The Project: A Novel

Oh boy. Cults are a fun thing to read about. But also terrifying.
I understand why people get sucked in, it's unfortunate.

Well that was darker than I was expecting

"𝑾𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒊𝒔 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒆 𝒐𝒇𝒇𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒉𝒂𝒔 𝒏𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒃𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒐𝒇𝒇𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒂𝒏𝒚𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒆." 𝕋𝕙𝕖 ℙ𝕣𝕠𝕛𝕖𝕔𝕥 - Cᴏᴜᴿᴛɴᴇʏ Sᴜᴍᴍᴇᴿs ⭐ ( 4 / 10 ) I know, I know. Another 2 stars Jess? Look but hear me out. Spoiler alert. She sleeps with the same person her sister did. I could never. So that may not seem like a flag to you but Summers has ingrained it from the beginning how close these two are supposed to have been. Also, he's the leader of the cult your sister went missing from. -insert my kevin hart voice- "No, no, no, no, no." This book sets itself out to be a thriller & a mystery but then you get into it & it's no thriller, & there's no mystery to figure out. They lay it all out for you come the first 3 chapters. Anyway, the book centers around Bea who is the older sister of Lo. Granted Bea is a main character as I said above. She's missing. The story also revolves around Lev, the aforementioned cult leader who believes that God speaks through him & occasionally refers to himself as God. So the story takes place in different times as told by different people. 2013 where Bea (I think) is talking from Third person and it quickly switches to 2017 and 2018 as told in first person by Lo. Im not going to even pretend like I liked this I did not & it was confusing. Sometimes you didn't even realize til the chapter was almost finished. I understood and kind of liked Bea though. I got why she ran away and joined the circus, I mean The Unity Project. Lo however. Could not stand her. She was very spoiled and entitled and I can't with that. How you gonna get mad at work about a job that you shouldnt have in the first place because you are SUPERIORLY underqualified for in the first place, because you haven't gotten a promotion in one year. If you don't get your... I will say this book right here? Is why Lo didn't get the promotion. It's also why she didnt get to go write articles cause she misses the assignment completely. I did like the writing. Summers writin is absolutely beautiful so she didn't put me off reading anymore of her books, this one just missed the mark... For ME 𝕄𝕖𝕙 ℝ𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝘑𝘢𝘺 𝘔𝘢𝘺 𝘖𝘶𝘵

Well that was darker than I was expecting

This is a tough review to write because I really wanted to love this. I'm all for books about cults because cults are fascinating but to me this one just fell flat. There wasn't anything about the cult aspects that were new to me. It's all about using sex and religion as weapons against those who are vulnerable. I wanted more mystery and suspense and thrill but I never felt that. To be honest it was a bit boring for me.

The beginning was confusing and you aren't really sure if Lo died or Bea died or if anyone died at all. Once I got into it and the story got going it was interesting but then I shortly lost interest. I don't understand Lo's complete 180 from investigating The Project to being a member. Her motives for doing so didn't make sense to me. Why didn't the fact that her sister "left" The Project raise any red flags for her? How is Lev's cringy personality not cringy to her. I didn't really connect with Lo at any point in the book which made it hard for me to really be invested in her.

I understood more of why Bea fell for what Lev had to offer. She was much more vulnerable when he preyed on her and over time she realized that things weren't what they seemed. Her story was much more interesting and I felt bad for her in the end. She didn't ever find the happiness she was really looking for.

Overall I could see the potential but by the end it just fell flat for me and the most interesting parts were the beginning (which was still a bit confusing) and the ending but even then the information felt like it just took too long to reveal itself. I loved Sadie and was so excited for this one so I'm honestly bummed it didn't do it for me.