Reviews

Gaslight by Sara Shepard, Miles Joris-Peyrafitte

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bogwvlf's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

3.75

bigleoenergy's review against another edition

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5.0

What an intense depiction of the brainwashing and abuse that occurs in cults. I thought it was mainly going to focus on the relationship between the characters and was completely taken by surprise when

Danny took off with Roscoe

. It seems obvious in hindsight, but I was so entranced by these women’s histories and secrets, I didn’t put the pieces together. After that, whew, my heart was in my throat for the rest of the book.

julesmartial's review

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challenging dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

honestly i love hectic cult vibes and this felt quite true(?) i guess to some cult mentalities but it was also a bit too much i think - like too many things that were going on / didn’t feel like there was a clear singular motive ? and just ended up feeling really overwhelming and strangely dissatisfying at the end idk

elleboeding's review

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

4.0

applesodaperson's review

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

This book was so so good! Clearly the authors of this book did an extensive amount of research into cults for this book. I also would say I have a better than average knowledge base about cults, so I could really see and appreciate how accurate and detailed this book was. And this book was written so well and made me feel so stressed at times. It did such a good job of keeping the stakes so high. Especially when

Danny was trying to kidnap Roscoe.

And it was so compelling watching the various characters go through the deconstruction process and try to break out of the patterns of thought that cults enforce.
And Ben was seriously terrifying and had pretty much every trait of the classic cult leader.
Honestly a lot of this book reminded me of the NXIVM cult. 2 years ago I read Don't Call It A Cult by Sarah Berman, and honestly I would be shocked if this book was not heavily inspired by that real life cult. Because they both have the base of being for self help and self improvement, and they both involved branding their members, and in both cases the cult leader has a woman as their second in command. This book was basically a fictionalized version of that real life cult.
But it was such an entertaining book and I would highly recommend it.
Listened to on Libby.

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