Last book review of the year and I opted for something that I’d been hearing good things about! Cult stories and a hint of something supernatural sounded just about right for me, so I figured this one would be great.
The story follows Lo, a young woman who has not seen her sister since a tragic accident killed her parents and left her scarred. Lo has been working for a journalist and aspires to be one herself, but has also been trying to get in touch with her sister who has been stuck in a cult for the last several years. When the cult leader, Lev, offers to give her exclusive access to her, she has an opportunity to achieve both things: Find her sister and get her byline at last. But the cult is alluring and her sister is far more elusive than she bargained for.
This story is slow and makes the choice to not include many chapter breaks, which is a new trend that I’m not fond of. It’s meant to show how cults trap desperate people in them, but it takes a very long time to get there. We have shifting perspectives between Lo in the present and her sister, Bea, in the past which… well, I figured out one of the twists pretty early on from that context alone.
I think I would have liked this a lot more if I didn’t already have an interest in cults and a general understanding of options. There was a point early in the story where I wondered why, when Lo wasn’t able to get her byline, she didn’t just pay the $6 for a Medium subscription and publish there. That she is completely isolated without even an online community, and the only communities talked about are Instagram and Facebook, which she explicitly does not have1 for reasons that are not listed felt bizarre. It feels artificial and like a lot of the circumstances around her actions are contrived to make the story work.
And don’t get me started on that turning point where the cult is suddenly good actually because there is a child. The last third of the book felt like things were happening because there was a place this story was meant to go and didn’t feel like the logic connected with the first half.
Overall, it was probably fine. I think I was just not in the mood for it and found myself poking holes in the premise where I wouldn’t if I was. The writing is still good, so it might be more for you.
- Instagram, at least [↩]