The Project

3 - 3.5 didn???t work as much for me as sadie did. this plays with different povs during different times as well, but it lacks the definitive shape sadie had. i also found some parts to be rushed, especially during the second half of the book. i would???ve liked a longer resolution that would have put a little bit more meat on these bones.

From the blurb we know it's about the cult, so we do expect a dark & creepy story. I still like Sadie better than The Project though.

This is a thriller different from others I've read lately and I loved it. It's slower-paced and you know who the villain is, but following Lol as she digs into The Unity Project is interesting.

I've always been intrigued, as I'm sure a lot of us are, with religious cults and how they seem to trap people within their walls. David Koresh. Jim Jones. Charles Manson. Just to name a few. They somehow managed to charm people into their world and people suffered for it.

This was a well thought out and intriguing read of two sisters...one most to The Unity Project and one trying to save her. There were a lot of parts that had me chilled and ice was creeping up my spine ...

Audio for 52%, read to the end.

I don't know about this one. Some of the writing is really great, but mostly I felt disoriented. I think that was actually the intended effect, it just didn't work for me. Also...this was pretty disturbing. I can't actually see myself giving this to a teen unless they explicitly asked me for something to give them nightmares.

Just not my thing.

I really wanted to love this book. A cult novel by one of my favorite authors? I was so stoked. However, I felt like this book fell flat, especially in the final act. The last third didn't have nearly enough development and it seemed like a series of summarized scenes rather than a fully fleshed-out ending. I did love the characters, the writing and a lot of the emotional exploration in this book but there was so much missing by the end.

Incredibly well-constructed and written. I really needed more of the protagonist's rationalization and emotional state at the end of part 2 though; I just wasn't buying it, too abrupt.

3.5 stars. A cult. Yes A CULT! Any book that has a cult in it I'm there for. It's a morbid fascination I have with misplaced faith and belief - and The Project started out strongly. A missing sister, a cryptic bible verse, a tragic suicide.

And then the middle fizzled out. Nothing much happened. I could see what was happening to the main protagonist and felt like shaking her just a little bit. It was slightly predictable, and then ......

That ending! Once again, strong and satisfying. I preferred Sadie, but will definitely read Courtney Summers future works.

The Project by Courtney Summers is an interesting book that explores how a cult can destroy families. The main characters' lives are greatly impacted by the influence of a charismatic leader. The book reveals how appealing membership in one of these organizations can be to individuals seeking love and acceptance, but that acceptance comes with a cost.

The main characters in this book are sisters. One sister, Lo, is in a life-threatening accident as a child. Her older sister, Bea, struggles to deal with Lo's accident and its aftermath. She turns to Lev Warren, leader of The Unity Project, to find healing and purpose. By joining the Project, she severs her ties with her sister. Lo does not understand why her sister has left her life and blames the Project for taking Bea from her. Therefore, Lo sets out as a young woman to learn and reveal the truth behind the Project. To do this, she must get close to its leader, which is a risky endeavor.

The premise of this book is interesting and engaging. The delivery is a bit chaotic, though. The story is told in two different timelines from the perspectives of Lo and Bea. It is often not clear at first which sister's storyline is being told at a given moment in the book. Some aspects of the story do not get explained well, either. Overall, I just found myself often confused.

This is one of those books that I find it hard to really like any of the characters. That's not necessarily a problem in the writing. Not all characters are meant to be likable. It just lowers a book's appeal to me in the sense that I will not likely want to pick it up again. I will admit, however, that the cult leader character is very interesting to read and well portrayed. I wish I had enjoyed the two main characters more.

I would recommend this book to fans of fiction that is focused on cults. It portrays that lifestyle and its members in a very engaging and fascinating manner.

If you know my reading tastes, then you'll know that I am always in to read anything that has to do with cults. The fact that an individual can be so charismatic and intuitive, and then use those skills to create something so sinister, is fascinating to me. My favorite kinds of stories are always about those on the inside looking out. Those who were lured in, and then realized that they had to escape. So when I saw the premise of The Project, I knew that it was going on my reading list. It hit all those little reader buttons inside my brain, and I was thrilled. Perhaps my excitement was a little too high though, because this book and I had some problems with one another.

Starting with the kudos, I have to say that I was immediately won over by the relationship between Bea and Lo. Although it wasn't ever “perfect”, what sisterly bond ever is? Their connection felt realistic to me. I felt for Lo so deeply, as she tried to get back the one person that she had left in this world. I struggled not to tear up as her only living relative constantly ignored her, and pushed her away, in favor of the cult that ensnared her. In the same vein, I had so much love for the rawness that was Lo's character. Not only had she lost so much around her, but she'd lost a portion of herself after the accident. I understood her pain, saw her fault lines, and wanted to comfort her.

It is the pace of this story that I truly struggled with. The first third, where Lo was digging into the history of the The Project, was perfect. I'm generally not a fan of alternating points of view, but in this case I couldn't get enough of flashing back to Bea's story and slowly uncovering what was really going. As the book neared the middle though, things drastically slowed down. This is also the point where I started to feel like Lo's character was sliding uncomfortably into someone to pity instead of support. I truly felt like she had been built up to be someone who, despite everything, was fairly strong. Or at least that she put up a good front. Which made the latter half of this book extremely upsetting for me.

The other issue was that I never truly believed in Lev Warren. As a cult leader, I expected him to be larger than life. Someone who others were enraptured by, and wanted to follow. Instead, he felt a bit hollow to me. Like the idea of what a leader of this kind should be, without the actual flesh on the outside. I had a hard time believing that anyone would want to give their lives up for him, much less that he would be able to sway someone like Lo to his side. It felt manufactured, and I can't deny that this made me sad. I was fairly sure I knew how this book was going to end by the mid point, and I was right. So I also felt like I missed out on any surprises.

I'm rambling, I know. My feelings about this story are all over the place. On the one hand, The Project is excellently written. Anyone who has read Courtney Summers' stories before knows exactly what I mean. Bea and Lo were real people to me, and I was invested in their story. On the other hand, this book just didn't deliver what I was hoping for. Maybe it's because Sadie, Summers' last book, completely broke my heart but this one fell flat for me.

Unfortunately anything I read from Summers will always be compared to Sadie, which was excellent, and this didn't quite measure up. I'd also say this isn't technically YA, as the main character is 19, her sister is 25, everyone else is an adult. Perhaps New Adult, though that designation doesn't seem to be taking off. This book is about cults & religion & their intersection and finding a sense of belonging with a (less than compelling) through line about sibling bonds, but I didn't feel like this story had anything new or fresh to say about any of these topics. Like in Sadie, the story is told in 2 timelines - Bea's sections, which are used to give background to Lo's main story, are told in 3rd person about a year before Lo's sections, which are in first person and present day. The sections for each sister are labled by time, but the transitions within the sections were really jarring with no textual separation, though hopefully that is a fault just in the eARC (read thanks to Netgalley!) text and won't be true in the print edition. I think the main problem was this story hinges on your ability as the reader to be really emotionally invested in Lo and Bea's story and it's outcome as they fall into and out of (maybe) The Unity Project, but I was never emotionally invested and never felt compelled to find out what was happening, because it all seemed inevitable or too convenient/unrealistic. I read through to the end to finish the eARC and not because I was invested in the story, and that's not how I want to feel about a Summers book. I'll will still booktalk this, because I'm very interested to hear teen reactions.

This book gives you an inside look at what it's like to be involved with a colt and the way a colt leader can manipulate other people's minds and souls to the point where they question everything about themselves and the way the world works. This story follows two different timelines involving two sisters, Bea and Lo, You get to read about the path that each sister takes, past and present. This book deals heavily with religion. I personally am not a huge fan of this but I understand why it needed to be in the book. I really did enjoy reading this book. I give it a 5-star rating and I plan on buying a copy when it comes out. Thank you, NetGalley, for putting this book in the read now section. This book is one of my most anticipated released books for 2021

Oooh of course this was great! There's definitely a lot to think about regarding cults, belonging, and empathy (https://crimereads.com/why-writing-about-cults-and-people-who-join-them-is-never-easy/). Really hard to put down!

closer to 3.5

This was my first Courtney Summers and wow. The Project is a story about two sisters who get involved with a questionable group which changes both of their lives.

What I adored about this book is how much Summers captivates you. From the beginning, you know something is up with The Project but they remain out of the public eye. Lo is a young journalist trying to connect with her sister while also trying to bring to light the horror of The Project.

We are told the story through both Bea and Lo's eyes.

Overall, I found this to be a really fun book. I mean, as fun as a book about trauma & cults can be.

I LOVE Courtney Summers and I love cults so when I got an ARC of The Project I was super stoked to check it out. It's definitely a fast-paced thriller–I'd like to re-read this because I was flipping (e)pages so fast to get through it that I would sometimes miss jumps in time and have to circle back. I might wish it had been told a bit more chronologically actually? I hate 2 say it but I think some character development/relationship development was missing in lieu of mystery-building. STILL: extremely engaging!! aaa!