A well-researched, deeply personal commentary on the role of cults in American life.
A cult survivor and her co-author tell her story and comment on American society in this nonfiction work.
“You’re probably in a cult, you just don’t know it yet,” Young and Reed declare in the book’s opening lines. Unafraid to ruffle feathers, the authors assert that since the arrival of the Pilgrims and other “religious extremists,” Americans have been “defined by the distrust of institutions, a persecution complex, and stubborn self-righteousness”; in other words, “cults are the most American thing there is.” Born into the infamous sex cult known as the Children of God, Young has an intimate knowledge of the power of cults to isolate, warp, and control their members. Combining Young’s personal story with academic research from psychologists, anthropologists, and other scholars referenced in more than 400 endnotes, the authors provide straightforward criteria for identifying cults. These include a shared “sacred assumption,” a mission of such import that it requires personal sacrifice, a jargon understood only by insiders, and high exit costs. Using these identifiers, the authors note the presence of cults throughout American society—from the U.S. Army to Hugh Hefner’s Playboy empire. Offering cogent, often frightening social commentary, the book similarly highlights the fast-growing ubiquity of internet cults that thrive in Reddit threads, social media, and YouTube channels. By expanding readers’ ideas of what constitutes a cult, the authors hope their argument will disrupt “some of our most sacred assumptions” and alert their audience to the ways in which they are being manipulated by politicians, religious leaders, and even bosses in the workplace (psychopathic traits, often masked as charisma, are 12 times more common among business leaders that the general public, per the authors). Young’s deeply personal, ingrained disdain for cults is complemented by co-author Reed’s knack for engaging, accessible prose. This volume includes ample ancillary materials, including an essay by anti-racist TikTok creator Rebecca Slue, a “Quick Reference Guide” to spotting cultish groups, and questions for book club discussions.
A well-researched, deeply personal commentary on the role of cults in American life.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9781955671828
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Otterpine
Review Posted Online: yesterday
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.
Portraits in a post-pandemic world.
After the Covid-19 lockdowns left New York City’s streets empty, many claimed that the city was “gone forever.” It was those words that inspired Stanton, whose previous collections include Humans of New York (2013), Humans of New York: Stories (2015), and Humans (2020), to return to the well once more for a new love letter to the city’s humanity and diversity. Beautifully laid out in hardcover with crisp, bright images, each portrait of a New Yorker is accompanied by sparse but potent quotes from Stanton’s interviews with his subjects. Early in the book, the author sequences three portraits—a couple laughing, then looking serious, then the woman with tears in her eyes—as they recount the arc of their relationship, transforming each emotional beat of their story into an affecting visual narrative. In another, an unhoused man sits on the street, his husky eating out of his hand. The caption: “I’m a late bloomer.” Though the pandemic isn’t mentioned often, Stanton focuses much of the book on optimistic stories of the post-pandemic era. Among the most notable profiles is Myles Smutney, founder of the Free Store Project, whose story of reclaiming boarded‑up buildings during the lockdowns speaks to the city’s resilience. In reusing the same formula from his previous books, the author confirms his thesis: New York isn’t going anywhere. As he writes in his lyrical prologue, “Just as one might dive among coral reefs to marvel at nature, one can come to New York City to marvel at humanity.” The book’s optimism paints New York as a city where diverse lives converge in moments of beauty, joy, and collective hope.
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781250277589
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
A pleasure for fans of old-school historical narratives.
Avuncular observations on matters historical from the late popularizer of the past.
McCullough made a fine career of storytelling his way through past events and the great men (and occasional woman) of long-ago American history. In that regard, to say nothing of his eschewing modern technology in favor of the typewriter (“I love the way the bell rings every time I swing the carriage lever”), he might be thought of as belonging to a past age himself. In this set of occasional pieces, including various speeches and genial essays on what to read and how to write, he strikes a strong tone as an old-fashioned moralist: “Indifference to history isn’t just ignorant, it’s rude,” he thunders. “It’s a form of ingratitude.” There are some charming reminiscences in here. One concerns cajoling his way into a meeting with Arthur Schlesinger in order to pitch a speech to presidential candidate John F. Kennedy: Where Richard Nixon “has no character and no convictions,” he opined, Kennedy “is appealing to our best instincts.” McCullough allows that it wasn’t the strongest of ideas, but Schlesinger told him to write up a speech anyway, and when it got to Kennedy, “he gave a speech in which there was one paragraph that had once sentence written by me.” Some of McCullough’s appreciations here are of writers who are not much read these days, such as Herman Wouk and Paul Horgan; a long piece concerns a president who’s been largely lost in the shuffle too, Harry Truman, whose decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan McCullough defends. At his best here, McCullough uses history as a way to orient thinking about the present, and with luck to good ends: “I am a short-range pessimist and a long-range optimist. I sincerely believe that we may be on the way to a very different and far better time.”
A pleasure for fans of old-school historical narratives.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781668098998
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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