A review by faeriekit
Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell
adventurous
dark
funny
informative
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
4.0
As someone who's been very into cults and cult history...this book was not very illuminating. I learned a few things on a few subjects, such as a few individuals' stories from the Jonestown massacre, but ultimately, I realized that this book was not as in depth or as exploratory as to the nature of cults in and of themselves as I wanted it to be. That's fine; I wasn't the target audience, the average reader, someone who may not be as familiar with the subject, is.
For the average reader, this strikes me as a good ground-level cult book to get into the topic with. The subjects are covered humorously, everything is given it's basic context, and the subjects run the gambit of your Applewhites and Jim Jones to modern Insta influencers with similar statused with their audience, which gives you a real variety of flavors of extremely niche and spiritual-oriented groups. It's a "dark" read, but no darker than the usual subject matter; I would actually consider it light fare, if not for, you know...the mentions of mass suicide. It's a pool read! But you're sort of sad! Crisis tourism in a beach read! The personal touch of the author's own Scient*logy story was a nice read as well. Most people don't know how to grapple with such a close brush to such an insular group. I think writing abook about the subject is a great way to do so.
For the average reader, this strikes me as a good ground-level cult book to get into the topic with. The subjects are covered humorously, everything is given it's basic context, and the subjects run the gambit of your Applewhites and Jim Jones to modern Insta influencers with similar statused with their audience, which gives you a real variety of flavors of extremely niche and spiritual-oriented groups. It's a "dark" read, but no darker than the usual subject matter; I would actually consider it light fare, if not for, you know...the mentions of mass suicide. It's a pool read! But you're sort of sad! Crisis tourism in a beach read! The personal touch of the author's own Scient*logy story was a nice read as well. Most people don't know how to grapple with such a close brush to such an insular group. I think writing abook about the subject is a great way to do so.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Eating disorder, Suicide, Child abuse, and Misogyny