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A review by birdgenders
Those Who Prey by Jennifer Moffett
3.0
My actual rating is 2.5 stars, I think, rounding up.
The first section of this book—the one that deals with Emily's indoctrination into the Kingdom—was really interesting to me. Seeing her willingly embrace what I recognized as cult tactics was equal parts fascinating and harrowing, and I read feverishly on to the Italy trip, full of anticipation. I'm rounding up instead of down for this first 40% of the book alone—it was that good.
However, I found the rest of the story sort of meandering, especially the last third or so. The climax was underwhelming and even confusing at times (maybe that's just me, though), and I found the unraveling of everything to be really quite lacking. It may reflect life more realistically that way, and I do understand the author's decision if that's what she was going for, but in a book conclusion, I was just left a little unsatisfied.
Regardless, I feel like I learned a lot about how cults can infect the minds of their victims, and the story itself was well-written and relatively fast-paced. I definitely think this one's worth checking out if you have any interest in the subject matter, even if it didn't entirely do it for me.
The first section of this book—the one that deals with Emily's indoctrination into the Kingdom—was really interesting to me. Seeing her willingly embrace what I recognized as cult tactics was equal parts fascinating and harrowing, and I read feverishly on to the Italy trip, full of anticipation. I'm rounding up instead of down for this first 40% of the book alone—it was that good.
However, I found the rest of the story sort of meandering, especially the last third or so. The climax was underwhelming and even confusing at times (maybe that's just me, though), and I found the unraveling of everything to be really quite lacking. It may reflect life more realistically that way, and I do understand the author's decision if that's what she was going for, but in a book conclusion, I was just left a little unsatisfied.
Regardless, I feel like I learned a lot about how cults can infect the minds of their victims, and the story itself was well-written and relatively fast-paced. I definitely think this one's worth checking out if you have any interest in the subject matter, even if it didn't entirely do it for me.