Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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Colonies, Cults and Crimes

The Colony: Faith and Blood in a Promised Land by Sally Denton

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I have the Harris County Public Library to thank for this recommendation.  Before jumping into The Colony, I have to confess, I wasn’t really aware that the Mormon Church had much of a significant presence in Mexico. But it turns out there a number of prominent  fundamentalist Mormon families have been established there since the US outlawed polygamy in the 1880’s.  The book opens with the 2019 murders of three women and six of their children as they drove through Northern Mexico. While initial reports […]

The Latter Day Wild West

The Colony: Faith and Blood in a Promised Land by Sally Denton

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When a caravan of women and children were ambushed by masked gunmen on a remote Mexican road, it sent political ripples through both Mexico and the United States. But this is not the first time the LeBaron and La Mora communities have been in the headlines. Though this book uses the 2019 killings as the entry point into the story, it more broadly chronicles the history of this particular branch of the fundamentalist Mormon LeBaron family, which is well known for its polygamous practices and […]

One of my top books of the year: a nuanced, thoughtful graphic novel portrayal of Joseph Smith’s life

Joseph Smith and the Mormons by Noah Van Sciver

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One of my main special interest areas has always been high-control/niche religious groups. In the interest of review transparency, I do not believe in any of the LDS church’s claims and do not come from an LDS background at all, so this is not a review from a believing member. However, this book is not a hack job and I think you could read it as a member and not be too upset. Van Sciver was raised in the LDS Church and as he writes […]

Just Every Trigger Warning Imaginable

I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jeanette McCurdy

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I am too old to have watched Jeanette McCurdy on Nickelodeon, but I was vaguely aware of her before she started promoting this book. I also follow a lot of eating disorder recovery stuff, so I’d seen her podcast being suggested before this came out and was thus aware that the book was going to deal with her eating disorder a lot. Up front I will say that if you have an eating disorder and/or are in recovery from one, this book is super, super […]

“Conflicted” would have been a more accurate title

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Tara Westover’s memoir, Educated, is difficult to digest. She’s the youngest of seven children in a fundamentalist Mormon family in rural Idaho. Her father rules with the proverbial iron fist. He’s a survivalist, a millennialist, a conspiracy-theorist. He keeps his children out of school, refuses them medical care, continually places them in physical danger. Her mother resists in small ways but ultimately caves whenever the father demands her submission. One of her brothers educates himself well enough to get into BYU and encourages Tara to […]

Bigotry and fundamentalism make for a bad mix

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I’m on the books as being a fan of Jon Krakauer, so as someone who is not very familiar with Mormonism beyond that South Park Episode, I was beyond curious to read his take on the history of Mormonism and the ways that certain ingrained aspects of the faith can somewhat naturally progress into the type of extremism that causes two brothers to brutally murder their sister in-law and her child because they believed they were following God’s orders. In general, one of the ways […]



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