Cult Following - Review

Author: J.W. Ocker

Genre: Nonfiction

Format: Hardback

Pages: 272

J.W. Ocker is one of my favorite authors at the moment. I enjoyed his first two books (Cursed Objects and United States of Cryptids). So when I heard he had a new book coming out I smashed the keyboard to add it to my TBR, and when Quirk Book offered me a copy right before publishing day, I jumped at the chance.

One of my favorite genres is true crime, followed by my weird nonfiction books. Cult Following falls into both categories. It's a bit of true crime because most of these cults are hinky, and a lot weird because most of these cults, well I'm still confused about how anyone would follow them. It just seems so out there.

Yet here we are.

I will say I only knew maybe four of these cults, some only the bare facts, or one moment in their history. The rest of this book was completely new information to me. This makes books like this a lot more fun because I'm not reading about the same groups repeatedly. It made this even more of a roller coaster ride because that's exactly what it is.

A roller coaster ride. This went from one extreme to the next. Ocker starts us off nice and slow with some crazy cults but benign. Dangerous but not that dangerous, and that was about as chill as this book was. Because after that it was all downhill and each chapter jumped from one extreme to the next. 

Like after a couple of chapters I needed to take a break because holy crap. Holy crap. This was not something I could marathon through because I needed a break with something happy and shiny. Because holy crap. This was one of those books where you read something so extreme that you need to share it. Bless my roommate for dealing with me just unloading this book on her.

Holy crap.

I will say you can tell how much research and time that Ocker put into this. Thankfully the chapters are short, Ocker sticking to the pertinent information for each cult. Though he didn't hold back any punches, and thankfully his own opinion in places. Because honestly that little bit of humor was needed to break up the crazy.

This was an amazing read, and I'm so excited to add it to my J.W. Ocker collection. Cult Following was a wild ride cover to cover. If you are a true crime lover or an avid nonfiction fan, this one is for you! I cannot recommend these Ocker's books enough, he's three for three for me!

HAPPY READING!!

Cover Runway Sunday

  

They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but we all know we do it. Sometimes the cover initially catches our eye, drawing us to give a book a closer look. It's the first thing we see, our first impression. Every Sunday I'm going to post some of my favorite covers of books coming soon!

Madeline Brimley left small town Georgia many years ago to go to college and pursue her dreams on the stage. Her dramatic escapades are many but success has eluded her, leaving her at loose ends. But then she gets word that not only has her beloved, eccentric Aunt Rose passed, but she's left Madeline her equally eccentric bookstore housed in an old Victorian mansion in the small college town of Enigma. But when she arrives in her beat-up Fiat to claim The Old Juniper Bookstore, and restart her life, Madeline is faced with unexpected challenges. The gazebo in the back yard is set ablaze and a late night caller threatens to burn the whole store down if she doesn't leave immediately.

But Madeline Brimley, not one to be intimidated, ignores the threats and soldiers on. Until there's another fire and a murder in the store itself. Now with a cloud of suspicion falling over her, it's up to Madeline to untangle the skein of secrets and find the killer before she herself is the next victim.

HAPPY READING!!

Mini Reviews

This was absolutely adorable! It's perfect for younger readers this spooky season and a lot of fun for older readers. It has a Wednesday Addams feel to it. This book is about being yourself and that sometimes it's okay to like the weird things and not fit inside the box. Because that weird thing makes you unique. 

BestGhost is a sample of a book that author C.J. Daley published to introduce to another book he's working on. And, if this was the introduction I'm all in. This was the perfect quick read this Spooky Season as two friends go into their town's most haunted house to prove, or disapprove in Boomer's case, that ghosts exist. Only they got more than they bargained for. I love that this has an open-ended ending. For a second I thought I knew how this was going to end, but I was wrong. That last little chapter turned everything on its head. If was the intro to what Daley is working on, he has my attention! 

HAPPY READING!!

Waiting on Wednesday

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings to spotlight and talk about the books we're excited about that we have yet to read. Generally, they are books that have yet to be released but don't have to be. It is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous at Breaking the Spine.

A

Enter the dark side of discover the monsters, witches, and nightmarish traditions behind one of the most celebrated holidays in the world When we imagine the origins of Christmas, we picture halcyon images of mangers, glowing fireplaces, and snow-blanketed winter hills. But the holiday is celebrated during the darkest time of year in the Northern Hemisphere—a season so dark it has given rise to the most outlandish traditions imaginable. In The Dead of Winter, Oxford-trained historian Sarah Clegg delves deep into the folkloric roots of Christmas in Europe, comparing their often-horrific past to the way they continue to haunt and entertain us now in the 21st century. Detailing the hideous masks and curling horns of "Krampus runs" in Austria, the fearsome horseheads of "hoodenings" in Southeast England, and the candle-crowned young witches of Finland's St. Lucy Festival, the author captures the wild revelry at heart of the winter madness.   In Clegg’s fascinating investigation, these strange, wonderful traditions are cast in their illuminating historical context. And the closer we get to the dark magic and bright enchantment described in The Dead of Winter, the more we start to see how fun it might be to let just a bit of the ancient darkness in.

Why I'm Waiting: I do love creepy holiday books, and this sounds like the perfect creep read next to our lit-up Christmas Tree.

HAPPY READING!!

New Release Tuesday

 

Faolan Kelly’s grandfather is dead. She’s alone in the world and suddenly homeless, all because the local powers that be don’t think a young man of sixteen is mature enough to take over his grandfather’s homestead…and that’s with them thinking Faolan is a young man. If she revealed that her grandfather had been disguising her for years, they would marry her off at the first opportunity.

The mayor finds a solution that serves everyone but Faolan. He hires a gunslinger to ship her off to the Settlement, a remote fort where social outcasts live under the leadership of His Benevolence Gideon Dillard. It's a place rife with mystery, kept afloat by suspicious wealth. Dillard's absolute command over his staff just doesn't seem right. And neither do the strange noises that keep Faolan up at night.

When Faolan finds the body of a Settlement boarder, mangled by something that can’t possibly be human, it’s clear something vicious is stalking the palisades. And as Settlement boarders continue to drop like flies, Faolan knows she must escape to evade the creature’s wrath.

HAPPY READING!!

Cover Runway Sunday

  

They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but we all know we do it. Sometimes the cover initially catches our eye, drawing us to give a book a closer look. It's the first thing we see, our first impression. Every Sunday I'm going to post some of my favorite covers of books coming soon!

How Victorian male doctors used false science to argue that women were unfit for anything but motherhood—and the brilliant doctor who defied them

After Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to graduate from medical school, more women demanded a chance to study medicine. Barred entrance to universities like Harvard, women built their own first-rate medical schools and hospitals. Their success spurred a chilling backlash from elite, white male physicians who were obsessed with eugenics and the propagation of the white race. Distorting Darwin’s evolution theory, these haughty physicians proclaimed in bestselling books that women should never be allowed to attend college or enter a profession because their menstrual cycles made them perpetually sick. Motherhood was their constitution and duty.

Into the midst of this turmoil marched tiny, dynamic Mary Putnam Jacobi, daughter of New York publisher George Palmer Putnam and the first woman to be accepted into the world-renowned Sorbonne medical school in Paris. As one of the best-educated doctors in the world, she returned to New York for the fight of her life. Aided by other prominent women physicians and suffragists, Jacobi conducted the first-ever data-backed, scientific research on women's reproductive biology. The results of her studies shook the foundations of medical science and higher education. Full of larger than life characters and cinematically written, The Cure for Women documents the birth of a sexist science still haunting us today as the fight for control of women’s bodies and lives continues.

HAPPY READING!!

Library Haul

 

You know when you put books on hold at the library, but the hold line is long, so you need to remember about them? No, just me. Cool. Cool. Well, that just happened twice in the same week. I had forgotten that I had physical books on hold. Mostly because for a while I was reading a lot on my Kindle. However, past me figured I'd want these in physical form. So here we are. 

The upside is that one of these is in the vibe for Spooky Season, and the other is a good way to pivot from my book about cults and the creepy haunted house. So I've got that going for me. As well as TBR that spans several bookcases, piles, and a nook. I really wish the buying habit and the reading habit crossed over more. 

But, I'm looking forward to jumping into both of these! Hopefully tonight, after my shift. Because I shouldn't need to be at work all day. Maybe. Hopefully. My fingers are crossed!

HAPPY READING!!

October Spotlight Read

 

I've been a fan of Lish McBride for nearly a decade. Her books are fun and make me giggle. The Necromancer is my favorite series she's created, but I'm also excited when she has another book out. And wouldn't you know it, she's got a new one coming out in October!

Faolan Kelly’s grandfather is dead. She’s alone in the world and suddenly homeless, all because the local powers that be don’t think a young man of sixteen is mature enough to take over his grandfather’s homestead…and that’s with them thinking Faolan is a young man. If she revealed that her grandfather had been disguising her for years, they would marry her off at the first opportunity.

The mayor finds a solution that serves everyone but Faolan. He hires a gunslinger to ship her off to the Settlement, a remote fort where social outcasts live under the leadership of His Benevolence Gideon Dillard. It's a place rife with mystery, kept afloat by suspicious wealth. Dillard's absolute command over his staff just doesn't seem right. And neither do the strange noises that keep Faolan up at night.

When Faolan finds the body of a Settlement boarder, mangled by something that can’t possibly be human, it’s clear something vicious is stalking the palisades. And as Settlement boarders continue to drop like flies, Faolan knows she must escape to evade the creature’s wrath.

HAPPY READING!!

September Wrap Up

  What a weird month. I seemed to stuff it full of things both personal and work-related. At least one more busy week ahead of me at the start of the month. Then, maybe, things chill out, at least personally. I never what's going on with work, that'll be what it'll be. But as the weather's colder and wetter I go out less often. I don't like the cold. What I do like, is curling up in a blanket and or in front of the fire. So personally, much more reading time in the works. Plus I just stuffed my Kindle, so I have things to read on the bus, the wait for the bus, and on my breaks!

Books Read: 6
BINGO Books: 1

A to Z Challenge: 3

Pages Read: 1548

Currently Reading: Cult Following

I've said it once (at least), and I'll say it again, I think this is the hardest BINGO card to date. I'm doing so much reading, but the last few squares are nowhere to be seen. Not to mention the cursed 342 square. That might be my last square standing this year. I did manage one square this month, good-bye Grim Reaper square! I also managed three squares on my A to Z challenge! So, there was that!

HAPPY READING!!

Waiting on Wednesday

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings to spotlight and talk about the books we're excited about that we have yet to read. Generally, they are books that have yet to be released but don't have to be. It is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous at Breaking the Spine.

The world is more astonishing, more miraculous, and more wonderful than our wildest imaginings. In this brilliant and passionately persuasive book, Katherine Rundell takes us on a globe-spanning tour of the world's most awe-inspiring animals currently facing extinction.

Consider the seahorse: couples mate for life and meet each morning for a dance, pirouetting and changing colors before going their separate ways, to dance again the next day. The American wood frog survives winter by allowing itself to freeze solid, its heartbeat slowing until it stops altogether. Come spring, the heart kick-starts itself spontaneously back to life. As for the lemur, it lives in matriarchal troops led by an alpha female (it’s not unusual for female ring-tailed lemurs to slap males across the face when they become aggressive). Whenever they are cold or frightened, they group together in what’s known as a lemur ball, paws and tails intertwined, to form a furry mass as big as a bicycle wheel.

But each of these extraordinary animals is endangered or holds a sub-species that is endangered. This urgent, inspiring book of essays dedicated to 23 unusual and underappreciated creatures is a clarion call insisting that we look at the world around us with new eyes—to see the magic of the animals we live among, their unknown histories and capabilities, and above all how lucky we are to tread the same ground as such vanishing treasures.

Why I'm Waiting: This sounds both adorable and a lot of fun!

HAPPY READING!!

New Release Tuesday

In this spellbinding and entertaining memoir, Regina and Ryan Cohn, founders of Oddities Flea Market, take us on a fascinating and specially curated tour of their most macabre and mysterious objects, art, and artifacts, sharing their incredible history and stories.

Enter at your own risk …

HAPPY READING!!