This book is a real winner. It was a very fun read and made me laugh out loud a few times. I love the setting, the characters, and the mystery at the heart of things. It's ultimately a zany, screwball comedy with a lot of heart. I think you will enjoy this if you are a fan of Kevin Wilson.

Thank you to NetGalley and Alcove Press for the free e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is such a fun, eccentric read! “It’s not a cult,” but it definitely is. Glinda Rainbow Glass is a graduate school drop out who was trying to obtain an MA in medieval English. After moving back home, she works at a renaissance faire and can’t get a better job, despite her efforts. Her younger sister, West, is in high school. Dorothy is Glinda's twin, an accomplished lawyer who no longer speaks to Dorothy because she tried to break up Dorothy and James, her boyfriend. Their mother is a widow and in coping with her grief, she has gotten mixed up with a cult. When Arlon, the cult leader, decides to marry and move the cult members into Mrs Glass' home, all hell breaks loose.

There are multiple story lines that lead deeper and deeper into chaos. A thriller, a mystery, a coming of age, and a modern tale of people with selfish motives and how they manipulate the world around them. Its also full of dysfunctional, family drama.

I really enjoyed this! Highly recommend!!

Interesting premise, strong finish, but a little weak with the finale. I really wanted to like this story, it seemed right up my alley, but it just wasn't the one for me I guess. Or maybe I wasn't the one for it? It doesn't help that Glinda, our main character, is deeply unlikable. In fact, most of the characters are pretty unlikable. It was a struggle to continue when there isn't really anyone to root for and you just wind up wanting them all the join the stupid cult and be done with it. However, it's a quick read, it is humorous at times, and is a good look at how some people can get dupped by cons.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for this honest review.

It's not a cult is a suspenseful thriller that you will want to keep reading to get to the end. The main character, Glinda, has built up her defenses but this shuts out her most important people. She often speaks out before thinking of the consequences of her words and has made big mistakes. This makes it very hard to convince those close to her that she is telling them the truth of the dangers that could lie ahead. It is a good reminder of how important friends and family are and that you should do everything you can to help each other. People with strong bonds can help to keep each other from being sucked in by empty and corrupt promises.

As much as I wanted to enjoy this book, something about it fell short for me. It's really slow in places, the pacing felt off and there are parts that didn't make sense to me. This reads on the younger side, or I'm just not the target audience for it! I love culty books, I'm gutted that this wasn't my cup of tea.

Book Dynamics✨
1 POV
Short Chapters
Non-Linear Timeline

This one started strong and then slowly crumbled towards the end.

Glinda is horrible. She was so unbelievably insufferable I almost stopped reading. You know those people that think they know best and absolutely refuse to ask for help? That’s Glinda.

Did she grow as a character? I guess. But it was all at once. Like we go 90% of her being just the freaking worst and then BAM all is well?

Like all this conflict and build up to everything just being peachy keen in the last 10%? It was all tied up in too neat of a bow for me.

Overall: grab if you want a quick paced outlandish cult book

Favorite Character: nah.

Great book about grief, guilt and family.

Anyone going through grief is looking for quick fixes, whether it's drugs, therapy, or falling sway to a powerful personality. I love the family dynamics of broken people trying to rebuild their lives after the death of the father.

Asking for help in this country can be so hard and grief makes everything harder. This book starts at the end where everything is falling, and builds back the past while zooming to resolution. Having read a lot about real cults this is a great snapshot of the coercion and false hope of a false prophet.

This was an interesting family drama about siblings trying to rescue their mother from a cult. Parts of the book really dragged for me.

Glinda is not only trying to save her mom and family home from the Starlight Pioneer Society - it's NOT a cult - she's also trying to redeem herself and get back to the relationships she used to have with her family. Although at times Glinda's actions/inactions/ issues are a bit annoying and definitely over-the-top, you can glimpse the the bonds that made her family close. The characters are well developed, and not all are likeable, and there's some pretty funny sections throughout.

“This is Not a Cult” by Lauren Danhof began as a humorous piece about a less than stellar daughter and sister, but turned into a serious drama with complicated interpersonal relationships. We find our anti-heroine Glinda Rainbow Glass in an interview that she is woefully unprepared for, and much too honest at, not to mention still wet and in costume from working at a dunk tank at a medieval renaissance fair. Glinda has made some dubious decisions since dropping out of graduate school not that long prior, which have landed her here. Most recently of which includes stealing a pair of plastic sunglasses from a gas station and then leaving her phone behind. But Glinda isn’t the only one with dubious decisions in her family, her mother also has turned to a cult, led by a notorious and enigmatic leader, after her husband died suddenly. Now, it’s up to Glinda, who once again is woefully unprepared, to save her mother and younger sister West, not to mention her estranged twin sister Dorothy.

I really enjoyed this book, I think that the character of Glinda is someone who we can all relate to in some way, even with her ridiculous decisions, shoving people away, and denying reality. Four stars!

It's Not a Cult is definitely about a cult! Glinda is a young MA dropout who estranged from her twin sister and on rocky grounds with her 17 year old younger sister. When it becomes apparent that her mother has joined a cult, Glinda tries to break her away.

There are parts of the book I really liked, t like the Ren Faire and the van and a few characters, especially Troy, who I found heartfelt, but overall I found it a little lacking. I didn't particularly like Glinda, she is constantly saying things that just make the situation worse and I wanted to yell at her to just tell her sisters the truth, but she was always trying to take care of the problem on her own.

Glinda's part in the cult came out late in the book and explained a lot of the guilt and everyone was more likeable by then, well except Arlon, the cult leader!

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

A captivating story from Lauren Danhof. The family outsider - Glinda, feels compelled to rescue her mother from a cult. But has fractured (spectacularly) relationships with her twin and younger sister after the death of her father make it all the harder for Glinda.

Thrilling, fast paced and with sympathetic characters - as the ready you really, really want Glinda’s life to get back on track and her family to heal.

Well worth reading, thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

It’s Not a Cult is a surprisingly deep, absurdist study of grief and its aftermath under the guise of a dark comedy novel.

I didn’t realize this was Danhof’s debut novel, she has exceptional ability to weave multiple threads of narrative into a single story.

The reader spends most of their time within the memory and mind of the main protagonist, Glinda, as she tries to make sense of the world after the untimely death of her father. The switching back and forth between timelines can sometimes get confusing, but it works out in the end!

The story starts out really engaging, but I felt I got lost ¾ of the way in. The penultimate incident was a bit difficult to follow, but the ending of the book redeems it! I enjoyed this story, and I related to the grief aspects a lot. I look forward to reading more by Danhof.

Enjoyable. Stood out from a lot of other books as a completely different take on a broken family. Would definitely recommend.

It’s not a cult is an incredibly fun, quirky and unique book. I really enjoyed the conversational way of writing and the strangeness of the plot and elects involved which manages to be both dark yet light-hearted and funny. The characters also have a lot of depth and I thought they were really well written, especially Glenda, I loved seeing the character arcs and development happening along with the main plot. Although I don’t think this will be for everyone, from the writing style to the “weirdness” involved, I really enjoyed this and would recommend for fans of ‘Bunny’.

This was an extremely difficult book to read because there wasn't one likable character - for me - in the entire book. The three main sister characters are Glinda, Dorothy, and West. See a connection? The naming of the sisters was a cute device, but the book went down hill from there for me.

How anyone with a brain could be so taken in by the Cult leader - and he definitely was one - was beyond me.
the central character of Glinda tries to get her mother out of the clutches of this guy. Unfortunately, no one believes her. It's like the little boy who cried wolf. She had a history of substance abuse, erratic behavior, and is really too smart for her own good. By the time she convinces everyone that she didn't poison her sister's boyfriend on Christmas, and didn't do a half dozen other things that she's accused of, it's almost too late to rescue her mom.

There's s cute little love interest for Glinda in a boy named Troy, but even then I kept thinking why is this guy liking her??

This read more like an older YA than a contemporary romance. 3.5 stars for me for the effort it took to write the story.


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First, so grateful to @NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this book! I think it was my first ever 5 ⭐️ ARC read! However, this book had to prove itself to me and work really hard for me to give it those 5 ⭐️. There were times in the book, particularly in the beginning, where I wanted to throw my Kindle across the room, and shake Glinda to wake her **ahem** ass up, and maybe even slap her stupid face a couple or few times. Ugh. She made me so angry with her snappy, and unthoughtful provoked comebacks. On the other hand, I also felt for Glinda and wanted to slap her sisters into oblivion and make them listen to Glinda and take her seriously. Then….Troy ❤️ comes into play, and nothing he did was wrong, in the slightest. 😂 I’m exaggerating here, surely, but still. My heart still flutters for Troy. 😍 Anyway, I walk away from this book with at least one new, important insight: Grief. It’s powerful. It’s raw. And it can turn a life upside down, inside out, and never has a timeline or deadline to get over itself. And I’m not just talking about grieving over someone that’s passed away; but also, just someone or something that you’ve lost and can never recover. Also, the phrase, it’s okay to not be okay? I don’t know if I believe in that after reading this book and will definitely have to rethink this through. It is okay to not be okay, as long as you have a good support system around you that cares about you, and wants to try to help you.

Oh, but it is a cult!
I've seen this book described as quirky, and it certainly was!
Glinda is trying to keep her family together and save her mom from succumbing to a full blown cult.
I found Glinda insufferable, her hastened reactions to things is just annoying at times. As were most of the characters.
I still enjoyed the book, something different to typical thriller that i tend to gravitate to. It's a pretty fun story with some action. I would have liked to know more of the cult's background and Arlon's past.
Thank you, Netgalley, publisher, and author for the ARC.

The formatting on this was hard to parse and I had a really difficult time getting into the book (and I tried for about 100 pages). Just couldn't get into it, pacing was really slow and characters are not deep enough for me.

Oofta! This was a weird and wonderful ride. I don’t think the comparison to Kimmie Schmidt and Bunny is accurate but I do t know what I would compare it to instead.