The Quiet Damage follows five people who fell into QAnon and the damage it caused them/their families.
Those five people fell into it for multiple reasons like isolation from COVID-19, medical misdiagnosis, new age conspiracies, social media misinformation, etc. Cook does a great job treating these families with care while laying out how people get trapped into conspiracy thinking as well as the toll it takes on the families trying to get them out. I found The Quiet Damage an easy to follow read that reminds me a lot of the Q-Dropped podcast.

I am so fascinated by how people are drawn to cults, religious fundamentalism, and political extremism. I am also intrigued by people’s relations to social media, their knowledge of algorithms, and their overall media literacy skills. While this book is focused on QAnon, it applies to wider societal themes and systems. I’m highlighting so many sections.

Wow was this fabulous. In the Quiet Damage, Cook navigates through five different people's connections to QAnon, whether it be themselves or a loved one. It explores how they got into it, how it impacted their lives, and getting out of "it" -- whether that be out of QAnon or out of their relationship with their loved one. Someone I know found QAnon during the isolation of the pandemic, and I know first hand that it can really change someone who is objectively smart and kind into someone completely different. Luckily for me, that person was not someone I held close to my heart, and I cannot imagine how hard it must be to see someone go through this change when they are someone you've loved dearly your entire life.

Cook does a fantastic job of writing people's descents into QAnon with compassion. She does not ignore the hateful beliefs, but she really humanizes how someone can go from a Bernie voter to a QAnon conspiracy theorist. I feel like I understand this on so many levels more than I did before, and this is not the first QAnon-related book I've read! I really loved the afterword -- Cook is a tech writer and went into this project thinking that the answer to ridding the world of QAnon was to rid tech of its supremacy. After speaking with hundreds of people, she realized it truly is a lack of emotional wellbeing. This felt like an "oh duh" moment for me, but I had honestly never considered it.

This book was really emotional, a lot of these stories just pull at your heart. I still want to give Dale a big hug.
Highly recommend this book.

Thank you to Crown Publishing and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

WOW! This book was a thrilling read. I got through it entirely in one sitting. The compassionate, multivalent writing spurs sympathy with Qanon casualties and their loved ones. As a religious studies educator, this is the kind of book you want to make students interested in this topic. I feel very privileged to read the advance copy and can't wait to write a full review for social media when it gets posted.

In "The Quiet Damage", journalist Jesse Cook takes a deeper look at the rise of QAnon in recent years and the extent of its repercussions on a handful of families across America. Each chapter focuses on a different story, and rotates across individuals and perspectives, highlighting the "before" and the quick and unexpected chaos that followed in the "after".

We're introduced to a number of families - starting with Emily, a single mother-turned-lawyer who's raised her three children by herself following the suicide of her husband. When all three of her children become successful adults and leave their childhood home, she struggles with the isolation and loneliness, turning to the internet to fill the gap. We spend time with Doris and Dale, who've been married for decades, but a misdiagnosis of cancer sends Doris down a spiral and she also gets pulled into the conspiracy theories that flood social media. Another couple, Andrea and Matt, also reach a breaking point after Matt work with a Christian radio station and video producer leads him to a QAnon video - and his actions also pull in his wife with him. Alice, who grew up a Democrat and was a former Bernie Sanders supporter, also fell prey to the influence, and her husband Christopher can only watch on as the person he loves completely morphs in front of his eyes. The final story centers on Kendra and her older sister Tayshia, growing up as black girls in Milwaukee and how one sibling's pull into QAnon irreparably scarred the other.

Cook treats each of these stories and families with incredible care and empathy; each person's backstory is lovingly captured, their personalities, passions, and accomplishments fleshed out. The individuals range in location, age, and race but there are a number of common themes and situations - a jarring emotional or physical shock; feelings of loneliness or abandonment; the isolation and fear caused by the COVID-19 pandemic - that highlight just how alluring the QAnon movement was to them. As someone who had only heard of the movement in passing or referenced at high-level in the news, hearing in detail some of the messaging or channels that the theories spread was informational, if not shocking. And the emotional, mental, and physical toll this had on the loved ones around these individuals was heart-wrenching and devastating; for some families, there was no resolution.

This is an eye-opening book that treats a group of people with much-needed compassion. Personally, I think it would have been better served keeping each story to one section, instead of chopping them up into multiple ones as it sometimes made it hard to keep up with each. I also would have appreciated some more scientific support - earlier studies that would have refuted some of the strategies employed, or additional literature to better support the statements - but can understand that this was more focused on the individuals and stories highlighted.

This is definitely an interesting read. The book takes a look at how QAnon has negatively impacted families. It's actually a sad reality - everyone wants to feel like they belong somewhere, and sometimes that "somewhere" is not part of the reality - it can be a form of escapism, which means the reality of life is depressing/non-inspiring. Interesting how there's research on the negative affects of addictive social media, and this "organization" was spawn from social media / the internet providing incorrect information. Really sad and heavy read.

Thank you to the author and publisher for this advance reader copy. This book about families affected by a family member in QAnon was insaneeeeee. I don’t think I’ve ever gasped out loud so many times from reading a book. The only thing I think would improve the book is if it had footnotes for the sources, I love good footnotes! Otherwise it was so interesting. 4⭐️

In The Quiet Damage, Jesselyn Cook skillfully captures this conflicted moment in American culture, in which disinformation and a further distorted Christian nationalism and it's impact on families. Though it can seem at moments like many of the figures caught in QAnon's undertow were fundamentally similar, as their stories play out it becomes clear just how different the many people who find a home in this movement can be. Similarly, there are moments when it seems like most of the figures are being similarly rehabilitated, but ultimately their outcomes – and the relationships broken by their beliefs – vary widely. An enlightening read for anyone trying to understand how QAnon draws people in, and how we might be able to draw them out of this dangerous world.

I would call this compassionate journalism. The author tells the stories of families who have been negatively impacted--to put it mildly--by one or more members' descent into the world of QAnon conspiracy theory. People who are vulnerable to disinformation for one reason or another and are looking for validation and belonging go deep into online communities and increasingly alienate their families. I found this book compelling and heartbreaking.

This was a phenomenal book, it may be my favorite nonfiction read of the year. My jaw dropped to the floor at multiple points throughout this book. While conspiracies aren’t new, QAnon is certainly a more recent topic that you don’t often see in-depth discussions about. This book does a wonderful job explaining how of people of all backgrounds can fall into the QAnon rabbit hole. Jesslyn Cook shares the stories of five individuals and how QAnon has impacted their lives, relationships, and careers. Despite being a contentious topic, Cook explains it in a way that’s digestible, thought-provoking, and educational. With the upcoming election, QAnon rhetoric certainly isn’t going anywhere. This was a sad, yet very necessary read. Thank you for the opportunity to review this ARC, I look forward to more from this author!

Jesselyn Cook's The Quiet Damage was a fascinating read. Cook takes us into the lives of five families impacted by the QAnon conspiracy theory, At times devastating and others, hopeful, The Quiet Damage sheds insight into the reasons why people become so influenced by these theories to the point of damaging decades-long relationships. Cook expertly tackles difficult topics and stories with grace and humanity. I would recommend this title to those interested in cults/conspiracy theories and are looking for an engrossing, fast-paced read.

As someone who has read a lot about politics and the groups that take part of it and shape it, I found this book to be very interesting. I've read a lot about the topic so some of it was repetitive but I found the stories Cook decided to tell about the individuals to be insightful and shows a true understanding for his this affects people and those around them

I have only known someone peripherally involved with Qanon. Yet I have read and seen many news reports about the baseless claims that the group touts.
This book was a heart breaking read into the depths that some people have gone down into the Qanon rabbit hole. The damage that the rabbit hole has done to their families.

I was so hoping for more closure in the book with the people profiled. And really only one did get out. The others were still in. It was a sad, hopeful book that really tugged at my heart strings.

Studies show that 19% of Americans believe in QAnon related theories, which I’m fairly certain is the fifth sign of the apocalypse. This book covers the stories of five families, couples, rural white parents, urban Black sisters and more torn apart when a member of the family is caught in the web of QAnon and conspiracy thinking to the exclusion of common sense.

The author says she tries to give some personhood and dignity to the five individuals involved with QAnon, and God bless her for not wanting us to see them as the absolute lunatics they likely are. Because after reading the book it is difficult, let me tell you.

One of the five was the most interesting to me because unlike the others, Alice started out hating Donald Trump, she was a Bernie Sanders acolyte. The story of her involvement was interesting, she became a Trump lover too, and, for Alice, as she turns on a dime, it became clear that she is a person who just desperately needs to believe in something to save the world, regardless of what it is.

For another, a woman who is a truly terrible mom, she seemed to be an example of what, to me, so many of the January 6ers represented, success “generally hinged upon their status as dissenters rather than on the legitimacy of their dissent.” In fact, maybe this is true of most of those who continue to support Donald Trump, after everything; they are simply angry and he gives them permission to, no, encourages them to be angry…when maybe there’s really nothing, objectively, to be angry about.

The world of QAnon appeals to those who feel powerless, but the author notes that many white, college educated people have been sucked in too. To a cult that believes that a group of elite pedophiles keeps child underground so they can drain their blood and feed of their adrenochrome. Oh, and COVID isn’t real. I weep for this country

And keep in mind that the risk is not gone. Donald Trump, who has made favorable allusions to QAnon in the past as just been officially anointed as the Republican nominee for President of the United States. Democracy is still on the table. It seems like that for, at the very least, 19% of Americans, and actually for many more than that objective truth does not matter, it’s whatever craziness we choose to believe that is paramount. Looking at the insanity of QAnon through the eyes of five individuals/Trump lovers is the perfect way to show one of the ways in which the Republic has gone horribly wrong. Highly recommended.