I’m pretty sure I heard about The Project by one of you wonderful book bloggers, but I’ve forgotten who. But I do remember why I picked this up – firstly, it’s by Courtney Summers and I really enjoyed Sadie, another book by her. Secondly, The Project is about a cult and honestly, there’s something about cults that I find really fascinating.

The cult in The Project is called The Unity Project. On the surface, they seem to be a pretty decent bunch of people, operating food shelters and generally just doing nice things for the community they live in. But aspiring reporter Lo is suspicious – the Unity Project is also the group that took her sister, Bea, away from her. When Lev, the charismatic leader of the group offers her exclusive offer to the group in return for a profile, Lo jumps at the chance to get the scoop and find her sister.

There are two main POV characters in The Project – Lo and Bea. I found Lo to be the more well-rounded character since Bea was introduced as a character who had bought into Lev’s story, but it was interesting to read about why Bea would stay away from the sister that she loved and how she fell further and further into the Unity Project. And since Bea and Lo inhabit slightly different timelines (Lo is in the present while Bea is slightly in the past), the mystery of ‘Where is Bea?’ doesn’t get resolved till the climax of the book. I thought this slight difference in timeline helped to keep the tension high in the book, but it can get a bit confusing at the start.

As for the plot, I thought I knew what the book was about based on the synopsis, but I found myself tricked. I don’t want to give you spoilers, but basically I thought that Summers did a great job showing you how cults operate and how they can exert such firm control over their members (and how difficult it can be to break away from them).

Overall, this was a fascinating book! I feel like I liked Sadie slightly better, but I still really enjoyed following Lo as she tries to get at the truth and save her sister from the Unity Project. If you like reading about cults, I think this is a book that you’d be interested in reading.