In Cultish, the linguist Amanda Montell takes on the task of explaining how language helps shape human relationships with cults and cultish organizations.

Which is really surprising because I found it considerably surface-level on the context of linguistics itself. She is a great storyteller, and this is an incredible work of social studies, but when it comes to language? It's more like some brilliant moments peppered in than the bulk of the narrative.

Maybe it's because the author was stretched thin from all the topics she wanted to cover. We have old-school cults, MLMs, group gyms and influencers, all of them cultish, but complex on their own.

From an overall understanding, we actually cover a lot of ground on how each of these work on enlisting and keeping followers, which was cool, but I spent the whole time expecting something revolutionary or surprising. It never came.