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whyintheheck's review
4.0
This is a very well-written book but it wasn’t for me. It does a great job talking about different aspects of cults and how the LDS Church fits into that framework but, as someone who has already come around to the idea that the Church is a cult, it just felt like the book was preaching to the converted. There was a lot of interesting info and I would recommend to people starting out on their faith deconstruction journey but I found it to be a bit of a slog.
alyssabohman's review
this took me /forever/ to get through because there was so much to think about on practically every page so i had to check it out from the library and wait on hold lists twice haha. i'm glad i read it! at times i felt the book was not generous enough to the church and other times i felt it was even too generous, but it was really great food for thought regardless. it helped me understand my own experiences and come to terms with some things that i won't get into in a goodreads review that i know some of my active LDS friends will likely see oop
justinnipko's review
3.0
Corbden makes some great critiques of Mormonism and its authoritarian structure, but I think her language is a bit too harsh & divisive to be helpful to a broad audience. For example, calling Mormonism a cult has some merit (we do fit several of the criteria), but is also unnecessarily incendiary.
Mormonism functions similarly to many tight-knit communities by making an individual’s membership in the community a core part of their identity. This makes them suspicious of those that do not belong (or worse, those that reject the community), and seriously handicaps critical thinking. Corbden rightly calls out the problems with this, but you can also find the same thing in many families, small towns, and religions. Does that make them all cults? Personally, I don’t think so, and I think Corbden’s excessive language distracts from the quality of her criticisms.
Mormonism functions similarly to many tight-knit communities by making an individual’s membership in the community a core part of their identity. This makes them suspicious of those that do not belong (or worse, those that reject the community), and seriously handicaps critical thinking. Corbden rightly calls out the problems with this, but you can also find the same thing in many families, small towns, and religions. Does that make them all cults? Personally, I don’t think so, and I think Corbden’s excessive language distracts from the quality of her criticisms.
melodyharmon's review
1.0
This book came recommended to me by a few different people, so I decided to give it a shot. The bit that I read was underwhelming. It didn’t really state anything new, and the author didn’t speak enough about their own experience and instead relied on quotes and rehashing other people’s ideas.