Cult A Love Story: Ten Years Inside a Canadian Cult and the Subsequent Long Road of Recovery

by Alexandra Amor

This award-winning memoir intimately and powerfully chronicles one woman’s journey falling under the spell of a manipulative spiritual guru, and her hard-won and triumphant break with, and recovery from, thought reform. For family members with someone in a cult, the book explains to the reader, step-by-step, the process of getting drawn into a cult environment, what it's like to be there and why and how terribly difficult it is to leave. For those who have had a cult experience, the author illuminates what the journey of cult recovery may look like and how to heal, and in fact thrive, after a cult experience.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Audiobook, Cults, Psychology, Cult Classics, Biography Memoir

290 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 2009

Reviews

[♥Milica♥ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I see a frog on the cover, I read it.

Nah, I'm kidding, I do love frogs though. And for this frog there's a really good explanation as to why it's on the cover, but you'll have to read the book to see why.

I enjoyed listening to this, Alexandra narrated the book herself and I really loved the way she pronounces certain words. Because it's kind of rare to have a Canadian narrator for audiobooks? Please tell me I'm not the only one who noticed that. Most are either American or British (or American doing British and vice versa).

The only thing is, I feel like I don't know what this cult actually *did*. So I think we could've used more descriptions there, so we could have a better understanding of what went on.

I'm considering also reading "Michael's" book, it could be interesting.

[Jill Crosby · Rating 2 out of 5]

There’s a line the author writes, describing her readjustment to life outside the cult: “I’d sit on the couch for hours, not seeing anything in front of me.”
This is exactly how I felt reading this book. Was the author brave for expressing her feelings in how she was drawn into—and out of—a tiny Canadian cult? Yes. Did she provide insight into the manipulations of the cult’s leader? Again, yes.

But there was so much left out. For one—the structure of the cult? Where did they stay? How was this decided? (I was surprised to find that some cult members had families and children they went home to every night. How did that work?) Why was the cult always moving around from one place to the other?
And most importantly: What did the cult DO?!? We know they were “serving God,” but how’d they do that? They didn’t actively do recruiting, they didn’t panhandle at malls, they didn’t host sit-ins in the locL park. And what were they doing at the remote lodge the cult owned? Vacationing? Waiting tables in the restaurant? Being fishing guides?

There were too many missing nuts-&-bolts pieces to make this a complete read about joining and leaving a cult. While we do get told a lot about how the cult leader held public “channeling” conversations with “God,” and a lot A LOT about the author’s undying, almost over-the-top love & devotion to one of the cult’s male leaders, we miss out on specific instances and examples of these, and the repetitiveness in which these things are mentioned wears you out. Props, though, for a fine Bibliography; some of the works she references are a better source of information on cult membership than is her own memoir

[Amber · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's one of those books where there's nothing particularly wrong with it, but there wasn't really anything new here. It was a combination of vague information about this cult and cults in general. It didn't really go as deep as a memoir and it wasn't overly informative either. But it seems like a perfectly fine book if you don't know anything about cults. Honestly, I just wanted more details, even if it was something as stupid as what people were wearing. I just couldn't picture much of anything. Things were summed up in a paragraph that would have been more satisfying as a page or two. I never really got a clear sense of what anyone was like or what they were experiencing. It was just like ah, the cult leader was kind of shitty in that way cult leaders always are, Alexandra was nervous and struggling to assert herself, and she loved a man who loved her back but was more devoted to the cult. Now you know about as much as I do.

The version I have has additional information at the end about things that happened after this book was originally published and I felt like those were the most interesting parts. I'm really glad she went back and gave us updates. I feel like the updates were as good as I wanted the rest of the book to be. Of course, I don't want to be too hard on her because there's a pretty big gab between when this happened and when the book was published so I imagine her memory was fuzzy. The updates might be the best part simply because that information was fresh in her mind.

[Jeff Stevenson · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I just want to get through this. I know it will make me spiritually stronger.”

This powerful memoir begins with a heartbreaking break-up, one that is demanded by the cult leader, a woman who ultimately will insist she be called Lady Limori. By the time you finish it, your heart will probably be broken a little bit, too.

There are many books about cults and it's estimated that there are more than 5000 cults now active in the United States, so these stories will, tragically, continue to be told and they need to be told.

Alexandra Amor was committed to the teachings of this unnamed cult for ten years, and we live through the entire experience with her, a real life "game of Snakes and Ladders." Sometimes she finds herself on the good side of Limori and other times, she is told she has a "dark energy" and too much "ego." The push and pull of all cults is well examined in this story, how they recruit you with "love and acceptance" (hence the title) and then how they keep you, with fear and mind control.

Having read several books about cults, what always strikes me is how similar they all are. The all claim to have "the Truth," they all claim to hear directly from God or the leader IS God, and they all either know your sin or they want you to sit and confess your shameful secrets to them. In one particularly chilling scene, everyone in the cult is told to write down every dark secret they have. Once they are done and are before the cult leader...well, what happens next needs to be read to be believed. Same with the time when one woman is asked just how committed she is to God and when she says she is 100%, she's then asked to prove it. What follows is humiliating and very disturbing.

[Lacey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Girl you’ve got to get over him.

[Jahnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

An informative account on the process of thought reform when belonging to a cult. Alexandra Amor takes us through her journey that started with being curious about a new lifestyle or a new age quest for spirituality that eventually led her to joining a cult.

When she left the cult, she turned to therapy that also gave her access to knowledge and information, making her accept the truth that she had been manipulated and abused, and that she was indeed a cult member. It took her ten years before she mustered the courage to leave that cult, a decision that was the redirection of a bad heartbreak with a fellow cult member. 

I like the storytelling, how she paired the telling of a specific memory to serve as an example for an information about cultish thought reform.

The quest for spirituality requires an open mind, an open spirit, and vulnerability, but it should also require a healthy and strong degree of self-awareness as defense to falling into the traps of false belief and false Jesuses and prophets. The right church and the right spiritual teachers always lead you to Jesus, never to themselves, and never through abuse, manipulation, force, and the absence of freewill.

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. Just wow.

In order to help a client write a memoir about her own experience of religious abuse, I've been reading lots of cult-immersion-and-escape stories. Very very intense stuff. Leah Remeni's self-extraction from Scientology is the funniest and most entertaining, but this memoir, from a person so much more introverted and motivated so strongly by an authentic longing for the divine, is the most poignant, complex, and self aware. I would want to read about her inner journey even if the subject were not so dramatic. What an incredible love story -_as Ms. Amor explains, you don't join to be in a cult, you fall in love (initially!) with the way a certain type of compelling charisma and absolute certainty makes you feel. And then you come to love your fellow members. And then that love for the (illusion) of certainty, plus your intense connection with the only other humans who know "the truth" creates the kind of intensity of radical belonging that makes such love almost impossible to leave, even as another part of your soul is screaming as loud as it can to Get Out.

I particularly enjoyed the intimacy and intricacy of a story from a survivor of such a small, un-famous cult - just a handful of earnest people engaged in epic spiritual battle in (mostly) the wilderness of British Columbia. Instead of relying on the increasingly horrible accounts of escalating physical and emotional abuse - as so many of these memoirs understandably do - Ms. Amor focuses instead on her own psychological journey - it's quieter but to me more riveting. So many of these books make me feel sick as I keep watching different dramatic versions of the same car crash. I don't mean to diminish the very real suffering of those unfortunate authors, and I have just as much human tendency to get sucked in to the velocity of the ambulance chase as the next person. But I was surprised, again and again, by the incredible honesty of this author to examine her own compliance.

Amazingly well done, Akexandra. I look forward to reading your fiction, but I would be just as eager to read anything else about your real life, again, even on a much less inherently intense subject. What you have accomplished is a major testament to the eternal human struggle to discover one's own truth, outside of any culturally mandated belief. As you demonstrate - it's incredibly difficult but also the most rewarding of any human endeavor. Bravo!

[Izzati Rahman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an enticing premise, a deep dive into the seductive world of cults and the psychological manipulation that keeps its members enthralled. However, it ended up being a marathon of a read, long-winded, exhausting, and peppered with moments that left me shouting at the protagonist, "Honey, it's high time you moved on from that man!"

The narrative, while rich in detail, often felt like it was treading water, circling around the same themes without much progression. It was like a dance, with two steps forward and three steps back, leaving you on the edge of exasperation.

However, despite its frustrating moments, the book did offer some intriguing insights. The exploration of the protagonist's psychological journey, her entanglement in the cult's web of manipulation, and her struggle to break free was portrayed in a manner that was both heart-wrenching and eye-opening.

A quote that particularly captured the essence of the protagonist's struggle was, "Like a moth drawn to a flame, I was enticed by a deceptive light that promised warmth but delivered nothing but burns."

Yet, these moments of insight were like rare gems buried under a mountain of unnecessary detail. They shone brightly when they appeared, but they were too few and far between to make a significant impact.

. It's like a dish that's all presentation and no substance - it looks great when served, but leaves you feeling unsatisfied. It's a 3-star read that offers a glimpse into the dark world of cults but fails to fully captivate due to its lengthy and often repetitive narrative.

[Suzanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

A powerful and fascinating true story of how a lonely, well educated young woman had become slowly and carefully lured over time into a cult. Cult, A Love Story is a window inside the secret world of cult phenomenon and Amor takes the reader through ten years of the psychological madness, cruelty despair,,,and love. A definite must read.

[Jeanne Brady-Schreib · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was a bit disappointed in this book. I felt that it left a lot of important details out.
What kind of work was this cult doing? They meditated twice a week, but what kind of supposed spiritual work were they doing? What exactly was Gods work to them?

[Bronwen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing, much more about a broken relationship than a cult survivor experience.

[Mona · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a disappointing read. The ending is satisfying, but that is the kindest thing I can say about it. There are a few different problems with this memoir.

First, the writer doesn't paint a cohesive picture of her day-to-day time in the cult and what it entails. It seems like, even as a member, she's able to work independently, travel, and has access to her own money. She mentions living with the cult leader for a short time, but we don't see any of that happen. She specifically confirms that she was never asked to contribute money beyond nominal fees for things, but says that wealthier members did give lots of money. But how any of that worked, how the cult funds itself, how pressure is applied, is never described.

The cult leader, she notes, rarely shared much about her past. As the reader, this admission made me think, "we are finally going to get a deep dive of research into her," but no! You never learn anything about the cult leader, who she was before the cult, nothing. All of this made each scene feel less vivid because there is no real sense of the thing. There is no painting of what this cult was like to live through.

To make a memoir feel authentic you have to show yourself in really unflattering light at times because that's real life. When writers don't do this it lends everything an artificial feel because the tone of the narration is at odds with what the protagonist is doing. The author writes with knowing authority throughout the exposition while simultaneously depicting herself making the same mistakes as other members. It created a discordance which I found distracting. The inclusion of general information on cults added to this effect in a negative way.

My biggest beef is that she barely touches on any actual religious doctrine, which wouldn't be an issue if she were ex-FLDS or JW because those are known entities, but this is a tiny one-off boutique cult. Not knowing the primary values other than "worshipping god" made the whole thing feel vague.

The love story aspect is intriguing but it is also a case of telling rather than showing, so you don't get a sense of them as a couple at all. Pacing-wise it feels a bit tacked-on, despite being referenced in the title of the book. I was really looking forward to this read but I finished the book feeling like there was definitely a story there, but that I didn't quite get to read it.

[Deirdre Clancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting account of the author's experiences of spending a decade in a small new age cult throughout the 1990s in Canada. I found it fascinating partially because this was an era when I remember new age spirituality really beginning to take root among certain people of my generation. This was a time in Ireland when people were actively looking for alternatives to the authoritarian forms of Christianity that had characterized Ireland for many decades. Sometimes, the old certainties gave way to new disasters, as people dabbled in Eastern spiritualities that they had no roots in or knowledge of, leaving them vulnerable to unscrupulous self-appointed gurus.

Friends from college or later, work, would rave about such-and-such a mediatation guru, saying I just HAD to go and see this person speak. More often than not, I was fairly underwhelmed. In one case, the supposed guru, an attractive woman in her late 30s, just sat there staring into space while the devotees in the audience stared adoringly at her for about 40 minutes, I suppose soaking up her aura or something. Later, during a Q&A, a woman in the audience who had been meditating with another guru for a number of years described a sensation of not knowing who she was anymore, and almost in tears, sounded on the verge of a breakdown. It was the last time I went to see one of these gurus. I went to some of these events to consolidate friendships and with a curious and open heart, but also in the knowledge that my true spiritual path was ultimately Christianity (which, despite its sometimes problematic institutional manifestations, felt true to me and still does).

The book had some elements that I recognized from observation or experience myself, though I was never so deeply involved as to be enmeshed for 10 years. I did a couple of six-week meditation courses in the '90s, but didn't really hang out with the meditation crowd, as such. Although the techniques taught were sound and extremely beneficial, the teachers in a couple of cases had groups of adoring, somewhat glassy-eyed followers that suggested a cult-like atomophere was developing. I didn't stick around long enough to experience the outcome, but later heard through the media that several marriages had been broken up by one of these teachers, who had a particular fondness for getting involved with married women.

The Canadian cult described in this book was run by a rather toxic, sociopathic sounding woman, who seems to have had the ability to spot those with a major void in their psyche and manipulate their values over a long period of time, until any evidence of their previous identity was utterly erased.

Many of us who are sensitive to atmosphere can look back on times in our lives when we were subjected to radical forms of gaslighting, when we pointed out the inconsistencies we observed only to be painted by a group as the crazy one. This can occur in any scenario, but where it happens under the guise of spiritual enlightenment, it can be particularly destructive. Often, it's the healthiest person with the solid foundation in terms of values in an unhealthy group dynamic who ends up being the group scapegoat. This is what eventually happened with the author of this book, whose point of departure coincided with the cult leader telling her partner, Michael, that she, the author, was a source of 'bad energy' and must be discarded by him if he was to continue his stellar spiritual development. Like a good flying monkey, he complied with this in the most emotionally cruel manner possible, leaving the author utterly broken and distraught.

The author acknowledges in retrospect that her sudden demonization within the small cult was a blessing in disguise. It is what drove her in desperation to seek the help of a therapist, who gently listened and encouraged her to pay attention to her own feelings instead of suppressing them, as she was encouraged to do within the meditation group by the imperative to appear spiritually sound (as defined crazily by the leader). Over time, she gradually made the emotional break from the cult to the point where she was able to take ownership of her own life and honour her own values, which had been rearranged by the guru. Her 'spiritual' community was lost to her, but she avoided the further cognitive dissonance and pain of a life spent in a group that ritually humiliated or ostracised people for imaginary infractions.

One woman left her two young children with their grandparents to spend the remainder of her life with the sociopathic group leader. Another man signed over his cherished and worked-for property in the wilderness to the leader, out of fear of what would happen if he refused, presumably. The author's former partner (Michael, in the book) wrote a smug and arrogant book about his spiritual superiority to the rest of humanity, consolidating the idea that there would never be any reconciliation between the two of them.

It's clear from the book that Amore is not fully over her 10-year hiatus spent in this alternate reality. However, she seems to be aware of this fact. For example, she still refers to Michael as the love of her life, and seems to paint his cruel treatment of her as merely syptomatic of the brainwashing he has been subjected to within the cult. My sense would be that the payoff for Michael is a calculated one: that of feeling spiritually superior to the people around him, as one of the guru's chosen ones. It would seem crystal clear to me that this man is bad news on many levels. Having said that, I admire the author's ability to feel a love and regard for the people she spent 10 years of her life in intimate contact with, and her continuing concern and compassion for them, despite the cruelties they inflicted on her as a collective. She has made a valuable contribution to the literature on new religious movements and their potential pitfalls.

[Shadira · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cult: A Love Story is the autobiographical tale of a young Canadian woman who, like most very young adults, was wandering through the mystery of her life searching for purpose. Joining a seemingly innocuous meditation class--her mother attended the class with her, for goodness sake, how dangerous could it be?--the lonely young woman slowly but surely begins to feel accepted and guided by the principles taught at the "circle", and develops a strong attraction to the mysterious meditation group leader, Limori. Amor's moldable being, so eager and ripe for acceptance, gradually leans further and further in, until she is eventually submerged in the life of a cult member.

The first thing that I admired about Amor was her desire to put it all out there: Every choice she made, good or bad, is told. By doing so, she shows how perfectly human and normal she is, yet how quickly she drifted into danger. Cult members start out just like you and me: They are not weak minded or broken, that happens later, at the hands of the cult. What makes normal people slip into the danger zone undetected is that their manipulator is a just that much better at reading people, a master at their and craft, and able to abuse others while convincing the victims they love or admire them. Like the analogy of a frog slowly and motionlessly cooking to death as water is gradually turned up to the boiling point, the follower believes the manipulator is harmless, even helpful, then is slowly disembowed without even knowing it.

Not many of us are better suited to fend off mind-altering, manipulative advances than Amor was. It's just a matter of circumstance. Throughout the book, Amor quotes Robert J. Lifton's Thought Reform and Psychology of Totalism, describing the multiple criteria for thought reform, or the eight ways in which manipulative leaders control their subjects. And it makes the reader uneasy, since it all sounds so familiar: With spirituality, conditioning, environment, separatism, doctrine, purity, secrecy, righteousness or favor, a guru leading followers astray is no different than a dictator controlling a nation through fear, an abusive parent controlling a child, or a church leader controlling a flock. In Amor's case, the pursuit of deity, faith, acceptance and love were the tools used to entrap then hold her.

I found it ironic that the author's last name, Amor, means love--because it was the pursuit of love for the Creator that cult leaders used to cajole this intelligent woman to a dark side, all the while convincing her that everything in the outside world was the true dark side. When Limori used God and love as the bait to deceive followers, it reminded me of a line from the movie The Green Mile: Death row prisoner John Coffey is explaining how a rapist was able to quietly and fatally lure two little girls out of their home without alerting their parents in the next room. All the rapist had to do was use love, telling the girls that if one made a sound, he would kill the other, and vice versa. "He kill them with their love, "says Coffey. "With their love fo' each other. That's how it is, every day, all over the world". Amor and others in the group wholeheartedly wanted to prove their love to God. The sad truth is that they were only proving their love to an imposter who could never be satisfied, and in doing so they were dying a slow death by a million little cuts. Despite cruelties and being subjected to emotional, financial and physical abuse, these people gave up everything they had to try and gain Limori's--therefore, God's--favor.

Often, Limori and other leaders twisted Truth, Love and Light so completely that I genuinely feared for their human souls, so appalling were their actions. One sickening account tells of the degradation of an innocent woman who is told to rid herself of her prideful thoughts by stripping naked in front of a room full of followers. Despite clenched fists and tight lips, she complies and is paraded and berated before the group. What makes it more offensive is that none of her housemates defend her, instead joining the leader in humiliating her--as she will likely do herself in the future, when it happens to be them, not her, under Limori's abusive microscope.

In what I consider the most bone chilling scene, the author describes Limori leading a small group of believers to a cliff side cave on the edge of the sea in Hawaii, purportedly to show them great Truth. Under the guise of working for God himself, she pushes her mind controls to the limit by demanding they acknowledge that she is their living god. "Those of you who do surrender to God, who are willing to offer all of yourselves to His purpose, will bow down before me. By doing so you will show that your pride and your ego will not stand against your service to the Light and to God. If you serve me, you will bow down, on your knees, arms outstretched in submission."

And they do. Lowering themselves to their knees on the sharp, rocky cave floor, they bowed down to this monstrosity of a human being. I literally gasped out loud as I read that passage, first thinking I would never, ever bow down to a human being as if they were God, but then realizing that in moments of clarity, all of those people would have heartily said the same thing.

Throughout the story, the author does a great job describing not only how she fell into the danger zone, but why. She bravely puts the blame where truth demands it lie: On others as well as on herself. The book delivers the reasons why she and others become so deeply entrenched in loving an abuser, what psychologists and specialists in the field of cults have to say, and how to better understand someone who is being preyed on. It is not merely storytelling, it is also a guidebook of sorts into the world of mind control and thought altering behavior.

So genuinely told is Amor's story that I found myself forgetting this was not fiction, this was real. This really happened, and continues to happen as cults strengthen their grasp on people throughout the world today. The good news is that ten years and many counseling sessions later, Amor is able to share her story with great honesty and depth, not for sensationalism sake, but to help those who have been abused by cults, and their friends and families, make sense of the madness and find some hope for recovery. She deftly uses other resources to enrich the value of the book, and includes not only a glossary of common cult lingo, but a reference section as well. In the end, Cult, A Love Story left me with the hope that if just one person somewhere reads this book and receives some sort of help from it, then maybe, just maybe all of Amor's pain and struggle was worth it. Today, her song is much brighter, because she has found that there is, indeed, true love and acceptance after the cult.

[Jennifer Dawkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to give it more... I've read her novels and I like her writing but I couldn't wrap my head around belonging to this group for so long. I'm glad she got her shit together and left ... but 10 years ?
I tried!

[Jeanie Kenkel · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author has a loose definition of the word "cult." Also, I was disappointed when her story ended with almost none of the drama that she seemed to keep promising. That said, I couldn't download the sample of her boyfriend's book fast enough when she said at the end he wrote one.

[Audra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enh, I'll give it 4 stars. It kept me reading 'til the end (except I did scan fast through some of the paragraphs, especially at the very end).

Pros: this is a very honest telling of one's story. The author is a nice person, who writes well. I appreciated the latter, and would be interested in reading one of the fictional books she's written because of that.

I don't have any "cons" to share. I read Waco: A Survivor's Story and was engrossed, amazed, and impressed by Thibodeau's book. My husband knew how much I liked that book, and he bought this one for me for Christmas. They are very different stories. Thibodeau's book is also a genuine, honest accounting of what happened to him, but it also includes action events like the ATF shooting from helicopters, tanks rolling over cars, tear gas being shot in the place and killing children, and a giant fireball that he narrowly escaped from. I'm not writing that to minimize Amor's experience, I'm just letting readers know that this is a different type of book.

Amor's book dig's deep into the psychological and emotional goings on inside her head throughout her ordeal. (And, this guru, "Limori", is a lot meaner than Koresh.)

I liked that there were updates at the end of the book. Most readers would want to know "where are they now"? I guessed while reading certain parts that a motivating factor behind the writing was to communicate to Michael. It seemed that Amor felt compelled to have her side told, and to feel the relief from "getting your say", explaining, and hoping to feel understood. Amor admits to the Michael motive, which is nice. It's also a good book for people who have been in cults, and anybody wanting to know how a person "gets sucked in" and what goes on in their heads.

"A Love Story" is a little bit misleading for a subtitle, however, anybody who read the book's description before diving in should have figured that out. I think one of the themes of this book, though, besides all the cult stuff, is the sting of first love. I think, cult or no cult, many of us get wrapped up in feelings of love and grief, which can be overwhelming. Amor is lucky that she had a mom and brother, and some other people in her life who cared about her. I hope that eventually she manages to get over Michael. I don't mean that in a criticizing way, but more in a compassionate way. Longing for someone who is bad for us is a completely understandable human situation. It can be hard for us to rid ourselves of these feelings, attachments, longings ... Amor did a lot of work recovering from cult thought control. Getting over loving Michael is even harder, IMO, and she won't be truly free until she sees that relationship for the destructive, dead-end it was. Yeah, he sounds like he had a lot of good qualities, and I get it, but, still, whether intentional or not, he is part of the abuse because his psyche is firmly entrenched that culture.

We can always justify why someone is the way they are. This doesn't change the fact they ARE that thing. Take someone who hits his wife, for example. You can look into how he grew up, what molded him, and explain how he got that way. This doesn't change the fact that he is an abuser, and you should stay away from him. Same with Michael. Yeah, nice guy, sees the good in people, yadda yadda. But he's bad for ya, honey. He's emotionally abusive, even if it's "not his fault".

In time, Amor sees that Limori's orchestration of Michael breaking up with her was for the best. It saved her, and enabled her to heal and work on having a more normal life. I think that when she recognizes that breaking up with Michael was the best thing that could have happened to her for the additional reason that he is not good for her, if that ever sinks in, and the emotions around him ever go away, then she will be a lot better off.

[Nik Maack · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am interested in cults and have read many books on this topic. So a lot of this terrain was nothing new to me. I was mostly here to read about the author's experiences.

She is an okay writer. However, a lot of it feels quite repetitive after a while. She loves Michael a whole bunch and goes on and on about that. Which, honestly, starts to feel weird. Like it's another part of her cult experience that she hasn't recognized yet. There's the cult of Limori and then there's the cult of Michael.

One of the ironies of a first person account of cult life is that authors can get mired down in details and lose a sense of the big picture. They can get very excited about describing cult intricacies and soap opera details that, to an outsider, seem trite and irrelevant. That happens a bit here, but oddly, at the same time, it feels a bit surface level. There's a lot of summarizing of events and not a lot of storytelling.

The book version I read has SEVERAL updates of what has happened over the years after she left the cult and after the cult leader died. It starts to feel a little creepy. Almost as if nothing else has happened in her life and this is all she has, having been in a cult.

Perhaps she wants to keep the rest of her life private. But I found the last update especially creepy. Michael wrote a book and she's replying to his book in her book update. I get the desire to set the record straight, but man, is anything else going on in your life?

This is not entirely fair, on my part. It is a book about cults and being in a specific cult, so of course she is going to write in that one topic.

All the same, it was merely an okay book. Some interesting parts, somehow missing the depth I wanted.

[Katja Van waardenburg · Rating 3 out of 5]

*warning, a lot of spoilers in my review*
Only read after you read the book and want to listen to me gossip about it!

Very interesting. I listened to the book on Spotify with all the updates. I can really relate to Amor in the sense that I also need community. It’s not too heavy-handed and gives a very illuminating look into a world one can’t really imagine until living it, I suppose. At one point, I felt a bit like a fly on the wall in a room I wasn’t supposed to be in.

I really feel Amor wrote this book first and foremost as a very long letter of explanation and a declaration of love to her ex-boyfriend, “Michael.” And in the hope of freeing the last cult members of Limori’s fabrications. I also got into Timothy Noble’s book (Michael’s real name or his own alias). Don’t bother—it’s not worth the read. It’s basically just a reply to clear Limori’s name (the guru) and to undermine the love he shared with Amore.

I did some digging, and apparently “the wolf’s den” is a synonym for “the eagle’s nest,” and it’s now a BnB possibly run by Timothy. (You can actually find it on Booking 😬 in the reviews a Tim is mentioned, coincidence?). If you’re interested, you can also find a picture of Limori if you google her chosen alias, “Lady Enubi.”

All in all, I’d recommend it—and I’d also suggest listening to all the updates. The last update kind of made me sad for Amor. You can really hear her disappointment in the way her book was received by Michael, and I feel she was disillusioned about his ability to see what happened, and about how he chose his beliefs over the memory of their relationship.

[Ari Chand · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-paced explanation of a lived experience of cult/sectarian experience. She does a great job of explaining the way one can arrive at believing such absurd realities and positions or doctrine because of the social network, socialisation of ideas with the built expectations from others.

A thoughtful and unsettling memoir that traces her experience of becoming entangled in a spiritual cult and her gradual realisation of the psychological manipulation at its core. The book explores how vulnerability, idealism, and the search for meaning can become fertile ground for coercive control. Instead of leaning into melodrama, Amor focuses on the quiet, incremental processes that normalise harm: the gradual tightening of rules, the redefinition of truth, and the subtle rewriting of selfhood and personal empowerment. I enjoyed her explanations of the difficulty in ripping out the foundations of ideology and security of thought and social attunement. And having to start re-pouring the concrete of ideological and sociological re-foundation that is needed. Starting over and experiencing oneself anew with no support, network and the isolation that occurs in leaving such a community. By situating her personal story within a wider cultural context of spiritual seeking and emotional dependency, she transforms her experience into a critical commentary on contemporary wellness culture and the commodification of vulnerability.

[huhsmile · Rating 4 out of 5]

I appreciated the honesty, I know a lot of people will disagree with how calmly everything was being discussed but I think that set a good tone for the subject and how the author feels about the subjects: it’s complicated.

I do agree with other reviews, I was looking for something a bit more informative- and the author’s mentioned citations will probably be something I jump in to soon as well. But the first person account of this book adds a lot of nuance and empathy to the tone in explaining how the events were experienced.

I will never understand the author’s willingness to do the things she did, whether a god was ever used in the equation, but I can only imagine her own guilts and insecurities helped isolate her more into herself at the time, and her guru took advantage of this inner turmoil. All in all, this was an interesting read, and I wish the author the best in her recovery from her experiences.

[Stefanie Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author of this book found herself sucked into a cult under the guise of a meditation class. The leader of this group was described as an Ursula-esque sea hag figure, and, despite my love for the sea, I am inclined to agree.

The thing about cults is that people who are searching for something or missing something in their lives are often the most susceptible to the sneaky behaviors that ensnare them. Leaders of these groups use all sorts of tactics, which were detailed thoroughly in this book. Emotional, mental, physical, and sexual abuse are all ways that leaders subjugate their followers. Cults often use food as a way to control. If you are familiar with the People's Temple, followers were fed a starvation diet and worked to keep them too tired to ask questions, revolt, or leave. I can tell you for free I do not have the personality to be a follower of anybody, which is why my parents dislike me so much for deconstructing from their religion BUT WHAT IS A GIRL TO DO.

[Kassie Bettis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found myself becoming increasingly frustrated with the writing choices in this memoir. You got out of a cult, but you fail to exactly explain what the cult actually DOES. How does the cult function? What exactly drew you in? The writing advice of "show, not tell" is often misconstrued and I don't really find it to be that helpful a lot of the time, but in this instance I kept wanting to shake the author by her shoulders and shout "Show, not tell!" There was very little "in the moment" sorts of scenes and a lot of "Well this happened in 1993 and then in winter 1994 I did this." I'm not sure how this won awards??? Her last few chapters were actually interesting (giving updates on former / current members) but half the time I had no clue who she was even talking about because she didn't even mention them previously. This is the first time I felt incredibly annoyed at a memoirist.

[Lili · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book deserves more reviews, and more great ones at that. I think it’s important to remember that Amor’s intentions with writing this book were:

-educate loved ones of people in cults
-bring a compassionate awareness to cult members
-save Michael

The execution of her intentions was done so incredibly well, and with such love. The mixture of external references with a semi-linear timeline of her experiences was just perfect. I think for some people, they will seek out certain plot elements, and this book might be lost on them. But Amor doesn’t offer up her life just as a story, but rather as a resource. It was one that felt relevant to me, at the very least. Wonderful job.

P.S. the usage of final quote in the 2019 update? I think I thought about it for a week afterward. My goodness.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're looking for hard, scientific "whys" about cults or an in-depth analysis of cult phenomenon and inner workings - this isn't for you. What we have here is a genuine and heartfelt retelling of one woman's experience within a cult and her insight since moving into recovery.

Alexandra Amor put her heart on her sleeve and does her best to answer the 'whys' and 'hows', but it remains thoroughly her story. And I think that's why I enjoyed it so much. Amor's writing isn't flashy, but it's effective in communicating in relatable terms what was going on, and how it was perceived by those within the group. She treats her fellow cultists an humans, and the compassion and love she genuinely feels for them makes her story more poignant.

An excellent read of those who want to try and understand emotionally what goes on in a cult situation.

[micaela · Rating 4 out of 5]

very well done, an honest memoir and read nicely by the author. i find it quite funny this this book cites cultish several times because it has a clearer linguistic analysis of cult language and rhetoric in chapter 3 than cultish does. while i believe her feelings were genuine it also was incomprehensible to me that she was/is still so in love with this one man and it would have been nice to interrogate if some of that love is wrapped up in the cult as well, since to me it seems… obviously yes… i understand and share others’ disappointment that a lot of the inner workings/day to day activities of the cult weren’t really given a lot of time, but i think it’s still a really valuable read for anyone interested in the topic.

[J. Marchio · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one was like - meh. I heard the entire book, but i really don’t know anything. I cant tell you anything about this cult. I dont know the name of the cult, the name of the leader, what they did, why they did whatever they did, their practices, their beliefs, i dont know. I just dont. I feel like the author maybe wrote this book far too early in her recovery journey, and was therefore not exactly ready to share anything, her thoughts are vague, entire chapters went by and i hadn’t actually learnt anything about anything. I dont know.

[Rena]

The author did a great job depicting the reasons that people stay in cults and abusive situations in general. I loved her self-reflection on why she specifically was prone to manipulation as well as her nod to therapy for helping her heal. Although I admired her kindness, I felt like she was too soft on Michael - while he undoubtedly has also been brainwashed and abused, the grooming and manipulation she experienced from him seemed pretty traumatic in addition to the behavior of the actual “guru.” I hope she’s continuing to seek therapy to heal from him and let him go.

[terry noyes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I felt I was an imaginary friend and a part of the whole story from start to finish. Thank you Alexandra for sharing your side so eloquently.

Excellent writing. It is sad that the very same qualities that are designed to nurture and make life livable in this world are twisted and pounded until reality disappears, replaced by terror and fear and emptiness unimaginable. I was involved from start to finish.

[laura livingood · Rating 4 out of 5]

For those who want to know every inner working of another obscure cult, this isn’t that kind of story. This is a story of survival, healing, and growth. The way the author processed grief in a world where she was abandoned spoke to me in so many ways. Most people haven’t joined a cult but they have experienced heartbreak and the need to rebuild. True, there were some slow chapters, but I’m glad I read through to hear how they story continues to work itself out.