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A review by solaceinprose
The Project by Courtney Summers
4.0
Thanks to Netgally and Wednesday Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
I'm going to preface this review to say that I've only ever read Sadie by Summers. I've never read any of her other books, but from what I've gathered, she doesn't tiptoe around the hard stuff. It's the same for The Project, a novel that touches on loss, grief, the bond between sisters, trauma, and how all of that can be the perfect set up to be enticed into what you believe will lead to paradise. No more suffering. No more sin. Just perfect absolution and happiness. And for Bea and Gloria Denham, happiness is something that has escaped them both when Bea is 19 and Gloria (Lo) is 13. They spend six years after a tragic accident to come to terms with their collective and individual trauma, but as Bea thinks she found the answer in a close knit community, Lo continues to spiral deeper and deeper into herself as she feels all but abandoned by the one person who meant everything to her.
We start off with Lo who is working as an assistant for this very hotshot reporter guy. She wants to be a writer, and thinks this is her way of stepping into the game with the big dogs. She's 19 and alone. The only family she had left died a year or so ago, and now she's trying to navigate a world where her sister, Bea, is no longer in her life. Six years ago, a tragic car accident made Bea and Lo orphans, left Lo fighting for her life in the hospital, and Bea wondering how she was going to remote care for her 13 year old sister when she's barely 19. Lo never understood why Bea would leave, but she knows where she is, with The Unity Project, a group of spiritual people who are doing good things in the community lead by their leader, their savior, their personal Messiah, Lev Warren. We see Lo trying and trying to reach her sister, only to be constant rebuffed by Lev and his right hand woman, Casey. After a suicide that Lo witnessed by a Unity Project member, she's finally given insight into the project under the agreed assumption that she's writing a profile for the group.
It should be pointed out that Lo's and Bea's ages when they first meet Lev is important. Them being as young as they are is crucial to understand how they could be swayed by a man "who is just a man". That is not to say that if they had been older, circumstances would have been entirely different, but I think them both being 19 when they each have their fateful encounter with Lev is not a coincidence. Throughout the whole book, we see the parallel between Bea and Lo as they navigate through their own grief and trauma, and how Lev exploits that. We see Bea finally waking up from the spell she's under then Lo becoming entranced by the promises that Lev has made.
Summers does a great job at making you question the Unity Project at first, at least for me I did. I kept going back and forth between "Damn, you are crazy, this is totally a cult" to "Well, you make sense and this isn't exactly cult like". I almost began to understand Lev to a point when he discussed the way the world was at how he's just trying to make it better. But that's how cult leaders work. They make you start questioning everything that you knew. They prey on the vulnerable, and I wouldn't be surprised if members didn't all have the same story: I was going through XYZ, and Lev saved me.
The format of this book was a little off, but I figure that's because it wasn't the final edited version. It went back and forth between Bea's perspective in 3rd person and Lo's perspective in 1st person. The change of scenes were abrupt, and it would take me a moment to adjust to where the characters were now. There was no discernable marker to show that we've switched scenes, but again, this isn't the edited version.
Unlike Sadie, this book does have closure. I wouldn't say it has a happy ending, but it does have a rather satisfying ending that fits the tone of the book. I warn you though that if you have sisters, you have experienced loss, if you are sensitive to mentions of abuse, then tread into this book lightly. All in all, if you enjoy Summers' writing, then I definitely recommend The Project.
I'm going to preface this review to say that I've only ever read Sadie by Summers. I've never read any of her other books, but from what I've gathered, she doesn't tiptoe around the hard stuff. It's the same for The Project, a novel that touches on loss, grief, the bond between sisters, trauma, and how all of that can be the perfect set up to be enticed into what you believe will lead to paradise. No more suffering. No more sin. Just perfect absolution and happiness. And for Bea and Gloria Denham, happiness is something that has escaped them both when Bea is 19 and Gloria (Lo) is 13. They spend six years after a tragic accident to come to terms with their collective and individual trauma, but as Bea thinks she found the answer in a close knit community, Lo continues to spiral deeper and deeper into herself as she feels all but abandoned by the one person who meant everything to her.
We start off with Lo who is working as an assistant for this very hotshot reporter guy. She wants to be a writer, and thinks this is her way of stepping into the game with the big dogs. She's 19 and alone. The only family she had left died a year or so ago, and now she's trying to navigate a world where her sister, Bea, is no longer in her life. Six years ago, a tragic car accident made Bea and Lo orphans, left Lo fighting for her life in the hospital, and Bea wondering how she was going to remote care for her 13 year old sister when she's barely 19. Lo never understood why Bea would leave, but she knows where she is, with The Unity Project, a group of spiritual people who are doing good things in the community lead by their leader, their savior, their personal Messiah, Lev Warren. We see Lo trying and trying to reach her sister, only to be constant rebuffed by Lev and his right hand woman, Casey. After a suicide that Lo witnessed by a Unity Project member, she's finally given insight into the project under the agreed assumption that she's writing a profile for the group.
It should be pointed out that Lo's and Bea's ages when they first meet Lev is important. Them being as young as they are is crucial to understand how they could be swayed by a man "who is just a man". That is not to say that if they had been older, circumstances would have been entirely different, but I think them both being 19 when they each have their fateful encounter with Lev is not a coincidence. Throughout the whole book, we see the parallel between Bea and Lo as they navigate through their own grief and trauma, and how Lev exploits that. We see Bea finally waking up from the spell she's under then Lo becoming entranced by the promises that Lev has made.
Summers does a great job at making you question the Unity Project at first, at least for me I did. I kept going back and forth between "Damn, you are crazy, this is totally a cult" to "Well, you make sense and this isn't exactly cult like". I almost began to understand Lev to a point when he discussed the way the world was at how he's just trying to make it better. But that's how cult leaders work. They make you start questioning everything that you knew. They prey on the vulnerable, and I wouldn't be surprised if members didn't all have the same story: I was going through XYZ, and Lev saved me.
The format of this book was a little off, but I figure that's because it wasn't the final edited version. It went back and forth between Bea's perspective in 3rd person and Lo's perspective in 1st person. The change of scenes were abrupt, and it would take me a moment to adjust to where the characters were now. There was no discernable marker to show that we've switched scenes, but again, this isn't the edited version.
Unlike Sadie, this book does have closure. I wouldn't say it has a happy ending, but it does have a rather satisfying ending that fits the tone of the book. I warn you though that if you have sisters, you have experienced loss, if you are sensitive to mentions of abuse, then tread into this book lightly. All in all, if you enjoy Summers' writing, then I definitely recommend The Project.