My thoughts
Finished
I really wanted to love this book and while the content is engaging it feels very unorganized and a little too informal given the subject matter. The book constantly references content that is literal reading hours away from the current point (both in sections further into the book and sections right at the beginning). While I don't mind this occasionally it felt like every 5 minutes there was a "more on this in chapter 4!". I feel like a good restructure could have kept the content the same and prevented the back and forth. My other biggest pet peeve was the author always mentioning/name dropping experts who they'd consulted with for the book but not getting in deeper with those experts on their areas of study. I just wish there were more sections penned by other academic sources with their findings on cults! I love some stats! Even more tangential stories from research would be awesome. Overall if you're interested in modern cults and the overall "cultish" nature of society I'd still say this book is worth a read! There are just a few glaring details that really kept me from loving this book outright.