Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“I own me!” A powerful memoir of healing from trauma

Sex Cult Nun by Faith Jones

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Thanks again to Jake for this Book Exchange gift! I tore right through this one, as it hits a lot of my interest areas and is well written. Sex Cult Nun details Faith Jones’ life growing up in the Children of God/The Family cult during the 80s and 90s. Having watched several documentaries and read about this group before, this was less of a shocking book for me than for someone who has no knowledge about the Children of God. For me, it was more […]

In the City of LA

The Empty Glass by JI Baker

A Student of History by Nina Revoyr

Friend of the Devil (Reckless #2) by Ed Brubaker

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By both design and coincidence, I read three consecutive books on Los Angeles over the last 48 hours. The first two were good 4-star reads and the third was an excellent 5-star one… The Empty Glass Oliver Stone’s Blonde. This got poor reviews and I guess I get it? I suppose it depends on what your expectations are. Me personally, I enjoyed this wild romp through Los Angeles as a low level county morgue guy tries to unravel a government conspiracy around Marilyn Monroe’s death. […]

Cult Revolt

Manhattan Cult Story: My Unbelievable True Story of Sex, Crimes, Chaos, and Survival by Spencer Schneider

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Spencer Schneider tells the story of his decades in School, “an esoteric school for inner development,” which was really just a cult. I love reading about cults – they’re fascinating in a horrifying, often voyeuristic way. Schneider was writing about his own story, about a cult I’d never heard of – two points in this book’s favor. I was excited to learn about how people could go about their daily business in New York City whilst having their lives held in a chokehold by a […]

Wild Wild Country

Rajneeshpuram: Inside the Cult of Bhagwan and Its Failed American Utopia by Russell King

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In the 1980s, a man who calls himself God and his disciples attempt to set up a utopia in the countryside of Oregon, and they are not afraid to bend laws and hurt people to get what they want. As a Hindu myself, I have a quite skeptical view of all the Western-catering groups that sprung up out of India in the 70s and 80s, the gurus promising to teach people to lead fulfilling lives based on a lot of Orientalist stereotypes and mysticism. And […]

What Do We Do When Doomsday Doesn’t Come?

The Doomsday Mother: Lori Vallow, Chad Daybell, and the End of an American Family by John Glatt

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When Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell meet, they have long held alternate beliefs about souls and the coming of the end times. But together, they advance down the path of delusion, culminating in the murder of Lori’s children Tylee and JJ. I knew of this case from fairly recent developments, when the bodies of the children were found last year, but through this book I learned that the murders had been decades in the making. The author follows Lori and Chad from their childhoods, tracing […]

“Are you in a cult?”

Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell

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Well, I might be! Really, I’m inundated with cultish language- much like most of you are as well! The above question, posited by our own CBR gurus and shared across social media, was attached to an excellent review by faintingviolet. Her review kindled a blaze with other CBR readers- myself included! Our Goodreads walls are packed with update-after-update barrages of people frantically ripping through this read! I am very much looking forward to the Cultish flood headed our way. Now- back to the question. Am I […]



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