Book Review: The Project by Courtney Summers
Dealing with the manipulative power of cults, I’m super excited to review The Project, Courtney Summers’ latest novel. Man, was this novel a rollercoaster, but in such a good way.
Book Information
Lo knows what suffering is like. She knows what it’s like to feel alone. After all, her sister, Bea, left her to join the Unity Project after Lo woke up from a devastating car accident that killed both of their parents and left Lo fighting for her life. Now, Lo is determined to bring the Unity Project down. She is convinced that they stole her sister and have killed another boy. As Lo gets closer and closer to the Unity Project, though, she begins to question everything she knows and wonders what is true and what is not.
Review | Heidi Dischler
This book was… complex. I usually don’t do this, but I looked at a few reviews (without spoilers, of course) before I started reading this book. The reviews helped me keep my expectations down, but the thing is, it was a really good book. I think the reason that a lot of the reviews are so mixed is because they felt manipulated by this book. Boy, let me tell you, did my emotions and mind feel manipulated. That’s how it was supposed to be, though. This book is about a cult. Cults are manipulative. In my opinion, Courtney Summers did a freaking fantastic job of manipulating her readers.
Spoilers ahead.
In a lot of ways, this book broke my heart. Lev as a character was so charming and inviting and straight up manipulative. After he found out that Bea’s baby wasn’t his, he literally made her watch her own baby grow up from afar. Bea wasn’t allowed to be around her at all, and Lev made her feel like it was her fault. This is when Bea started to feel like this wasn’t right.
This is sort of where Rob comes in. He was able to get out. He was able to see how wrong the Unity Project and Lev were. His feelings towards the Project—like he was the one who was different, like he wasn’t getting burned enough, like he was going to be left behind—it all gave me this huge sense of clarity as to how cults work.
The only thing I really have to critique is the fact that Lo went into the Unity Project waaayyyy too easily. It made no sense that she just blindly accepted what they told her about her own sister. It also made no sense that she slept with Lev. Like gross.
Other than that, I really did love this book and what it represented. It showed how people use religion (in the way that religion is not supposed to be used) to manipulate people and make them feel like this is the only way to salvation. It also showed, though, with Rob and the priest, that when you find a good religion, you can clearly see how religion is supposed to function. Thanks, Courtney Summers, for another amazing story.
If you loved this novel as much as I did (and for some crazy reason you haven’t read Sadie yet), you’ll love Sadie even more, so go check out my review here!
Source: Audiobook from Overdrive local library
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