Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge discussion

A book about a cult.


I know some people are fascinated by cults, but I have to confess, this is not my favorite topic, and I've never read a book about a cult. I have been meaning to read The Girls, and "the Manson family" was a cult, so I might choose that. I'll be following this post closely to see if you all have better recommendations!!


Listopia list is Here: A Book about a Cult

I’m going to use Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show by Bethany Joy Lenz.

ETA: The blurb adds that she was also in a cult for 10 years so it’s not just the cult tv show connection.

I think Ashley Winstead also has a book: The Last Housewife about a fictional cult.

Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology

This was featured on the podcast The Worst Bestsellers in the past year. It did not sound like a book I want to read, but it will fit the prompt.

Godshot
The Liar's Daughter
Armageddon Summer

Ooh! I like a good cult book! (I tried to read The Girls when it first came out and couldn't get into it, fwiw).

Last year I read Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and A Legacy of Rage- a lot of Waco books are by survivors or law enforcement that were there. This author was neither, so probably less biased than authors who were involved.

I have several books about Jonestown on my TBR. I'll dig them up when I have a chance.

The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly and The Chosen One were good YA novels.

I don’t know what I will read for this prompt but this yearI read UnCultured by Daniella Mestyanek Young. Great read about cults.

Rachel Harrison's Black Sheep was a surprising horror read about a kind of cult I wasn't expecting!

A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Hope, Deception, and Survival at Jonestown is well researched and informative, but obviously very grim.

Escape by Carolyn Jessop and Stolen Innocence are both by women who fled the Warren Jeffs polygamist cult.

Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche by Haruki Murakami - one of his non-fiction books.

Does Bunny by Mona Awad fit here? Without having read it, I have no idea if it's really a cult.

I'm currently in the middle of Beach Read by Emily Henry, and while it isn't about a cult per se, the main characters are interviewing people who have been in a cult. That may be helpful.

Highly recommend In the Clearing by J.P. Pomare - will add it to the listopia!

Amber Marie wrote: "Does Bunny by Mona Awad fit here? Without having read it, I have no idea if it's really a cult."

I read it and wouldn't say that it's about a cult.

Dubhease wrote: "Amber Marie wrote: "Does Bunny by Mona Awad fit here? Without having read it, I have no idea if it's really a cult."

I read it and wouldn't say that it's about a cult."

Darn. The description really made it seem that way. Thanks for the input!

If you like nonfiction, I read Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism this year and liked it. Not all the examples are recognized cults but it's surprising how many organizations engage in cult-like behavior

The Followers by Rebecca Wait has been on my tbr list forever, I'll be reading that.

Amber Marie wrote: "Does Bunny by Mona Awad fit here? Without having read it, I have no idea if it's really a cult."

No, not really. It's a clique of college students, but that's far from a cult.

Amber Marie wrote: "Does Bunny by Mona Awad fit here? Without having read it, I have no idea if it's really a cult."

Just reading the back blurb, the Bunny Group sounds like it fits Steven Hassan's BITE Model of Authoritarian Control, which makes it at the very least cult adjacent:

https://freedomofmind.com/cult-mind-c...


BEHAVIOR

This category explores how manipulative groups regulate and dominate their members’ actions and behaviors through strict rules, rewards, and punishments, limiting individual autonomy.


INFORMATION

Examining the tactics of manipulative organizations to control information flow through censorship and propaganda, restricting members’ access to outside perspectives.


THOUGHT

Focuses on psychological techniques used by such groups to shape beliefs and attitudes, suppressing critical thinking and promoting conformity.


EMOTION

Explores how manipulative organizations manipulate emotions, fostering dependency and loyalty through love-bombing, guilt, and fear-based indoctrination.

Just read The Call of Cthulhu , it's really short, but a great read about a fictional cult

I haven't read it but this came out in 2024, sounds promising: A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy

Megan wrote: "I haven't read it but this came out in 2024, sounds promising: A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy"

I was thinking about using this book as well.

I've just gotten into Janice Hallett's mysteries, so I'm happy The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels will be perfect!

If you’ve been reading the Cormoran Strike series, the latest book The Running Grave, is about the agency infiltrating a cult to get someone out. It was intense and wild in the best way.

Something I read before and won't be reading for this prompt, but someone may find fascinating... Reflexion by Lynette Fromme. As in "Squeaky" of the Manson Family giving us a first person view of her life with Charles.

It's definitely not the "juicy" read people may want, she's not going to incriminate people she cares about... But rather it's an intriguing memoir and we gain a lot of interpersonal knowledge that you can't get from third party biographies.

Better to Have Gone: Love, Death, and the Quest for Utopia in Auroville by Akash Kapur - "It’s the late 1960s, and two lovers converge on an arid patch of earth in South India. John Walker is the handsome scion of a powerful East Coast American family. Diane Maes is a beautiful hippie from Belgium. They have come to build a new world—Auroville, an international utopian community for thousands of people. Their faith is strong, the future bright.

So how do John and Diane end up dying two decades later, on the same day, on a cracked concrete floor in a thatch hut by a remote canyon? This is the mystery Akash Kapur sets out to solve in Better to Have Gone , and it carries deep personal Diane and John were the parents of Akash’s wife, Auralice. Akash and Auralice grew up in Auroville; like the rest of their community, they never really understood those deaths."

On my TBR for a while.

Devil in Ohio is about a cult

I just picked up When She Returned as a free selection and first glance at the summary makes it sound like there is a cult involved

I think I'll try In the Clearing.

What do you all think about interpreting the prompt in terms of a movie, or celebrity, with a “cult following”? Or leaders around whom a “cult of personality” develops (like Elizabeth Holmes at Theranos… which would mean I could read Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, which is on my TBR!)

Breaking the Spell by Jane Stork is a memoir from a woman in the Rajneeshee cult. She was interviewed on Netflix's Wild Wild Country doco. Pretty good read - I gave it 4 stars.

Excellent choice!!

Cosmogyral wrote: "I've just gotten into Janice Hallett's mysteries, so I'm happy The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels will be perfect!"

Highly recommend Little Heaven if you are a bit of a horror fan.

Sarah wrote: "I’m going to use Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show by Bethany Joy Lenz.

ETA: The blurb adds that she was also in a cult for 10 years so it’s not just ..."

I read this book last month and loved it! (I was also a big OTH fan.) It is definitely about a cult. Would recommend the audio if you're into audiobooks!

I already had The Girls on my ATY list, so am using it here.

This year I read an arc of a mystery surrounding a cult. You Have Gone Too Far by Carlene O'Connor It was very good (and will be out by then) however it is DARK in content (kidnapping and/or killing pregnant women)

I just DNF'd a book about a cult this year. At page 2 it had trigger warnings I wasn't aware of, a subject that I usually don't read.

If I get to this prompt I'll get to the book which was Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show

Skimming reviews, it looks like Midnight Is the Darkest Hour should work for this. I'll probably read that since I just read one of her other books and loved it.

I read Occulted earlier this year, which works if you're looking for a graphic novel option.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? mentions Mercerism specifically as a cult late in the book. Whether that is enough to apply for this prompt is going to be up to each person's judgment.

Not sure if it's cult or cult adjacent, but this was on the Kindle First set this month, and so is what I've pencilled in for this prompt: The Seven.

The Amazon blurb has: "Notorious cult leader Patrick Nye and his followers, known as The Seven, are pleading not guilty to detonating a bomb in a London theatre."

If you're interested in true crime books, Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders would work well for this prompt.

Pelican Harbor series includes getting out of a cult by Colleen Coble EAch book covers it to some degree.

Joanna wrote: "I read Occulted earlier this year, which works if you're looking for a graphic novel option."




I am ALWAYS up for a graphic novel option! this one looks perfect.

I'm fascinated by cults -- to the point that I have a cults and other alternative lifestyles shelf.

The Ash Family is one I haven't read that looks good.

Catherine wrote: "I'm fascinated by cults -- to the point that I have a cults and other alternative lifestyles shelf.

The Ash Family is one I haven't read that looks good."



Thank you for the link to your shelf, I found several books I want to read that look like they will fit this category. Do these all fit "cult"?

The Family Upstairs,
Wonder Valley
World of Trouble
Harmony

I’m going to read The Incendiaries

Nadine in NY wrote: "Catherine wrote: "I'm fascinated by cults -- to the point that I have a cults and other alternative lifestyles shelf.

The Ash Family is one I haven't read that looks good."

Thank you for the link to your shelf, I found several books I want to read that look like they will fit this category. Do these all fit "cult"?"

The Family Upstairs : definitely a cult, albeit a small one
Wonder Valley : more traditional cult, of the hippie commune type
World of Trouble : third book in a trilogy, more of a communal living situation as the world ends
Harmony : cultish? cult-adjacent?

Catherine wrote: "Nadine in NY wrote: "Catherine wrote: "I'm fascinated by cults -- to the point that I have a cults and other alternative lifestyles shelf.

The Ash Family is one I haven't read tha..."



Thanks. "Cult-adjacent" is good enough for me, I'm not being strict with myself on this one.

I read the first "Last Policeman" book already, and I was planning to read the second next year anyway, so I figured if the third works for this category I could fit it in, too. But maybe not. That's okay!

Taking a nontraditional route here. I DNF'd a book about a cult this year so I wasn't looking forward to this. Instead I decided to look for synonym words for 'cult' and came across several that I didn't mind working with. One of the words being 'clan'.

So by going that route, I have this book on my shelf:

The Last Stand of the Raven Clan: A Story of Imperial Ambition, Native Resistance and How the Tlingit-Russian War Shaped a Continent