Cultish by Amanda Montell: Why We’re All a Little Bit In One

Read time: 5 minutes

🎧 Listened in audio | 📢 Narrated by Ann Marie Gideon
⏱ Duration: 8 hours | Genre: Non Fiction
🏷️ Publisher name: HarperCollins on June 15, 2021

Book Blurb:

Amanda Montell, bestselling author of Wordslut and The Age of Magical Overthinking, digs into how “cultish” groups from Jonestown and Scientology to SoulCycle and social media gurus wield language as their ultimate tool of influence. We binge cult documentaries and QAnon rabbit holes hunting for one answer: could this happen to me? Montell’s case is that, in small ways, it already has. Skipping past vague talk of “brainwashing,” she traces how cultish language builds ideology, community, and us-versus-them thinking, and how it shows up daily in startups, Peloton leaderboards, and Instagram captions. Sharp, well-researched, and darkly funny, Cultish makes fanatical language impossible to unhear.

Let’s talk about the book:

What a freakishly scary book did I just read?!?!?!?! I mean it in the best possible way. Have you ever paused, looked around, and thought, there are just so many cults around me? I never did! And yet, after reading this book, there they are, all around me, and I never noticed. Yes, Amanda Montell does say that we cannot live with so much skepticism all our lives, and there are times when we do need to let go of our cult-ophobia (this word doesn’t exist of course) and belong to some communities, but she does a great job explaining what cults are, and really how common they are. Even the fact that Instagram says we have ‘followers’ and not ‘friends’ makes it cultish.

I enjoyed the book thoroughly. Going through the traditional cultish groups, and moving to more urban cults like MLMs and pyramid schemes, to even gym groups, Amanda Montell does a wonderful research on the mindset the people have, both in and out of the cults. The mindset that’s required to get into a cult while also the minds that resist this reach are both very fascinating to read and understand. The way our lives, our religions, and some of the societal rules that doesn’t explain everything we need in life, there’s this knowledge gap that becomes the foundation of these groups. They may or may not answer these questions but the ability to convince others, market themselves, and benefit from it is a talent that few people possess, and therefore leverage. No matter how negatively the word ‘cult’ is coined, the person who starts it does have a talent that attracts some people and convinces them this is the right thing to do.

I wish I could forget the whole book so I could go back and enjoy it all over again. If you love reading about human and societal psychology, this is a book for you. Don’t miss out. Let’s form a cult for Amanda Montell.

Would I recommend it?

Yes, obviously, immediately, before you’ve even finished this sentence. I finished Cultish and spent the next two days spotting cultish language everywhere… my gym’s cheesy motivational posters, the way certain group chats guilt you for going quiet, all of it. Amanda Montell doesn’t just explain cults, she rewires how you hear everyday language. If you’re into human and societal psychology even a little, this one is unmissable. Mark the date, tell your friends, form a whole book club cult around it if you have to.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Continue the Reading-Cult

1. Wordslut by Amanda Montell
If Cultish hooked you on how Montell thinks about language, go back to where she started: a sharp, funny look at how English has been shaped by (and against) women.
Indiebookstores.ca | Bookshop.org | Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | Booktrovert | OpenLibrary | Litsy

2. The Age of Magical Overthinking by Amanda Montell
Montell’s follow-up turns the same sharp eye from cult language onto cognitive bias, examining why we fall for conspiracy theories, cult leaders, and our own worst thinking habits.
Indiebookstores.ca | Bookshop.org | Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | Booktrovert | OpenLibrary | Litsy

3. Educated by Tara Westover
A memoir from inside an isolated, fundamentalist survivalist family, this pairs eerily well with Cultish’s chapters on belonging, control, and the pull of extreme belief systems.
Indiebookstores.ca | Bookshop.org | Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | Booktrovert | OpenLibrary | Litsy

4. Bad Blood by John Carreyrou
Swap religious cults for startup culture. This investigative deep dive into Theranos shows the exact same charismatic-leader, us-vs-them language Montell writes about, just in a Silicon Valley boardroom.
Indiebookstores.ca | Bookshop.org | Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | Booktrovert | OpenLibrary | Litsy

5. Inside Scientology by Janet Reitman
For readers who want to go deeper into one of the specific groups Cultish touches on, this is the definitive, meticulously reported history of Scientology.
Indiebookstores.ca | Bookshop.org | Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | Booktrovert | OpenLibrary | Litsy

Where’s Your Cult Hiding?

Tell me the most “cultish” thing you’ve caught yourself saying or doing lately, whether it’s your gym, your group chat, or your favorite influencer’s newsletter. I promise you have one.

Book Links

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Indiebookstores.ca | Bookshop.org | Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | Booktrovert | OpenLibrary | Litsy
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