Reviews

Don't Call it a Cult: The Shocking Story of Keith Raniere and the Women of NXIVM by Sarah Berman

jamietherebelliousreader's review

2.0

2 stars. As much as I am absolutely fascinated and horrified about this case, I was not that impressed with this book. The writing is so…bland and dry. I didn’t need it to be sensationalized or anything but there are better and more engaging and interesting true crime reads. This ain’t one of them. There are quite a few documentaries about NXIVM on youtube so I suggest just watching any of those instead.

miguelf's review

4.0

After basically giving up on watching The Vow after a few episodes, I’m glad this showed up as it was such a better overview of the NXIVM cult. Unlike the documentary, this book gets right to the details and goes mostly in chronological fashion without trying to peel back all the layers as the documentary clumsily does. Raniere is certainly a psychopath and the overall story with the impacted lives is really so depressing to hear about after what he put many of these poor women through. Author does a very good job with all the facts and storyline.

affiknittyreads's review

4.0

Oof, this was frankly horrifying to read, but nevertheless was a very well written and researched piece of journalism. I feel the need for brain bleach after reading it, I can’t imagine how Berman felt writing it.

kitandkat's review

4.0

I am perhaps not the best person to review this book as I knew a lot about the case already. Still there was a decent amount of new information and I liked having a broad overview which was missing from The Vow. I did get the feeling this was written under a deadline and with time there will be more opportunities to go more in depth such as with more interviews. However, it was a good read and worth the time, I think even better if you are less familiar with the case. I do wish the author had provided an epilogue/updates for all the main players.