had been Saints loner. But the jealousy of weak people would never stop him from using every able man he could find to build the Kingdom of God.

But how can I make my children live without their father? Better than making them live without their God.

I’m willing to endure your hatred now for the sake of your love later.

Shouldn’t true grief last forever? But it could not last, not without changing. Soon it became gentler, and she did not weep so easily or often, and gradually all those tears dried.

The Lord’s a harsh teacher.

They knew it was terrible. They just stopped being surprised about it.

Don’t wish for Don Carlos’s youth and beauty, Joseph. Everyone gives a smile to him – but they’d give their lives for you.

Joseph was still the glue that bound all the pages into one book; the more people who felt an intimate connection with the Prophet, the stronger the Church would be.

My husband is a man as well as a prophet.

She had to find some purpose. Charlie had a purpose and he was happy.

Good coarse American food with far more bulk than flavor.

What are Americans, anyway, but Englishmen with brains enough to leave?

What you aren’t used to is what gives you a fright.

Either you love him or you hate him, but I never heard of a soul who understood him.

Why can’t you be like other women? Why do you have to keep trying to be a man?

Anna answered – she loved the chat of neighbors who had likewise given up on improving themselves.

But speaking against him, Dinah – that’s no little thing. Someday it will cost him his life, when enough people have said enough little things.

You aren’t even here until you have children. You don’t even exist. But when you’ve got them, when they love you with their whole hearts and trust you with their very lives, Charlie, then you could watch a hundred factories like this burn, and you could walk away whistling.

Everything you need for happiness is here.

She’s the wife you need. You’re good enough for each other – that’s a rare thing.

There’s quite a few who do things because Joseph told them not to. But they’re made of the stuff I scrape from my boot.

Not to let fear stop you from anything. Not fear of pain, not fear of shame, not fear of God.

A good woman is the noblest creation of God.

Open your eyes and see what’s here instead of what you want to see.

When a man insists on being as ass it’s only polite to ride him as far as he wants to go.

She was probably happier, but not a one said they were eager to change places with her.

It’s bad enough that men can see no more of a woman than the arrangement of her face or the way hips and breasts ride on her – surely women should see more. Yet we judge each other, not as sisters, but as rivals.

Dinah is a well, so deep and pure that only God can drink from her.

The world would be better if more men took instructions from their wives.

Politicians have a way of forgetting who their friends are, if you don’t remind them often.

Do you think because you done something dumb I don’t remember what you’re worth?

Do you think I’m not alive when you’re not here?

Is there nothing adults can do that doesn’t hurt the little ones?

Those who were frightened of truth never amounted to much in the sight of God. Those who avoided truth weren’t worthy to have it, and so they never did.

When the Lord sets a test to go try the faith of someone, don’t judge them harshly if they don’t keep perfect decorum thorough it all.

I’m not comparing, he said. Father chooses for us what he knows we can bear, and what we need to go through to become what he wants us to be, if we have the faith for it. And not just once. Over and over again, that’s what we’re here for, that’s all that life is, testing us again and again.

It was not just that people had money; it was the grace of conversation when they spoke, the depth of though when they touched on topics that mattered.

We are seduced by the undying faith that we alone, of all the men in the world, we will be the ones to accomplish something truly good.

The Saints weren’t pretending to be perfect, only intending to be.

Those few who really were discreet still took some pleasure from leaving hints that they knew something that others didn’t know. Pride in having special knowledge is an all-too-common trait. The trouble was, it let the curious know there was a secret lying about.

You wouldn’t be taught it until such time as the Lord required you to live it, and then you would have the witness of the Spirit.

Would I love you as much if you were the sort of man who loved a woman more than God?

But let me tell you – all the guests, all the drinking and dancing and singing, all the friends congratulating you – that’s what the world does to make up for the fact that those public weddings are till death do them part.

Beauty is only good to attract a man – it’s the mind of a woman that will keep him, especially a man like Charlie, who lives in his mind and not in her body.

That is the Brethren were living up to their priesthood responsibilities, the Lord wouldn’t have to rely on women so much to do his work.

If we live through this and love each other at the end, no one can say we don’t deserve to be called saints.

I am not made of the same stuff as my ancestors. There’s a limit on how much I’m willing to sacrifice for my faith.

If my life is of no value to my friends, it isn’t worth much to me, either.

If Joseph had his choice how to die, he’d rather be found praying than any other thing.

Hypocrites confess by their own effort to conceal.

This is the worst book Orson Scott Card has ever written. It is about the start of the Mormon religion. It gets very messy and realistic in what they were involved in, including polygamy, the abuse of women and the dark skinned.

The story is from the view point of an abused woman who continually allows herself to be abused. She adandons her children and family to follow Joseph Smith. She thinks the abuse is what God wants since Joseph Smith tells her it is. She never escapes or even tries to stop the abuse.

It's demoralizing and disgusting to read. Probably realistic as far as how Mormonism began.

Tedious but reasonably well done. If you're a Mormon it probably means whole lot more than it did to me. If you're not, I wouldn't recommend it.

I can't recommend this book. Besides thematic issues I have with it, the writing is jut not that impressive. The first part reads kind of like Sinclair's The Jungle--lots of gruesome details to catch your attention (I cried for the first 60 pages.) The rest reads like a trashy romance novel with a bit of religion added in.

The main theme of the book is how the main character, Dinah deals with polygamy, especially the sexual aspect. I honestly can't say I've studied Joseph Smith history well enough to make this claim, but it seems that Card takes significant and sometimes offensive liberties in fictionalizing the relationships between Joseph Smith and his wives.

The only redeeming factor: by using a third person omniscient point of view, Card accomplishes what seems to be his goal of helping his readers understand polygamy on a more personal level. However, it bothers me that I don't know whether that "new understanding" is correct or not. Now I think I need a nonfiction book on the subject.

I listened to the audiobook as research for a different work project. I wasn’t sure what to expect since I have only read Orson Scott Card’s sci-fi and stopped reading his work due learning of his personal politics that I don’t agree with.
Anyways, this ended up being a decent historical read. It is overlong and probably didn’t need to start so early and I found the back end of the book a bit heavy handed where Mormonism is concerned. That said it kept my attention and I wanted to find out how Dinah’s story ended.

Okay, this book gave me something to think about, which I appreciated. But if you're an airhead like me and went to go read the LDS book Saints, THIS IS NOT IT. haha. I thought this was the church history book and so while reading a fiction novel was convinced it was all true. I'm sure it's a great book as a historical FICTION, but if you read it thinking it's true it's kindof like drinking sprite when you thought you got water.