This is one of those books I couldn’t stop thinking about when I wasn’t actively reading it. It’s full of mystery and darkness, two characteristics I constantly look for when choosing what to read next. But is also about trauma, individual and collective. For a young adult novel, there’s a very dark chapter near the end that I wasn’t expecting. Although I think it could’ve gone further. 

For me it was a fast paced slow burner. Some things I saw coming, like Emmy being Foster’s daughter and not Lev’s. His darkness and abuse, were there all the time, underneath the love bombing, doing God’s work and bringing people back from the death, allegedly… I could see where he was going, you know?

The chapter that had Lo being tortured and burned was hard to read, the way it’s written… I felt my stomach twisting and kept saying “no, no, no” out loud. Thinking that’s something Bea, Rob, Jeremy and others went through is heartbreaking. But that’s the reality in a lot of cults and shady religious groups. They break you and isolate you so they have this power over you, and then abuse you without worry of repercussions. 

What a nice book, I have to say.