Good book. I liked the characters and the dialogue. The story kept me interested, so it was a quick read. A good read

First of all thanks to Netgalley for letting me read this copy in exchange for an honest opinion.
I know it has been a long time since I read the copy, but there has been a lot going on, I am finally getting back to review.

I have to say I came to this book with no expectations, I hadn’t read something with this topic, but I had a general idea based on movies. It was kind of a surprise though.

Here we have Glinda at the bottom of her life, she studied literature and has a job at a renaisence park, she has no future and a terrible relationship with her twin sister. While her mom is struguling with depression she is in charge of keeping everything together or at least that’s what she tells to herself.

The main problem is the toxic relationship her mother has with the leader of a cult and the cult itself (they don’t call it like that, bur dude, we KNOW it is) to the point the leader starts to steal (?) all the posessions of every cult member and kill them if they object.

That, to me sound pretty interesting, I think what made me finish this books, was the fact that a single person could manipulate almost an entire town to give him everything, well of course there was some drugs involved, but still, very interesting, you start to questions yourself if it is really a cult o just Glinda being paranoid and sick.

Glinda is not a narrator you can trust, but that what made me enjoy this book, the idea to figure out if she was going crazy based on her own trauma or a real cult leader, obviously as you continue reading it is pretty clear, but still.

The only thing I didn’t like, was Glinda herself, her character was just aaaagh I understood she was hurting, but that didn’t excuse all the decisions she made, and algo WTF with what she did to her sister, And Glinda still excuse herself, like girl, go to therapy, please, a lot of things would have been solve if there was an actual communication. But anyway,

Also I have to say I didn’t enjoy the end of the book, maybe it was because we saw everything from Glinda’s perspective, or because the author didn’t actually know how to solve the main issue. It just felt out of nowhere and very convenient. I would have loved something more credible, than what we had, But overall I enjoyed this book. I am not pretty sure if it is something I would read again, since I know how everything is resolved, but for sure I would love to know more about the author.

This was a quick and easy read but it wasn't what I expected. I feel like I kind of wanted more? 4 stars for a good easy and interesting read.

I liked this one but expected more to be honest. It was a fun story but lacked some depth in the writing. I'm always fascinated by cults but this one kind of fell short. I still think it's worthy of 4 stars and would recommend.

This book took me by surprise in several ways. After finishing it, I was hard-pressed to find the exact category this would fit into. There are several moving parts, and not all of them fall under the same genre.
The main protagonist is someone who is stuck in a dead-end job and does not have a good relationship with her mother and sisters at this point. Their father was once the glue that held them together, and they did not have him around anymore. It has been a while since his passing, but they all grieve him in their own way.
A dual timeline narrative is included to give us an understanding of how things got to the point they are now. It is fed to us in drips and starts and with good reason. Glinda is not someone who has found expressing herself easy, it is harder now when secrets come out of the woodwork.
Finally, this is a story of a family that sticks together in a fashion when required, and it was an interesting twisting road to the final scenes. I was happy with the way things ended and was surprised at how involved I was in the book, which began very differently from the way it ended.
I would recommend it to people who want to try something different that involves families and introspection.
I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.

'It's Not a Cult' by Lauren Danhof offers a compelling narrative about family dynamics, personal struggles, and unexpected challenges. With its intriguing plot and relatable characters, it is contemporary fiction with a twist.

I enjoyed this wild ride of a debut novel with memorable characters tackling complex emotional issues, a fantastic description of the unique and multifaceted, sometimes volatile relationship between sisters, a loathsome villain of a cult leader and even a brush with Big Foot. The plot meanders a bit, and the main character's inner dialogue seems noisy at times, leaned on for exposition and explanation of confusing and erratic behavior by the heroine. For me, the story was dragging for the first quarter of the novel, then racing in the last quarter but overall a engaging, funny and worth it read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Alcove Press for the opportunity to read this eARC in exchange for an honest review

Glinda Glass is the black sheep of the family, the clumsy one, the unlikable girl until you get to know her better. An old daddy's girl she is faced with problems when her widowed mother falls for a man who is in a cult which she is more or less responsible for letting in. And allowing him to completely ruin whatever was left of the family dynamics. This story is centered on grief, and trauma. We see Glinda trying to fight a man who seems to have everybody fooled and under his clutches, she must fight to save her family and their childhood house which is under threat by the man in her mother's life. Though this book has a lot of tragedy in it, it's fairly very comedic, despite everything, Glinda is a happy go lucky girl hiding deep trauma under the big smile.

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley.

Glinda Glass cannot catch a break. By day - she is in the Dunk-A-Wench booth, by night, she is a graduate student drop out that lives at home with her widowed mom and 17 year-old sister. Oh, did we mention her mom is in a cult?? Yes, the Starlight Pioneer Society, as much as they protest it, is a cult. Their leader, Arlon, has preyed on Glinda's mom, Julie, and has gotten Julie to agree to marry him. Glinda knows this is wrong but cannot get her mom to listen, she is completely under the spell of this man.

Glinda tries to get her twin sister, Dorothy, to help her, but due to an issue 18 months ago, Dorothy has removed herself from the family. Can Glinda get the family to reunite and save Julie from Arlon?

This book was very interesting - the premise was great; however, I felt the delivery was choppy in some places.

I LOVED this book, I read it on the beach in Hawaii and was the perfect wacky escapist read I was looking for. Gave me Made for Love by Alissa Nutting vibes. The family was nuts and the cult aspect was fantastic. Loved the renaissance fair too, all the weird and wonderful things I love. I didn’t read it as a piece of literary fiction, just a fun, zany ride and it absolutely delivered. Will read this authors next book for sure.

I was excitied goin in thinking this was going to be a light hearted exploration of how to kind of extract an unwilling and unknowing participant from a cult and i didnt exactly get what I wished out of what I read. Maybe its my own desire to heal from personal trauma and I don't think I should go lookin for that simply because a blurb gives me hope. The story was good though.

While I did not love the main character - she was a little sassy and made it hard to like her - I still found myself invested in this book and finding out what was going on with her mom and her new "cult" . I'm a sucker for a good cult story, and this one was ok. It moved fast, and it was hard for me to wrap my head around some pieces.
A decent plot and story overall.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an eArc of this book.

I went into this one expecting zany, quirky crime vibes. Think Finlay Donovan or Vera Wong. But instead what I got were poorly written characters that made me cringe and suffer the biggest dose of secondhand embarrassment.

I really liked the idea of the story but the execution was really lacking, unfortunately.

I feel like the author has the potential to grow and develop their skill, so I will be looking out for their future works.

But this one really wasn't it.

This book starts with Glinda at a job interview, dripping wet because she ran to her interview straight from her job as the dunk tank 'drench the wench' at a Medieval festival. Right away I knew I'd enjoy the book. With all the lighthearted quirkiness that this book had, it also had some serious family-related struggles and trying to rescue her mother from a cult that is moving into their family home. Glinda definitely had her issues and was over-the-top, but I warmed to her as the book went on and uncovered the reasons why she behaved the way she did. This had great character development and struck a perfect balance between humor and deep seated issues.

Glinda is an absolutely insufferable main character. This book is narrated by her in first person, which makes the reading experience equally insufferable.

The mother is ridiculous, but not in a way that made me laugh.

I just couldn't go on.

DNF at 18%.

It was fine, but it felt claustrophobic and it like others of its ilk. The main character's zaniness and mess quickly grew stale and the mysteries weren't compelling enough to propel the reader forward. I don't think this is necessarily a slight on the book or the author; the market just feels saturated with cult- and cult-adjacent satire.

This was requested when I first found out about NetGalley and I had requested so many ARCs that I could not get to all of them before they were archived. I really wanted to get to this one, as it seemed interesting. If I can find this somewhere for a reasonable price, I will try to get it! I am giving this book three stars, as I don't want to give it a good or bad rating, since I did not get to it.

DNF at 15% I just couldnt follow this at all unfortunately.

Thank you netgalley for the earc in exchange for an honest review.

A darkly funny take on cults, this book is for fans of true crime and not; it's accessible, comedic, and emotional in a way one might not expect from the premise. A wonderful debut novel from an author who has a fantastic career ahead of her!

3.5 stars

I enjoyed this book and the characters, but the build up was a bit slow. It was also an arc that was a bit predictable.

Glinda’s mother joins a cult called the Starlight Pioneer Society and has fallen under the spell of their leader, Arlon. It doesn’t take long before Arlon is proposing to her mother and allowing the other members to use her home as their commune. Glinda’s worries don’t stop there, though. She wants to repair her relationship with her sisters, Dorothy and West, and she needs their help to protect their mother before it’s too late. But Glinda has to come to terms with her past trauma and grief first if she going to have any chance at bringing her family back together.

Overall, I thought it was an okay story. Glinda could be a bit emotionally clumsy but you could tell that her heart was in the right place. Troy was one of my favorite characters, and I felt like Glinda was a bit obtuse at times because it was clear he had feelings for her, but with him being her only friend, maybe she didn’t want to risk crossing that line. The story itself was pretty good, but I felt the premise was a bit too cliche as far as cults go.

*Thank you to NetGalley and Alcove Press for providing a copy of this book to review.*