Reviews with content warning for Suicidal thoughts - Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

Reviews tagging 'Suicidal thoughts'

Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell

32 reviews

clawsandjaws's review

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

Cults have been an interest of mine. I've listened to podcasts that are geared towards true crime that have done research about the events. Very few that I've heard focused on the mentality and the loaded language and the thought terminating cliches that Amanda Montell sheds light on.

With cited sources and plenty of references that allow insight to the thoughts that celebrities, scientists, politicians, etc. subscribe to.

This book ultimately is more of a reminder that language is a powerful tool and it's within the best interest of everyone to pay closer attention to the way language is used today. Especially today.

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toofondofbooks_'s review

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dark informative slow-paced

5.0

This is a solid nonfiction book that is an examination of different types of cults within our society and how those who lead them use language to manipulate their followers. On the other hand, this book is also about how many of us have already fallen into cultish groups/dynamics. The inside flap reads, "We secretly want to know, 'could it happen to me?' Amanda Montell's argument is that on some level, it already has." From Instagram to Heaven's Gate, Montell describes cults and cult victims with both sensitivity and great intelligence.

I really enjoyed this one. It read easily for a nonfiction. I feel like even if you aren't a nonfiction person, you might like this. Anyone who has spent any time immersed in internet culture, interested in true crime, language, and obviously, cults will find something for them within these pages. I don't really have anything smart to say about it other than I really liked it.

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quills4days's review

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informative reflective slow-paced

3.0

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nickoliver's review against another edition

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informative fast-paced

4.25

As a language/linguistics freak, I found a lot about this book very interesting! Admittedly, it wasn't quite as focused on the vocabulary of cults as I expected - a lot was simply about some infamous cults or cult-like things like MLMs or QAnon -, and I did find some of the writing a bit redundant (you don't have to tell me that something was coming in a later chapter when you're already halfway through the book), but it didn't bother me all too much (maybe also because I listened to this on audiobook and didn't read it physically).

Montell did state that she focused on the US because US-Americans apparently were more into cults than other countries, but I still would've liked to see the way other countries' experiences with them. Because truth to be told, I've never actually heard of cults that weren't based in the US, so it would've been extremely interesting to see those. Though I guess it might be hard to talk about the language used in cults when the language used isn't English and you're an English-speaker from the US.

Despite what I've read in reviews, I don't think it was bad that she talked so much about cults like Heaven's Gate or Jonestown, because fun fact, not everyone knows about them outside the US. For example, I personally have only heard of the former, and only because I saw a video talking about it once. So I was glad and thrilled that she explained what exactly had happened.

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