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

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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