I find them fascinating and empowering or inspiring or something? I’m definitely not in a cult but I think I get a lot out of seeing people who felt powerless and risked a lot finally stand up and say fuck this to some kind of Injustice. Injustices get me really fired up in stories, I just get outraged on people’s behalf, and so the Triumph of being able to say no is kind of electrifying. I’m sure there’s some interesting psychological things to say here about my dad and how I grew up in particular and some parallels to how trapped I feel in my life now that I’m sure my brain is drawing, but yeah, they’re good to read. Religious cults are kind of one of my weird background special interests, particularly the Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints. You end up with a working knowledge of several cities and families after a while.

I just finished “Escape” by Carolyn Jessop ( the last name is a dead giveaway of this one’s topic if you’re at all familiar with FLDS polygamy escapes) and it was pretty decent. She was married off to one of the big important assholes in the sect and managed somehow to be lucky enough to get a college education while still inside.

I got really invested in “Beyond Belief” by Jenna Miscavige Hill, the niece of the leader of Scientology. I think it’s my favorite of all of these, despite FLDS stuff being more my usual focus. I think maybe this one just fed my Hunger for Injustices To Rage At particularly well and it is an excellent primer for all of the lingo and other stuff that goes into Scientology. I came out of it realizing that I understood what was meant when someone said “WOG World” or “the cans” or “he is out ethics 2” or “rockslammer” or “blown”

“Stolen Innocence” by Elissa Wall is another FLDS one. One of the things I found interesting is that this one is a girl going through a lot of the same cult wide events but just as a younger person than the author of the first book. When you read enough of these you start to recognize people who are not the main antagonists you start to see background people in one person’s story being the main focus in someone else’s and it’s very interesting to me.

There’s a similar thing going down in “Breaking Free” by Rachel Jeffs, daughter of Warren Jeffs, the FLDS ‘prophet’. I listen to most of these on Audible and this one was read by the author which was a little weird to listen to because she just has a very strange way of speaking, but it’s again another story of a woman who is born into an arbitrarily important family and decided to say fuck this. She’s seeing the events the others are encountering but from the inside. I think in a way a lot of these books feel like just getting an alternate perspective or filling in a puzzle piece. One book might mention Warren Jeffs daughters and now here’s a book about one. Another book might casually dismiss all of Merril Jessop wives and the other book is about one and you get to see who all those people were who amounted to a sentence and a half in another book.

Maybe it’s a bit of sonder feeling.

A cousin obsession I have is former (mostly evangelical) Christians becoming atheists. Seth Andrews’ “Deconverted” is great for that, particularly in audiobook form because he reads it himself and he is a radio broadcaster so his voice is delightful to listen to. I just found him on my list when I was scrolling through recent things so I thought I’d include him.

I think I’m headed next for Flora Jessop’s “ Church of Lies” because it looks like she turned out to be a really intense human rights activist, or for “Perfectly Clear:Escaping Scientology and Fighting for the Woman I Love” by Michelle LeClair, which by title alone is telling me that there will be cults and lesbians and good for her, I’m into it. I obviously haven’t read either of those yet but I’m ready. I have samples for two books about women who left the Westboro Baptist Church lined up on my Kindle, so perhaps I will be able to report back on more haha