natreviews's reviews
417 reviews

Just not feeling it

So this is another booktok book, and I really enjoyed it. I liked how all of the characters were around middle age. I like the dynamics. I like how it goes into some gruesome stuff, but doesn't give too much detail

(when it comes to the rape scene that happens at the very end of the book)

. The book makes the actions of the characters understandable, but not to the point of sympathy. Like, your sympathetic to their situations outside of the main act of the novel, but your not sympathetic to where they end up. I find a lot of novels have a hard time pulling this off, but this one didn't. 

So I really liked this book. Going in, I didn't know much about Anne Boleyn other than she was King Henry the Eights wife at one point and that she was beheaded. I liked how this novel set out the lies/mistruths that have been told and set them straight. It was a good compare and contrast.

Some bits were confusing as someone who didn't really know the story going in. I also got lost timeline wise a bit and wish there was a timeline added at the end of the book to keep dates in check, since the book sometimes jumps around a bit, mentioning events that would talk place. 

So do I recommend this book? Yes, but maybe do a quick skim of her wiki before reading, so you know the basics of what happened before diving in. 

Well, that was something. Well written, but something.

So basically everything I said in my review for Fifty Shades of Grey can be put into this review as well. 

I will say I did have more fun reading this one, only because I decided to keep track of the number of pages with red flags I could find (since a lot of the time those pages would have multiple red flags on them), how many times Christian pesters Ana to eat, and how many times the words "inner goddess" was written. Throughout my read, I had 178 pages marked with red flags, 20 pages for food pesters, and 39 pages the words "inner goddess" were written. 

Another criticism to add to this was that this book didn't re-introduce any characters. That's fine for our main cast, but since it's been a year or two since I read the first one, I had no clue who Dr. Flynn was the first couple of times he was mentioned. It's important to remember that this novel was originally the second half of the first fanfic that becomes Fifty Shades. So of course we don't need to re-intro anyone!

Also just add way more cringe with Ana's inner dialogue and the actual dialogue and you've got this book summed up.

So, this book actually made me leave The Satanic Temple! Probably not what you wanted to hear. 

I found that I was all on board for about the first half of this book. Then, I started questioning things that is information that isn't necessarily discussed on their website. Firstly, they are very anti-supernatural. At the same time, they do rituals and are okay with you being spiritual (yes, I know they aren't one in the same, but there is too much overlap for me to feel comfortable about it). Then, they call letting people know you're a Satanist as coming out, which of course is usually termed for when a person who is part of the LGBTQIA+ community decides to let people know who they are. The more it came up, the more it rubbed me the wrong way. I also didn't like how so much was quoted by the founder of the religion (it kind of gave me cult, but without a deity vibes). They also have a Grey Faction which is supposed to dispel harmful pseudo-psychology practices, which they lump DID in with. It's never fully explained if they think DID is an actual disorder or something that goes in line with memory gaining psychotherapy (DID is a very real disorder btw). I also found it rubbed me the wrong way that to join a local chapter or group you need to become a member. Now, that isn't unheard of, but I haven't heard of other religions needing a screening and interview process in order to attend functions.

This book made me realize that maybe the contradictions and they gray space was just too much for me. I just don't have enough faith (you still need that to some capacity in a non-theistic religion)!

What I will say is that if you want to learn about TST or just some cool readings that are referenced, I do recommend this book. It is very indepth into what TST is and what it's not, it's history, etc. It just made me realize that maybe TST isn't my thing.

So this book was not what I was expecting. Firstly, it's advertised as mainly focusing on Jacob and Daniels (Daniels being the main character of Alien: Covenant), but they get maybe 6 chapters in the book. You go literally just over 200 pages between seeing them, which for being advertised as their story, really irks me. 

This story is mainly about Yutani (the head of Weyland-Yutani), a death cult (which wants to stop the Covenant mission) and Lopez (head of security on the Covenant). Their stories aren't bad, per say, but do leave a lot to be desired.

This book is also not written well. It isn't the worst book, but has points where the writing is awkward, the grammar sucks, and it contradicts the canon of the movies (although I did read the novelization of the movie Alien: Covenant does have some drastic changes from the movie itself, so maybe this book lines up more with the book canon). Overall, I was really excited to read this, and it was a let down. I'm hoping to read the novelization of the movie so maybe this book makes more sense, but so far it doesn't really line up with what the movies tell us happens (or implies).

I really liked the cases in this novel. I found them all well written and informative. I did skip two chapters on cases I already knew really well and didn't need to read about (one was the Somerton Man, and I can't remember the other at the moment). Overall, a really good read!

After reading up to Chapter 5, the writing and subject matter isn't really my cup of tea

I have been fascinated by cults, so once I stumbled upon this book, I knew I wanted to buy it and read it. Took a while, but after reading I can say that this is a good one. It takes a look into the language that cults and not-cults-but-culty-things use and how they can influence us.

It ranges a broad stroke of topics from well known cults to MLM's (multi-level marketing, I always think of men loving men when I hear MLM) to fitness to social media. When reading this, I could totally see cultish language in my old workplace and finally made sense why I was rubbed the wrong way by some of the language they used.

I highly recommend for anyone interested in how cults use language to manipulate, or really how companies can use cultish language to influence you, to read this book!