I don't recommend this book to anyone. I didn't hate it, per se, I just don't think it really contains enough meaningful writing to warrant reading it.

I thoroughly enjoyed Card's methods of helping you to really understand a character and get inside their mind. However, certain characters in the book are real people, and although Card is an avid historian, he quite likely used a little too much artistic license in his portrayal of certain characters and specifically conversations, situations, events, etc.

If you want to truly get to know Joseph Smith and early saints, there are far better books to do it with. I'm not saying they have to be a "rosy story" about the complicated Mormon past, but I enjoy history books much more that contain facts rather than invented stories.

Card is a good author, and I've loved many of his books, but this one is a misser, in my opinion. I'm not offended by the book, I just give it a solid "meh".

Full disclosure: I didn't finish listening to this. I listened for 22 hours. I had 4 hours left. I just could not handle any more polygamy this and polygamy that and choose me or choose God or choose this wife or choose that wife or Emma is the worst hag ever because she couldn't hack the multiple wives thing. Seriously. I like OSCard's writing - I read Ender's Game and loved it, and this writing is no different - really good. I loved the first 2/3rds of the book- a historically fictional telling of a family from Manchester, England and the poverty and struggles to live and the meeting Mormon missionaries and getting baptized and coming to America. I love historical fiction AND I'm a Mormon. But this was just a bit much. And I started hating it and so I stopped. The end.

I loved the first part of this book. After the main character joins the church and begins to travel to America it was all down hill and I had to stop reading. As a new mother I found the idea of her having to abandon her children as extremely depressing and unthinkable. Her hallucinations about Prophet Joseph Smith kind of bugged me a little bit to. I stopped reading about half way through and was turned off to Orson Scott Card after that...Maybe I'll try again later.
Okay, so I tried again later and finished it. Hmmm...still don't love it or even like most of the book. It has some powerful and difficult themes and the characters are easy to become attached to, but I couldn't help but cringe through most of this book. I tried...

Hated the book. Too much liberty taken with beloved real-life people.

I had a really hard time with this book. I would not recommend this to any of my friends. I feel that it made light of sacred things.

3.5 stars.

Can I just say....OH MY TOAST!!! This book was incredible. I usually shy away from Mormon fiction... I don't appreciate the false integrity of the characters. Sorry, but usually it's just not realistic. (Remember, I said usually.) But, in Card's "Saints" the characters were very real. A wonderful book tackling polygamy and all the feeling involved. One caution, the book is fiction. The main character didn't live and her diary isn't real. Joseph Smith is portrayed as a man with faults, as well as a prophet. My testimony of Smith as a prophet and President of the Church was not shaken, but I know friends who have struggled after reading the book. The newly released hardcover is best to seek out, it has an afterward by Card that explains his process for writing the book, giving more information on what was fiction and fact.

Read with caution, knowing this is a work of fiction. And for sure read what it’s about before you start reading it so you’re not surprised, like I was. I just saw the author and the title and it was available, so I checked it out, I don’t regret listening to it.

Very well written. Extremely humanizing. There was only one of the dates mentioned that I question how accurate that date was, it was in one of the pre-chapter first thoughts and had to do with microfilm.

I didn’t hate this book at all, it was very captivating I had a hard time putting it down, and it might be one of the biggest “what if‘s” I’ve ever read.

Also I suggest you read some of the other Goodreads reviews because some of them are very good, and interesting, and informative.

If you're not a fan of polygamy, or Mormonism, or uncomfortable sex scenes between Mormon pioneers who are not married or discussions about sex between two siblings married to the same man or bizarre representations of Emma Smith...this might not be the book for you. Do I regret reading this? I don't know. I don't quite understand Orson Scott Card's aggressive defense of polygamy as he is--to the best of my knowledge--a member in good standing and not someone who has left he LDS church over this issue. Or why his defense of Eliza R Snow (the actual woman that this novel is based around) needs to come at the expense of Emma Smith. I also didn't appreciate how much Emma Smith has been the target of so much hatred by Mormon writers when I read this. And yet I gave it 3 stars. Let's say 2.5? There's some really good writing in this but, there's a lot that at the time and especially now makes me really uncomfortable and some makes me very angry.

I didn't like the intensity or the descriptions of attempted rape... DNF

I’ve always loved Orson Scott Card. His development of characters, his ability to take you through time to new places and keep the story interesting and moving along is genius. However, this boom lost me about 60% in. I found myself so annoyed…as it is written as church history used to be taught. Completely glossed over and inaccurate in many places. I know many a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints that would love this book and find it charming and accurate- but I have studied too much and feel hoodwinked from stories like this.
I hesitated writing this review- but her it is….

Not thrilled with the way mr. Card represented Joseph Smith in Navoo. He seemed lustful and deceitful. The first half of the book showed very poor families who sacrificed all to follow the call to Zion, only to find the brethren much lacking in spirit.