vex's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.5
Cults are weaved into America itself, this graphic novel does a wonderful job highlighting the different ones and offer a different point of view.
motormouth95's review against another edition
2.0
When a nonfiction, biographical book doesn't contain a bibliography or a list of sources used that the authors gleaned the information presented from... I just have no adequate words to accurately describe how I feel regarding that. I had questions about one of the cults mentioned, and looked in the back for at least some "suggested reading or "for further reference/information" section, but there's zilch, just authors' bios. I had high hopes for this book, too, based off of the reviews I read. Granted, it is written/drawn by numerous authors and artists, and it is a graphic (in more ways than one) book, so it's not very "high brow." However, I feel that Wikipedia probably has better information about the cults covered than the short, (roughly 10 pages apiece) chapters in the book do, as they don't even make a dent, let alone scratch the surface of the cults. Some comics aren't even biographies, but are, instead, stories about the cult, which make no sense without any background information. I think that this book is definitely in my top 5 worst books I've had the (dis)pleasure of wasting my time on. I finished it, out of mostly spite for investing more than an hour I'll never get back on it on a Friday night. Art is subjective, so I'm not commenting on the vastly different art styles used, but it is hard to get a accustomed to one style before being catapulted into a totally contrasting one only a handful of pages later. A few of the entries were intriguing, but most ranged from "ok" to "meh" to "not a fan."
1.5 stars.
1.5 stars.
egeorjeana's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed the concept of this book! I'm a true crime fan, but I knew that my knowledge of cults was lacking (namely of cults that were not directly or publicly associated with deaths and murders). I enjoyed that this book allowed me to learn a little bit about many different cults and to analyze how we define a cult and how ingrained they are in American culture. I found myself putting this book down a lot to get more information online, which I do think was the intention in a way. Some of the comics were definitely better than others (my biggest note is that some were kind of hard to follow), but overall I think this book gives you a glimpse of some much larger stories and encourages you to seek out more information and learn about these groups and their impacts yourself.
artthief's review against another edition
emotional
funny
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
fast-paced
3.75
a good overview of different cults and thought provoking comics! I appreciate the variety of style but would have liked it to go more in depth or draw more parallels to connect the comics. overall though, for what it is it does it’s job very well
mriou310's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
tense
medium-paced
4.0
sizrobe's review against another edition
4.0
Interesting collection of short accounts of various cults. They of course cover the obvious ones like Jonestown and the Manson Family, but there are a good deal more obscure ones too. The best ones are accounts of people who actually lived in the cult they cover at one point in their lives.
hamsterstampede's review against another edition
5.0
Backed this book on Kickstarter and was looking forward to reading it.
It didn't disappoint and was a great intro into so many cults.
Great jumping off point to find material to dig deeper into these stories.
It didn't disappoint and was a great intro into so many cults.
Great jumping off point to find material to dig deeper into these stories.