An intensely personal, cathartic memoir of blind allegiance, betrayal, and liberation.
A former high-ranking executive chronicles his defection from Scientology.
In this riveting, meticulously detailed memoir, Rinder describes his life as a Scientologist, from when his family “preordained” him as a child in Australia through his departure in 2007, at age 52. His parents first heard of L. Ron Hubbard from a neighbor in 1959. While not inherently religious, both were “attracted by the promise of eradicating unwanted emotions and insecurities, having better relationships, raising successful children, and maybe even saving the world.” They were soon immersed in the odd healing rituals and the concept of a superior “thetan” spirit responsible for everything. At 18, instead of attending college, Rinder signed a billion-year “Sea Org” contract and boarded a ship, where he worked as a deckhand in filthy conditions without pay. Later, during his “slow voyage of self-delusion,” he fared somewhat better, receiving surveyor assignments in Portugal and eventually becoming Scientology’s international spokesman and head of its Office of Special Affairs. At the same time, the organization was drawing intense scrutiny from the IRS. Rinder’s children were raised from infancy not by he and his wife but by the Sea Org. The author’s revelations are both fascinating and shocking: sadistic punishments, zany life-improvement courses, and countless outrageous stories about Scientology’s “darker forces.” After he helped strong-arm the organization’s tax-exempt status with the IRS, Rinder ran interference, neutralized investigations, and obfuscated Scientology’s vast, corrupt hierarchy, which left him overwhelmed and feeling like a “virtual prisoner.” The narrative takes on the flavor of a suspense thriller after Rinder’s escape, which resulted in his ex-communication, harassment, and numerous dangerous threats by volatile Scientology executives like David Miscavige. While Rinder admits his recollection may be blurry due to the “dull fog of exhaustion,” the voice is crisp, urgent, and vividly impassioned, whether assessing his years as a compliant member, his breathless escape, or his promise to continue exposing Scientology as a “unique and vengeful monster.”
An intensely personal, cathartic memoir of blind allegiance, betrayal, and liberation.Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-982185-76-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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