Mary: WELCOME TO YA BOOK CLUB! This time around we have Susan joining us, because we know that Susan loves a good cult book. We read Those Who Prey (see what they did there??) by Jennifer Moffett. It follows Emily, a student at BU hailing from the Mississippi Gulf Coast, as she becomes embroiled in a dangerous cult, eventually traveling to Italy on a mission trip. Things get wild fast once Emily leaves the country, stuck with an unenthusiastic mentor that seems to be hiding something.
Emily: I’m really disturbed by the fact that this person’s name is Emily. Oh, and before we get started, since Susan picked out the book for us this time, I wanted to ask her a little bit about why she picked it. Like, yes, it’s a cult book. But what made you excited about this specific cult book, Susan?
Susan: Of course, the cult was the first thing that got my attention, but I also love books set in or around schools. I thought the college setting would make for a fun way into the cult plot line. I also don’t read a lot of YA and wanted to mix things up a little with this one!
Spoilers for Those Who Prey by Jennifer Moffett to follow.
Mary: Yeah! Mixing it up is always fun. I really like to loko at YA books that cover topics I’m interested in, just to see how things are marketed to a younger audience.
I’m going to start by saying that I began this book really disliking it, but ended it enjoying myself a good bit. I’ve definitely thought about it a few times since reading it, which is way more than I can say about some other books we’ve read in this series (cough cough, Lost in the Neverwoods). One of the things that struck me most was how similar to real life religious college groups the cult seemed. Like sure, we can all agree it’s a cult when we look at the deep goings-on of it, but the part that most students were seeing is eerily like the Baptist Collegiate Ministry I was a part of through part of college (you know, until I noticed some creepy things going on there and left). The dedication to outreach in seemingly normal ways (coffee ministry), the emphasis on love and personal growth– the pieces are all there.
Susan: For sure! I went to a few meetings of a Catholic ministry group during my freshman year of college (yes, I used to be Catholic once upon a time), and it wasn’t creepy or anything, but it was definitely uncomfortable because it felt so insular. The coffee shop meetings and prayer groups felt really accurate to me. I think we have all heard of cults recruiting on college campuses, but apparently in the 1990s, it was a widespread problem. Why do you think Moffett chose the 90s for this book? Would the story have worked as well if it was set in the present day?
Emily: Well, I think for one, setting it before the Internet and cell phones means communication is a lot harder. When they’re trying to isolate these people from their families, it’s a lot harder for them to reach out to their family members to find out, say, that their brother was in a terrible accident. Or, like, when Emily tells her dad she’s going to Italy for an internship, her dad can’t be like “What internship? Let me Google it.” The information isn’t at their disposal. Of course, that doesn’t mean there aren’t cults now. But I think from a writing perspective, it’s easier to cut people off if all they can do is write letters or search for a payphone to call.
But Susan, that’s interesting because I didn’t know that cult recruiting at colleges was a widespread problem in the 1990s. Maybe that has a lot to do with the setting as well?
Susan: I didn’t know that either, but Moffett included some information about it in her author’s note at the end of the book. She also said that what she really wanted to show in this story was how “joining” a cult happens and how it can happen to anyone. Do we think she succeeded?
Mary: Cults are just such a classic problem. There’s always been some cult around getting up to something and endangering people, but I also didn’t know about the uptick in the 90s on college campuses. I’m also a dummy and didn’t read the author’s note carefully. Or maybe I just don’t remember it. Lol
Emily: Yeahh… I very rarely read the author’s note.
Mary: I do think she succeeded in showing how joining a cult happens, and how it often seems very innocent to begin with. Susan, I remember when you interviewed Sarah Edmonson you two talked about something similar. It’s easy for us to sit back and say, ugh! I’d never join a cult! from the outside, but it never feels like a cult to begin with.
Emily felt alone, and she felt different from the people around her (like her roommate), so when a group offered to take her in and accept her, she felt like she’d found a place where she fit in. I get wanting that, and I’ve been there, too. Again, I think it’s easy for me to be on the outside as a 30-something, thinking that I’d never fall for something like this, but I fully was in groups I fundamentally disagreed with in college because I was a dumb undergrad who didn’t know any better and wanted friends. Fortunately for me, all my friends decided to just peace out (it’s a whole story and it’s W I L D but I don’t want to implicate anyone, I guess). So yes, I do think she succeeded in making it seem plausible, because it is. It happens all the time, sadly. I think things started getting a little less believable for me when her dad was so chill about her going to Italy, then again, I guess it happens.
Susan: Ah, yes. My favorite interview ever. That’s something Sarah Edmondson and her husband talk about on their podcast a lot: that no one joins a cult. They join a group that has seemingly good intentions and promises positive change in their lives. It’s hard to blame anyone for wanting that. Overall I felt like Moffett was successful in illustrating that dynamic with Emily. (Also I’m gonna need to hear that story of yours another time because I am intrigued.)
Mary: Emily, I totally agree about the information thing and the 90s–the entire Italy section would have been way less scary if Emily (in the book) could have just gotten online and Ubered out of there or what have you.
Emily: Yeah, for sure. And I have to say for me, this book was doing a lot of things that I wish other books about cults would do. We get a lot of details about the cult, about how they work, about their recruiting tactics. All of that was really interesting to me, and it was effective. I was getting to the point, honestly, where I was starting to think I didn’t like cult books because they kept disappointing me. And finally this one gave me more of the inside info and the religious side of the cult that I think is what I’m most curious about.
Mary: I very much did not appreciate that a cat had to brutally die in the book. I cried and sped through that part. I don’t really have anything to say about it, but I hated it. Poor kitten.
Emily: Poor Dulce! Yeah, this made me really sad. But also, girl, what are you doing getting a kitten in Italy? What are your long term plans for this cat?
Susan: We always hate animal death. Leave the dogs and cats out of this!
Mary: I also really want to talk about Emily’s experience in Italy more generally, because that’s where it felt like things really kicked off. When did y’all suspect something was very wrong?
Emily: I mean, I don’t know if I can fairly answer the question, because I read the summary before I read the book, so I knew something would go wrong. Also, we get the interviews before each section of the book that give us a heads up that everything’s going to go wrong. So I’m not exactly sure. Was it when she first met Kara? Was it when they didn’t let her call her dad? Was it all the way back in Boston when Emily got to go on the trip instead of Heather? Who can say?
Susan: Heather was giving red flags from the start. As soon as Emily and Heather were partnered up, things were clearly getting weird. I think when it really started to feel like stuff was going downhill fast was when the leader lady gave Emily the internship over Heather. The whole idea of these worldwide internships felt totally wild to me, but knowing myself at 19, I’d go to Italy for just about whatever reason you gave me. Once Emily arrives in Italy, that’s when the more “obvious” coercion and manipulation tactics start, beginning with sleep deprivation.
Emily: And the fact that they confiscated all of their money and their passports.
Mary: Oooh boy what a red flag, right? There’s no world in which someone taking your passport is a good thing. I think even more so for me, Kara’s attitude was alarming compared to the other people on the trip, because even up front she didn’t seem to care about the cult in the same way she should. She felt like she was hiding something, and I guess she was.
Susan: I also wanted to talk about the chapter titles. The first part of the book used cult recruitment tactics as chapter titles that aligned with what was happening to Emily during that chapter. This changes once she gets to Italy, but what did y’all think of this title convention?
Emily: I think the first part of the book at the college where it focused on recruitment techniques was my favorite part of the book. So yeah, I thought the chapters with the recruitment tactics was a good move. I don’t know how they could have done something similar in the Italy section, but it could have been nice to see a similar chapter title convention for the middle part of the novel. In the end, the chapters start with the stages of recovery after leaving a cult (or symptoms of life after a cult?), but I found this part of the book to be slightly less effective. How did you all feel?
Susan: I agree. The stuff on campus leading up to Italy and the ramping-up of everything in Italy were the most effective to me. Watching things spiral was engaging for me. As far as the titles, I thought they were a little prescriptive at first, but then again this is a YA novel and many younger readers might not be as familiar with terms like “love bombing,” so I think those worked well to set up what was happening to Emily and provide some context.
Mary: Prescriptive isn’t bad in YA sometimes! All of the titles made sense to me more or less, but I don’t know that I knew exactly what love bombing was. It made sense in context though.
Emily: Yeah… speaking of love bombing. I want to talk about Josh. What was his deal?
Susan: For a relationship that helped pull our main character into a cult, theirs was incredibly chaste.
Emily: Yes, and I had trouble seeing the appeal? Like it felt like it was all about her loneliness and excitement over finally having the attention of a boy. Rather than it being anything about this specific person. And even though that’s probably the case, I don’t know. It would have been nice to see some more specifics and more chemistry between the two, even if he was just manipulating her.
Mary: I got 0 chemistry between them, so I would’ve liked more too. I understand wanting to feel wanted, and wanting to feel like someone could love you, at least, but like…Josh was kind of a jerk to her in Italy, which made no sense in context. If he was manipulating Emily, then sure, that all makes sense, but the alternative…
Emily: But like… was he just manipulating her? What was his deal with Kara?
Susan: Yeah, he felt more like a stand-in for “manipulative love interest” than a fully realized character, and maybe that’s the problem.
Mary: Yeah, it was weak. I was more interested in Emily’s relationship with Kara, which is also complicated by Josh (they used to date). Emily can’t let herself trust Kara or even entertain that there’s something going on because of Kara’s past with Josh—like there’s some motive there or something. Josh seems to still be in love with Kara, but Kara does seem over him (based on how she’s focused on partying it up with some tourists—which, go her).
Kara dies, which really did shock me, and Josh eventually meets Emily and attempts to flee with her. Emily thinks Josh is disappointed that she’s there instead of Kara, and YET they still make out and travel together and attempt to form a tenuous bond? Ugh.
Josh & Emily making out
Emily: I just found him confusing in general. Like, if he’s not interested in her really and was just manipulating her to get her into the cult, sure. We know that he still had feelings for Kara, and we know he’s ignoring her most of the time they’re in Italy. So then to have him meet up with her at the train station, act all weird, and then make out with her. Was he trying to get those tapes from her? Was that it? But then… why did he care if he was escaping? So many questions.
Susan: I think even by the end, we never get a really clear picture of his motives, or at least that’s how I felt.
Mary: That being said, the last bit of the book—where we really get into all the stuff with Kara—was VERY FAST. The first two thirds were almost painfully slow, but then everything was happening for once and it felt hard to keep up. Did y’all feel that, too?
Susan: The pace definitely picked up dramatically with the Kara stuff, but I didn’t find the beginning too slow. I think that pacing worked for me because it mirrored what it was like for Emily getting sucked deeper into the cult. It happens slowly at first, but then when things go back, they go really bad fast.
Emily: I didn’t think the beginning was slow at all. I thought the ending was slow. Once she was done with the cult, I didn’t really care about what happened to her. Is that horrible of me?
Mary: No it definitely isn’t. I guess I should say, I was interested when Emily was getting into the cult, and interested in Italy/Europe, but I didn’t care for the extremely lengthy denouement either. It took too long to wrap up, but it felt like the book was already over, you know?
I enjoyed reading this book, but…it’s not gonna stick with me. It’s already fading into the place medium good books go.
Susan: I agree. Once she was out, it got a lot less interesting for me. If that final section was shorter, I probably wouldn’t feel that way. It just took a little too long to get to the actual end.
Emily: I ended up giving this one 4 stars, because it did cover a lot of stuff that I always want cult books to cover. So while reading this, I did have the sense that like, yes, this is what I want from my cult fiction. Will it stick with me? Probably not. But I enjoyed it for what it was.
Susan: I gave it a 3 on Gooodreads and a 3.5 on my own reading tracker. I did enjoy reading it, but like you both said, it hasn’t stuck with me. I read this longer ago than both of you, and remembering some of these events to write about them was a challenge.
Mary: I gave it 3 stars, and I feel pretty good about that rating. It was middle of the road for me, but I did enjoy it while I was along for the ride!
Emily what are we reading next time in YA Book Club?
Emily: So our book for February, which we will discuss at the end of this month, we’ll be chatting about a roooomance for the month of looooove. We all know Mary and I are fans of Sandhya Menon, so we’re delving into her fantasy romance YA for this month. Of Curses and Kisses! Read along with us, and we’ll see you back here in a few weeks. Wow.