Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

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

33 reviews

se2macfa's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad fast-paced

4.5

Berman does an amazing job breaking down and explaining this twisted story, but I agree with other reviews that it feels like it ends too abruptly, I want more of the court proceedings and the aftermath of his sentencing. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Sexual assault, and Torture

kimia_hyperfocuser's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective sad fast-paced

4.5

Informative and comprehensive. Sarah Berman interviewed several people who I hadn't heard of before directly in the two documentaries and two other books I read on this case. And she procides details I found crucial in the story of the mexican sisters. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Emotional abuse, and Sexual assault

annieliz's review against another edition

challenging dark informative sad tense medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Trafficking, and Gaslighting

robinwritesallthethings's review against another edition

dark hopeful informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

What It’s About: This book covers the rise and fall of the cult NXIVM. You may have heard of NXIVM already, since it was the subject of the documentary The Vow on HBO. I watched that first and then picked up this book because of it.

Plot: NXIVM is a fascinating and terrifying study of human behavior and how it can be manipulated on an extreme level. For those who are familiar with narcissists, a lot of the events in this book probably won’t be terribly surprising, but for those who aren’t, they’ll definitely learn how to spot one in the future, and I think that’s one of the big selling points of books like this. As it should be, the focus is on the victims and how they are continuing to recover from the ordeals they suffered. The story starts with the history leading to the creation of the cult and ends with the cult leader’s trial, so the narrative is complete.

Research and Organization: There’s a lot of research here, and it’s organized and sourced well. Berman did a lot of legwork and conducted a lot of interviews to make sure she had the full story. I also appreciate that she explained the various techniques the cult used to prey on its victims, which makes a big difference to understanding how so many clearly intelligent people could buy into the organization.

Trigger Warnings: Obviously, there’s a lot of abuse of several varieties present in this book. Emotional and sexual abuse are probably the biggest ones. Some of these abuses are against minors as well.

Final Thoughts: I wasn’t sure this book was going to provide any new information after watching The Vow, but I felt like it did. It also presented everything in a more chronological order, which made it easy to follow. The ending felt a little rushed to me, perhaps, but I did read the last half of the book in one sitting, so that might have been why. I didn’t reduce my rating because of it since, ultimately, I feel like the book accomplished its goal of explaining how a group like NXIVM became what it was. If you can handle reading about the terrible things that happened, it’s an illuminating story.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Bullying, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Sexism, Toxic relationship, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Confinement, Eating disorder, Infidelity, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Trafficking, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Cancer, Self harm, Abortion, and Pregnancy

siobhanward's review against another edition

challenging dark sad medium-paced

3.5

This book is hard to rate because while it was well-written and in-depth, the topic itself was so gruesome that it was hard to get through. I knew almost nothing about NXIVM (I thought it was called "nuh-vix-um" this whole time), but it was so much worse than I could have expected. I have a fairly strong stomach and have done a fair amount of reading about cults, but this one was so bad that I had to take breaks fairly often. Please, please check triggers before reading this one! Overall, it was well-researched but honestly I think it went too in-depth at times. I think sometimes Berman went so deep into people's stories that I found myself lost and trying to figure out who was who and what was happening. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Gore, Infidelity, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Trafficking, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Body shaming, Eating disorder, and Pregnancy

makcrowley's review against another edition

slow-paced

3.0

More pages than material, it was clearly well-researched but more detail than I needed and felt like the investigation was glazed over completely.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Eating disorder, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Abortion, and Sexual harassment

kellylynnthomas's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative tense medium-paced

4.5

This book is W I L D. At times I did find it a little difficult to follow all the names (I was listening to the audiobook), but eventually I settled into the story. And what a story! I had been aware of NXIVM and that it had been broken up, but I had no idea how truly awful things were for the women who were coerced into joining. Well worth a read, but be aware of the trigger warnings; the book is full of sexual abuse and worse. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Confinement, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Sexual assault, Slavery, Torture, Trafficking, and Gaslighting

emmyg_photo's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective tense medium-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

lizmarasse's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Medical trauma, Abortion, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, and Deportation

applesodaperson's review against another edition

dark informative tense fast-paced

4.5

This was definitely the most perfect true crime book I have ever read. I have listened to to true crime Youtubers and pocasts for years, and I loved how this book felt like listening to a true crime podcast. I liked how it went in chronological order (for the most part), because it made it very easy to follow and understand. This is something that I really don't think I'll Be Gone In The Dark did well, which is another true crime book I have read. That book left me feeling so confused about the timeline despite the fact that I was already familiar with that true crime case. 
I also really liked how easy it was to remember who was who. The author repeated full names a lot, and gave context if it had been a while since they were mentioned, which made it really easy to keep track of all the people in this story.
I loved how over and over again, the pattern of people being coerced into the cult until they were too far in was highlighted. It really showed how exploitative Keith Raniere was, and showed how people got roped into doing crazy and horrible things for the cult. 
Plus I just learning about cults and cult psychology in general, so this book was right up my alley. I think it was really well done and interesting. Overall, Keith Reniere sucks and is an absolutely terrible person.
Listened to on Libby.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse and Sexual assault

Minor: Abortion