4⭐⭐⭐⭐




- first book read from this author and did not dissapoint . it gotten be hooked from the first chapter .
i think the ending was lacking and need more answer but probably best if there is a season 2 for this and it will be answered . well recommended thriller!

+thankyou netgalley for the opportunity

❤️shaye.read

This wasn't the cult book I hoped it would be. I thought it would be creepy in some way and dark but it was just kind of meh.

I did like the last 1/4 more than the rest of the book. It was a bit faster and held my interest.

This book just wasn't for me. If I didn't listen to the audiobook to help me get through it (which didn't help the book in any way) I would've DNF'D it early on.

I really appreciate Netgalley giving me the opportunity to read this book. I really wish I had enjoyed it more. 2.5 ⭐️ rounded up to 3.

One of the reasons I requested for this is because it is somewhat based on the author’s real-life experience of living in a cult. Add a mystery in it and I am sold but sadly, this one fell short for me.

This story follows Raine who has lived her entire life in the Haven, a cult community in Nevada. Although she believes in some parts of the Teaching, she has her doubts about why she is really there. While walking her dog, she discovered a teenage girl, Samantha who ran away into the woods and Raine never saw her again. The community is worried about Samantha and wants to find her as soon as they can but why? What exactly do they want with Samantha? Raine soon finds out what the Teaching really stood for.

The plot started off strong but the characters didn’t work for me. The leaders and teachings of the cult is really far-fetched and just doesn’t seem very smart in his choices which made it hard to believe why anyone would want to stay with him. I’ve read stronger and more compelling stories about cults from other books which is why the plot for this is kind of weak for me.

There were some interesting parts about how the cult sustain themselves and where they get their funding from.
Paine wanted to show that not everyone who joined cults are bad. A lot of the time, some of the things they learnt in the cult do resonate with their beliefs. I also kept guessing who the culprit really was which kept me engaged but I was disappointed with the plot twist at the end.

Thank you Netgalley and Dark Swallow Books for the arc.

I could not help but want to read this book, because I love stories about cults. The fact that this book is based on the author's true-life experience living in a cult only made me want to read it more. And a cult with a missing person involved? Yes, please!

Unfortunately, it all just kind of fell flat for me. The cult felt more like a bunch of random people living in a trailer park. I couldn't figure out why anyone wanted to follow the leaders of the cult because it all seemed to ridiculously made up. When the cult comes together to speak to their "God" I was bored. I just wanted one of the adults to call out the ridiculousness of the situation.

I've read other books about cults and they were just stronger. And again, this was based on the author's own experiences in a cult, but it just didn't come together the way I think the author wanted to.

Although there were some entertaining points, and I did want to find out what happened to the missing girl, I also found myself not wanting to read this book. It took me a really long time to get through it and I found myself making excuses for not wanting to read this book. While I was able to finish it, it isn't a book I'd recommend to friends and family.

Dark Swallow Books thank you for this eARC!

The Teaching by T. O. Paine was such a good quick thriller!
I was very excited to start this book and it surely didn't disappoint.
What I thought was extremely cool was this book is based on the author’s true life experience living in a cult.
Very very interesting!
For this to be his debut he done a wonderful job with this book!
The writing was awesome. And the characters Raine is a great protagonist.
This was a fun, easy quick thriller and and I hope Paine writes again soon!

“He’ll enter the trance room, sit on his pillows, and his soul will leave his body. While it’s gone, another soul, Sebastian, will take its place. Sebastian will tell us what he sees on the other side. Give us the Teaching. He died over six hundred years ago. He is old. He is wise.”

The Teaching is a Fictional story that uses the author’s own experience with a cult. I was intrigued and it pulled me from the start. I liked the switching POVs between three of the characters! Raine, the MC, could be annoying at times and I didn’t really like or dislike most of the characters, they were all just “meh.” (Except Monica she was unbearable). No development, very two dimensional.

I found the ending a little lacking and inconceivable. It was too neatly tied up and I have a hard time believing how a certain event ended up being solved.

Some plot twists were unexpected but a couple I had guessed. I did enjoy the first half better than the second half. There were some parts of the writing that were weird though - aka Things that gave me the ick:

“his tools hanging from the pegboards like crucified slaves”
“Some people live for beer and others live for sex. For me it’s my mothers bread..I’ll worry about my weight on Monday”
Body shaming a character because she “lost herself” after having kids
“The suns glare rapes the windshield”

Overall a quick, easy read with good pacing. Rating 3.5 stars rounded to 3

Triggers: drug use, alcoholism, toxic relationship, kidnapping (brief mention), neglect, body shaming, animal cruelty, blood, body horror (brief), incest, rape, gun violence, murder, suicide attempt

Thanks to Dark Swallow Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review an eARC of T.O. Paine’s The Teaching. In the book, T.O. Paine takes us on a trip into the world of Haven, a small religious community in Nevada. And by ‘small religious community’ I mean a cult, though this cult known as The Teaching, doesn’t come across like some of the well documented cults over the years (Jonestown, Heaven’s Gate, David Koresh). Yes, while there is some oddness, like how the leader of the cult goes into a trance state and channels the spirit of a 600 year old sailor who dispenses wisdom to the followers, most of the characters we meet are actually fairly normal, each of them dealing with their own real issues. As far as this book being a ‘thriller’, while I won’t include any spoilers I will say this is more of a slow burn vs. a nonstop action packed thriller. That being said, it’s a interesting story and Raine is a fairly compelling protagonist, and it kept my interest from start to finish.

https://www.amazon.com/review/R7EXV1FCWJ6R/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv

This was such an interesting read! I love books about cults and this was right up my ally. The atmosphere was very intense and kept me on my toes the whole time! Really enjoyed this read!

3.5 stars!

I gotta say, I've never read anything like this before. Not only did the cover draw me in, I was also intrigued by the cult aspect of the book. The author did an amazing job at setting this stage for us.

The story provides dual POVs from characters Raine and David. We get to watch them grow as individuals while maneuvering their way through the Haven (cult). The secondary characters were a nice addition to further the chaos of cult living. I'm not sure if the author meant for it to be funny, but Sebastian (the spirit) sounded like a drunken pirate with the vocabulary of a toddler!

While the author did a great job keeping up the suspense about what happened to the runaway girl Samantha, I felt it took too long to get there. Once the book finally started getting juicy, everything happened so fast it felt like whiplash.
Overall, I wouldn't mind reading another book by this author. If the cult life interests you then definitely check this book out!

A big thanks to the publisher and @ for this e-arc in exchange for my honest review!

4.25 stars rounded down.
Once I got more than third in I was totally hooked! I could not stop reading, it really dripped me.
Overall, I enjoyed this book, but I do have a slight gripe with the ending. I felt shortchanged, not that the author owes me anything.
I do not want to spoil anything, but the plot twist or the result seemed too much like the other story going around what happened years ago, regarding the cult. That is as vague as I can be. It seems like it was too similar and therefore, I was expecting something more than that story sort of repeating itself as a resolution for this missing girl.
The references to God seemed very frequent, which I totally understand as this is a book about cults (which I am fascinated with). I myself am not religious, so it did confuse me at the end; how the characters relationships with God will continue, the existence of it and it did not seem confirmed whether they still believed the cult leader was a fraud or not (even with all the evidence presented).
Just a tad confusing, as I thought the ending to bring clarity to them about the unhealthy state of this cult. My personal opinion completely.
Overall, a good book, but falls short of a great one.

This is a review I am struggling to write. This novel, I believe is dealing with themes of empowerment vs. power and faith vs. "religion". The transformation of the story towards the end gave me whiplash and I felt it took a little too long to get into the "meat" of the novel itself or rather the development of the plot was too drawn out. The rising of the tension reached a fever pitch closer to the last 2/3rds of the books evolution. Had it not have been for the ending being very conflicting and tensions arising as much as it did, I probably would have had a very different review. Ultimately, I did like what the author had to say about " The Teaching", how there are many positive things you can take away from an experience or teaching ( no pun intended here ) & how one can leave the negative, that one doesn't need to entertain the negative aspect in ones mind. The writing itself, felt a little too simplistic for my tastes and I would have liked to have seen more description and detail of the characters and their environment. That would have really helped me identify more with the characters. Raine by far was my favorite character. The scene was really set for Raine's development, even though I would have liked to have seen more of her internal transformation as a character being as she was brought up in the cult since she was 3 years old. I must add one last thought and that is the Sebastian parts felt akin to dialogue from a drunken pirate sailor, not sure if this is what the author was going for but all I could think about were scenes from Peter Pan. ( face plant) Not sure if the author was trying to show the ridiculousness of the trance part or if it was meant to seem silly on purpose or not?

Thanks to Netgalley and publishers for this free e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

This book was a DNF for me, though I only got 20% of the way through. I normally enjoy psychological thrillers that revolve around a cult but unfortunately could not get into the plot here. This book is about Raine, who has lived in The Teaching, a small religious community for her whole life. She is generally happy in her cult, though a bit jealous of the leaders’ daughter who is married to the man she used to be interested in, until she finds a teenage girl running through the woods and fleeing The Teaching. I starting to getting interested until Raine attends her first meeting of The Teaching and we hear the leader channel Daniel, their God like figure, who speaks in what seemed like a very over the top accent that proved impossible for me to take seriously. Hopefully other readers don’t have this issue, but the Daniel’s speech patterns ruined the mood for me and I was having trouble believing all these adults would take it this seriously.

I was immediately hooked. I love thrillers involving cults; they're fascinating. This book did not disappoint. I love that it was based on a true-life experience. It was wild and really engrossing. It was an interesting read because you get to see inside cult living, along with the religious aspect that keeps people believing in the community's beliefs.

3.5 Stars rounded up to 4 on here!

Thank you to Netgalley, Dark Swallow Books, and T.O Paine for the advanced copy in return for an honest review!

Wow! I just have to say that while reading this book, you definitely get the cult-like experience that the author went through. The author does a great job about teaching the readers about cult living and the thought processes that go into being a member of a cult.

The start of the book was a bit slow and it took a bit to get into the story, but once it gets going it gets good! I really enjoyed his writing at times, but I couldn’t stand Sebastian’s character and it was difficult to get through some of those parts. It understandable why the author put these parts in the book, as it helps lends itself to the cult like mental aspect.

Overall, this was a great debut novel and would definitely recommend it to people who enjoy reading about cults!

This review will be posted to my Instagram blog (read_betweenthecovers) in the near future!

3.5⭐

This book was wild and really engrossing. It was an interesting read because you get to see inside cult living, along with the religious aspect that keeps people believing in the community's beliefs.

I also enjoyed the different perspectives we got to read from in this book. Raine and Daniel are both characters that grew up in The Teaching and believed in its views and beliefs even if they knew it was weird. I was also enthralled with the mystery behind what happened to Samantha.

Raine and Java's relationship was sweet and made me smile. But, there were definitely slow parts of the story that were dragged out, especially those parts with Sebastian. I skimmed most of those. But, I understand why this parts were in the book. I also couldn't stand Monica, but I know that her character was intended to be soul sucking.

Over all, this book was an interesting read that teaches readers about cult living, and about finding yourself. The author definitely did that right. It is evident he has an experience with that type of living.

Thank you Netgalley, Dark Swallow Books, and Author T.O. Paine for this ARC.

I was immediately hooked. I love thrillers involving a cults; they're utterly fascinating. This story had a cult and a missing person which made it all the more intriguing. The writing was superb and the cast was well-rounded and believable. Well, except for Sebastian.

The novel did slow quiet a bit between 40% and 80%, so much so that I found myself pulling out of the story, daydreaming, and feeling bored. Otherwise, this was a pretty good read and I will definitely be looking for more from this author.

This book was an interesting look into the type of hold cults have over their members. It was a quick and enjoyable read.

This book was so interesting and really cool to learn that it’s based on the authors real life experiences. I was so anxious to get to the end and find out what happened.

Debut author T.O. Paine did exactly what authors are supposed to do: he wrote about what he knows. Since he has lived in a cult, he was able to create a community that is believable and is populated by inhabitants that are so realistic that I had to wonder if they were based on people he had known in his past.

If readers are approaching this story hoping to discover that all the people in Haven are evil, they will be disappointed. However, this is exactly what makes this book all the more believable; it's acknowledgement that not everything in life is easily classified into simple categories.

The mystery that is the main plot will keep readers guessing and has multiple twists and turns. There are also several other sub-plots that the author seamlessly weaves together which will intrigue readers just as much as the main plot does.

There are five novels planned, of which THE TEACHING is only the first. I have added myself to the Author's mailing list and I am looking forward to reading the rest of the series.

I rate THE TEACHING as 4 OUT OF 5 STARS ⭐⭐⭐⭐

This book can be pre-ordered now and the official release date is set for March 3rd of 2022.

Amazing thriller about a cult, I enjoyed this story immensely. I couldn’t wait to find out what was going on….the end was unexpected in the best way.