As a long time fan of Courtney Summers' work, The Project is unlike anything she's written, so I can see this book being one of those where you either love it or hate it. The novel has two perspectives: one from Lo Denham in the present and the other from her older sister, Bea, in the past. The Project is very plot driven, which is what makes this different from Summers' other novels. I've alway praised Summers for being a very realistic writer, and while The Project was very well written, I think she misses the mark with the realism for her characters. I couldn't connect with Lo or Bea, which is a first for me. Since there was a lot of focus establishing The Unity Project and setting up the suspense, I found the character development sort of lacking.

It was hard to root for Lo, since she was always angry and seemed a bit entitled. As a 19 year-old assistant, I don't understand how she thought she could be a writer for her company and expect her boss to give her an opportunity to write for them. While her trait of being a writer is mentioned throughout the novel, I felt like it was underused. I also felt like some of her actions were out of character and quite abrupt. I enjoyed reading Bea's sections more, but I still felt like she was lacking development since we don't really see anything new to her character until her later sections.

The Project also doesn't fall into the YA category besides the fact that Lo is still technically a teen. If this is Summers' intro into adult fiction, I'll be happy to read her next one, but I think this book lacked the insight into YA minds like her other novels.

While the cult story is compelling and interesting, it missed a lot of elements that I usually expect from Summers' novels.

I don't know why but when I read a book by Courtney Summers it takes me a while to really understand what I'm reading. I'm going to be re-reading [book:Sadie|34810320] to see what it is about her writing that is confusing me a bit.

That having been said, once I got into it. I was fully into it, hard-hitting feels and all.

This book is about two sisters. After Lo's parents die her sister Bea joins the Unity Project. Lo spends years trying to prove her gut-feeling that there's something wrong with The Project and its leader Lev, especially when her sister breaks off all contact with her.

The cult-like religion is well-loved in the region though and she can't find anything concrete, until a man walks into the office of the magazine she works for to let them know that his son has been killed by The Project. This fuels Lo's passion to dive into the subject matter to find out what has happened to her sister for once and for all.

Prepare to be shocked and amazed several times. I thought I could kind of foresee what would happen at the end, but I was wrong. Boy, was I wrong.

Lo is a great conflicted character to be following. She has lived through intense trauma after surviving the car accident that killed her parents; that in combination with being abandoned by her sister brings on an interesting vengeful spirit. It's difficult to read between the lines of her emotions and the truth.

The only thing I didn't fully enjoy was the cult/religion element. This is what most people will love when they pick this book up, but I've seen too many documentaries and TV series about this subject recently. I'm happy to report that even if you're a bit "cult-sick" it's still worth the read.

I think a lot of people will like this book and rightfully so.

First of all, thanks to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for a honest review.
You have to know English isn’t my first language, so feel free to correct me if I make some mistakes while writing this review.


TRIGGER WARNING: Isn't it enough that this is a book written by Courtney Summers? No? So I tell you there are cults, psychological and emotional manipulations, physical and psychological abuse and ... well, other things.

"When I think of Bea, I think of a girl held hostage by both her grief and the people who took advantage of it. But where is the line between what circumstances have turned you into and who you choose to be?"

The story opens with Bea, just six years old, waiting at a neighbor's house for her mother to give birth to her premature baby sister. Bea just doesn't want a sister, but seeing Lo it's enough for her - and listening to her mom explaining what it means to have a sister - to develop an unbreakable bond with Lo.

But then the years pass and one evening, when Bea is nineteen and out with friends, her parents have a car accident: they die instantly, Lo is pulled out of the wreckage on the brink of death. Bea has never believed in God, but she knows that to save Lo - all that's left of her family - she needs nothing short than a miracle.

And He appears.

In our present it's September of 2017 when, at the train station, a boy recognizes Lo and speaks to her quoting a verse from the Bible - only to commit suicide immediately afterwards. She is shaken, but even more so when she discovers that the boy's father is a friend of her boss and that Jeremy, as he was called, was part of The Project along with Bea.
The desire to find her sister awakens in her once again, after years of unsuccessful attempts - of public events from which she was thrown out, of phone calls intercepted by Casey (Lev's right-hand woman) who have always denied her any contact with Bea.

She's sure The Project is hiding something rotten, which is most likely being a cult as an article Vice wrote previously, but no one has ever been able to prove it.
Great is her dismay, however, when she discovers Bea is no longer part of The Project, that she has abandoned them just as she has abandoned Lo in a hospital bed.
And quite exceptionally, Lev Warren decides to indulge in the press, explicitly asking for Lo to write a profile about him - and Lo, who no longer wants to be just her boss's assistant but wants to write, accepts after a moment of hesitation.

Lo begins to dig deep into Lev's life, into the lives of The Project members, into the work they do and while everything else in her life and her beliefs seems to collapse, The Unity Project seems to be the only thing that stands firm and looks safe.


I'm telling you: I'm biased - after all, Courtney Summers is my favorite author.

The Project, unlike the other books, is not a book that "sbam-sbam-sbam, hits you with violence at regular intervals. This, more than anything else, digs: it erodes the readers little by little, it takes them apart piece by piece to get inside their head and then "SBAM!", the violent blow reaches you at the end - and if I still think back at the last line, I cry.
And isn't that a bit like what the cults do with their followers?

My knowledge of cults comes from TV shows like "The Following", "Cult", "The Mentalist", from real stories like the one of Charles Manson or, more recently, NXIVM.

I've always thought of myself as extremely rational, I'm the type who doesn't understand how a person can fall into it and not realize it - I'm the type who says it could never happen to her.
Yet something happened during the reading, there were times when Lev Warren's voice was truly caressing and he shone through as a reasonable and sincere person - despite the desire to shake Lo in more than one moment, I underlined so many of her thoughts and of her sentences because, really, sometimes you just need the ideal circumstances for you to fall into a predator's net.

The narrative slips between past and present, between the lives of Bea and Lo - two sisters linked by a promise who are lost while continuing to love one another, who become strangers to each other in more ways than one: Bea no longer recognizes her little sister after the accident, Lo no longer knows who her sister is after six years of silence.
Both have to navigate their life alone, one is guided by blind faith and the other only knows one version of the story because there isn't a different one at her disposal - and it's up to the reader to keep track of the discrepancies while, in some cases, past and present seem to be almost the mirror of each other.
It's Lo who takes the stage with her narration in the first person, but it was always the moments of Bea narrated in the third that broke my heart - which made me feel so sorry for her.

As it happens in Summers' books, not all manipulations and abuses are explicit - very often she subtly suggests, hints at what happens or has happened behind the scenes and the horror you perceive is the same as if it were actually written in its most gruesome details. As always, her characters are extremely real and defined - both main and secondary, but I think I had a strong preference for Bea.

Part of me still doesn't understand how people can join a cult and stay in it even when things get really bad, but there is another part of me that - as Lo later realizes - has empathized and now doesn't rule it out as strongly as I would have before because, really, sometimes you only need the right circumstances and the right people. And "right" is obviously to be taken with a grain of salt because in most cases those who fall into them are desperate people, who have lost everything in life and are just looking for something to belong to. With bigger connotations and of a different nature, maybe it's a bit like the dynamics of a toxic relationship when you can't leave the other person no matter what they do to you.

Lo is just a nineteen-year-old girl, always forced to fend for herself since even the last person she had left decided to leave because she couldn't bear the pain of seeing her in that state - I wanted to shake Lo so many times, but I can't blame her either: she is vulnerable, she is alone, she is tired.

Courtney Summers fits all the pieces together in the end - life within The Unity Project isn't described in all its aspects, but we know just enough to guess what's behind it and we get a creepy picture, especially when we discover certain things orchestrated to get Lo to that exact point in her life.
But cults are not the core of this book and that is why we as readers never fully discover the dynamics within The Project. No, this is a story of loss, pain, loneliness, desperate need to cling to something or someone, desperate need to belong and be welcomed, desperate need to find oneself in anyone or anything that can help us do it - sometimes even in the most unlikely places we could ever have imagined.

I have made many theories, wild guesses, hypotheses about what could have happened in the past and what would have happened in the present and in the future. I guessed some things because, as they say, if you think bad you'll certainly get it right, and others, despite having taken them into consideration anyway, they shocked me and then broke my heart.

What to say? I can't wait to have the actual book in my hands and I can't wait for Courtney Summers to publish another book.

The last line - how many tears. In general, the last 10% brought me to tears.
But I wouldn't want Courtney Summers' books any other way.

Musical tip? Mantra by Bring Me The Horizon.

'Sadie' is one of my favorite books, so I was very excited to read 'The Project'.

I have a morbid fascination for cults and cult leaders. The idea of someone being so charismatic and evil that they are able to talk people into 'drinking the kool-aid' ,so to speak, is just mind blowing. It makes me sad for the lost souls that just need someone to see them that they are so easily manipulated. This story gives you a look inside of these groups and shows how far some people will go when they truly believe it's for a greater good...no matter how twisted it seems from the outside.

'The Project' didn't leave me a sobbing mess like 'Sadie' did, but it was still a very emotional and compelling story. It follows sisters Bea and Lo in the aftermath of a horrible accident that destroys their family. The story goes back and forth between then/now and between each sister. My heart hurt for them both. I wanted so badly for them to find their way to each other.

Glory-Lo-Denham has had a hard life. Although she’s only 19, she’s lost so much. Her parents die in a car accident which also has left her scarred for life. Her sister Beatrice abandons her to join a “special group” that go by the moniker “Unity Project”. To top it off, her caretaker Aunt Patty passes away shortly after.
She dreams of being a writer and manages to land a job at one of the most powerful magazines as an assistant to the founder. The story that has already started to form on her mind since the day her sister left her for the Unity Project. She has always been suspicious about them. They may have won the hearts and minds of the people in the Upstate New York region but she feels like it’s a front and they are just a cult.

One day she witnesses a suicide. She finds out the boy, Jeffrey, was the son a very close friend of her boss. He says that his son was a member of Unity Project and they brainwashed him to take his own life. She uses this as an opportunity to learn more about them by writing a story exposing the truth. In doing so, she also hopes to reconnect with her sister. To do this, she has to face the charismatic and powerful leader Lev Warren.
He agrees to meet with her and she is a step closer to accomplishing her goal. But what if everything she knows about her life is a lie. What if her sister she remembers is now a complete stranger? What if there is more about her survival? Could she be wrong about them? Does Lev Warren possess supernatural powers to heal people?

You think you know how the story will end and everything is so predictable. Not true as nothing is as it seems. This is a gripping, complex novel that is well written and soul stirring.

Now you may think the book is only about a cult. I guarantee you it’s not. It’s about losing your way, looking for something to believe in, grieving and ultimately finding yourself.

I usually love Courtney Summers’ books but this one felt flat. It didn’t incorporate the writing style she usually gives. The writing and flashbacks seemed choppy and maybe that’s what she was going fro. However, I did feel as if her descriptions of The Unity Project portrayed an a accurate reality of cult culture.

The new publishing trend for 2021 must be cults, as a lot of novels with this theme are going to be released next year. But no one will deliver you a more chilling experience than Courtney Summers. This author is notorious for never having a happy ending and pulling all the punches. When you read a Courtney Summers novel you know you’re going into it with the notion that you will be emotionally wrecked once you get to the end. The Unity Project is much on par on delivering exactly that.

Lo has lost her sister, Bea, to the cult of The Unity Project headed by a very charismatic Lev Warren. Lo lost her parents due to a car accident, in which she was also a passenger in. Bea is convinced that Lev brought Lo back to life, and this begins her fascination and loyalty to the man and his visions. Lo, blames Lev for taking her sister away from her when she needed her most, and is hellbent on exposing The Unity Project for what they really are. But what if Lo is wrong?

This novel will have you question whether Lev is really the evil mastermind that Lo is convinced he is, mostly because from the moment we meet him, he’s described with very Jesus-like qualities of acceptance and compassion. But this being a Courtney Summers novel, we know that the horror will come, and when it will, it’ll be brutal. Without being spoiler-y, this novel is an emotional rollercoaster where you begin to question who to trust. If you’re going to read one book about cults, make it this one, as it had everything I’ve wanted and expected from a book about cults, a charismatic leader and some very disturbing scenes, but also perfectly depicting how anyone, even intelligent people can get sucked into cults.

*Thank you so much to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for Young Readers for the digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy of "The Project" by Courtney Summers. I loved "Sadie," so I was really excited for "The Project" and I was not disappointed. This was a story about a fictional cult, which was both disturbing and entrancing. It was told in dual timelines by two sisters, whose relationship was so raw and real. Somewhat surprisingly, there were some very real depictions of pregnancy, labor and delivery, and postpartum in here that is something that always gets me. I guess I just think it's something we always need more of in literature and it's a way I'm able to see myself and something that really important to me in books. Most importantly, the mystery behind the cult in this story pulled me along, building momentum as I went until I couldn't put the thing down because it had me by the throat. It was a darkly beautiful story that dealt with strong, painful emotions. It portrayed the lengths people will go to find meaning and healing and a sense of worth, and the people who take advantage of that. I highly recommend.

The story is compelling, but the main character’s action at around 60% seemed so convenient for drama and not in a good way, in a forced way. I was also a little thrown by it being a religious cult and just how prominent religion (Christianity) would be in this book. The ending was a bit rushed and, again, convenient. I can’t deny how interesting it was to read, but I also can’t deny that I wasn’t excited about picking it up again. I think people who are comfortable with the idea of reading about a religious cult, who love a good cult story no matter how it plays out, will have a decent time. I think of the two sisters perspectives that we got, Lo (the main one) was the least engaging. Bea’s was more compelling and I looked forward to those sections the most. I’m not sure I would recommend this book, but I also wouldn’t not recommend it. I think part of it was great concept, ok follow through and part of it was it was too religious for me.

Unfortunately not my favorite Courtney Summers title, but it’s a high bar to meet again and again. A lot of it just felt unrealistic to me: the way Paul and Lo talked to each other, the complete 180 in Lo’s thinking that felt very abrupt and then was fairly quickly turned back around, Lo’s intense obsession with writing when it seemed like she’d never actually done any? This one just wasn’t for me, but I certainly hope to be in the minority and I will always, always eagerly read everything Ms. Summers releases.

I really enjoyed this book. This is the second book I have read by this author and both of them drug me in and kept me captivated right up until the end. In this novel, the main character has lost her sister to a group called the Unity Project and a man named Lev. She isn't sure what is going on but they have lost contact with each other and her sister refuses to take her calls. This is her story of finding out just what the Project is all about and what happened to separate her and her sister. The characters were so life like in this novel that it really kept my attention and I wanted to read all the way to the end to know what happened!

3.5 stars -- Can we just pause and stan what an impressive stylist Courtney Summers is? I always enjoy her prose and the authorial posture she brings to her projects. This is another great book from a great author, and I definitely enjoyed her take on a thriller based on taking down a cult. For me, as is often the case, this book's only weakness was that I strongly preferred one of the dual timelines to the other, which always dings a book down for me overall. Still, this was a disturbing but gripping book & would definitely recommend

CW: cult & religious abuse; physical & emotional abuse

The Project tells the story of Lo who is nineteen years old and all alone. Years earlier, she is horribly injured in a car crash that kills both her parents. Afterwards, she is abandoned by her older sister, Bea, who runs off to join the Unity Project. Now Lo is working at a renewed magazine and determined to uncover the secrets of the Unity Project and finally reach her sister.

This one is a fast, easy read. The beginning is compelling and I was intrigued by the cult aspect. Unfortunately things fell apart for me. Lo was a bit of a brat and her actions didn’t seem logical. She had such an extreme change of heart that I questioned if we were even discussing the same character.

All in all, this book was just fine. I didn’t struggle to finish it, but I also didn’t enjoy the story. Three stars.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review. The Project will be available everywhere on February 2, 2021.

This was one of those books I had to get to the end of quickly! Fast paced and full of surprises, this look into the workings of a religious cult was a great read.

Sadie was one of my favorite books I read last year, and I could not wait to get more from Courtney Summers!

I am so blown away with The Project, and how Summers took her narrative and storytelling to the next level in this book. Not only do the characters and plot draw you in with their depth and fascination, but the themes of family and loneliness are simultaneously making their mark on the reader as well.

I cannot wait for more readers to dive into the mind of The Unity Project, and be immersed in a standout thriller cult novel.

As a fan of past works like "Sadie," I found "The Project Disappointing". The pacing was both rushed and the plot was convoluted.

The twists and turns in this book keep you wondering what's happening. It was interesting to read a book where you were in the head of someone as they found themselves in ... A cult? Or is it a cult?

I loved Sadie by Courtney Summers so I was really excited to read The Project and I was not disappointed. It had me hooked and wanting to know how it ended right from the start!

I really did like this book. I thought diving into a cult and seeing how the effect the many people involved was a super compelling topic for a read. I really liked both characters point of view that we experience and saw in this read. I also really liked at the heart of this book was the realtionship between the sisters at the heart of it. I struggled a tad with the mystery at the heart of it. I also felt like other then the "years" dictating the chapters we were in, the two characters POV read so similar it was hard to make differences between them. I really did like Lo path in this novel but overall, it was not favorite read of the year. I liked that it dealt with the harder topics like cult life.

The Project is fast paced and an easy to read suspense. Told in alternating narratives of the past and Lo’s present, the story moves quickly and is sometimes hard to follow and left me on the fence on the way I feel about this book. Lo Denham is a would be reporter, working as a personal assistant for the editor of a magazine. As a child, her parents died in a car crash and she was seriously injured. All she wanted was her sister but she left to join a cult and Lo has not talked to her since. After witnessing the suicide of a cult member, Lo begins digging into the cult once again. A little Stockholm syndrome later, Lo finds danger, lies, and secrets in a twisted tale that will leave you confused and shaking your head in disbelief. My voluntary, unbiased review is based upon a review copy from NetGalley.

I really wanted to like this book considering how much I loved and enjoyed reading Sadie. This book was ambitious in that it tried to tackle both religion and family dynamics. I kept wanting to know more about Lo and Bea's relationship. I especially was interested in learning more about Bea. Instead, I felt like I was being strung along to follow The Project. That being said, maybe this is a part of Summers' genius. I was equally hooked into the story as perhaps Lo is in trying to figure out what is real behind The Project.