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liviplayer's reviews
115 reviews
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
3.75
Not enough Hamnet! I loved reading more about Agnes (Anne Hathaway) and the family of Shakespeare but for a book literally called ‘Hamnet’ there was barely any Hamnet!
The ending was moving and there were definite points of slower and faster plot movements.
The ending was moving and there were definite points of slower and faster plot movements.
Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell
2.0
I thought this book fell short of my expectations vs the reality of it. I had hoped for an insight into cult culture and the fanaticism behind a variety of cults and insights into the influences of language. I found this book very America centric, with not many references to cult cultures outside of the US, and often referenced the same ideas but just from different perspectives which is why I found this book a bit of a slog to get through in the end.
From someone who doesn’t have much of a knowledge of infamous cults through the decades, I learnt a lot about the biggest and most famous dangerous cults of the 70s-90s in America but felt that often the author doesn’t give much context about each cult when introducing them. I very much had google on my side for this read to keep up with the references and to keep me on track.
I didn’t enjoy how the author writes ‘we’ll speak about X more later on in section X’. I felt this made the book jump about quite a bit and felt like a confusing tease from the author to what’s to come instead of just mentioning that section now or leaving it for later.
That said, I did learn more about the influence of language in cult cultures - ideas of lovebombing, brain washing, even going into the addiction of social media and the importance of select words to influence markets.
Don’t get me wrong, if you’re a die hard cult fan and want to broaden your knowledge into specifies of language used in cult culture over the last 50 years, then this is the book for you.