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A review by moonyreadsbystarlight
Don't Call It a Cult: The Shocking Story of Keith Raniere and the Women of NXIVM by Sarah Berman
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
tense
4.25
What does it take to make a self improvement curriculum into a cult with an even more sick cult inside of it? It starts with one man with too much stock in a sketchy self-administered IQ test and an obsession with psychogical manipulation, MLMs, and Ayn Rand, but couldn't be realized without an intense social network.
The writing itself is very engaging and this is thoroughly researched. There was intense background on Raniere along with the full scope of his network and how it grew, but Berman also interviewed many women who were in NXIVM and used information from the court case to show their stories.
The events of what happened are truely wild. At a few points, I had to take a break from it and even considered stopping about 3/4 of the way in because as horrid as things had been at that point, there were a few really intense experiences that they went into. But I'm glad I did finish it. I didn't plan it this way, but I think this was a good bridge from Hey Hun by Emily Lynn Paulson into some of the books on Scientology that are on my TBR (yes, Raniere was clearly inspired by both Amway and L Ron Hubbard, though he denies clearly being inspired by dianetics).
If you're interested in cults or social psychology (and are ready for the sort of content that is present when talking about such awful groups), I would definitely recommend this.
The writing itself is very engaging and this is thoroughly researched. There was intense background on Raniere along with the full scope of his network and how it grew, but Berman also interviewed many women who were in NXIVM and used information from the court case to show their stories.
The events of what happened are truely wild. At a few points, I had to take a break from it and even considered stopping about 3/4 of the way in because as horrid as things had been at that point, there were a few really intense experiences that they went into. But I'm glad I did finish it. I didn't plan it this way, but I think this was a good bridge from Hey Hun by Emily Lynn Paulson into some of the books on Scientology that are on my TBR (yes, Raniere was clearly inspired by both Amway and L Ron Hubbard, though he denies clearly being inspired by dianetics).
If you're interested in cults or social psychology (and are ready for the sort of content that is present when talking about such awful groups), I would definitely recommend this.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Eating disorder, Sexual assault, Suicide, Gaslighting, Rape, Child abuse, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Sexism, Xenophobia, and Trafficking
Moderate: Abortion
Branding, forced abortion, spiritual abuse, abuse under threat of deportation