Like I said in my review of Dean Koontz's The Taking, the usual scary things like aliens and ghosts and things don't scare me nearly as much as something I think could actually happen, like insect spider and snake attacks, psycho killers... and people like Pioneer, leader of "the Community" in this book. Actually, having grown up in a religiously conservative home, and having seen real people in the news like Jim Jones and David Koresh, it's all too easy to see something like the events in this book happen in real life. Between the Grade-A wackos and the folks just trying to run a scam, there are way too many opportunities for this sort of thing to happen.

I give it a 3.5 out of 5, and the reasons I didn't rate it higher are mostly just my personal preferences. I feel like there might have been better resolution of the relationship between Lyla and Will, and some of the characters could have been fleshed out a bit more. But Parker's description of a doomsday cult, right down to showing how the members couldn't even realize they were in a cult, was great, and far scarier than any Friday the 13th movie I've ever seen.

I picked this book up again, even though I suspected I'd tried it before--yep, in 2013. Didn't finish it then, but I did this time and even enjoyed reading it. Never having been in a cult, I don't know if it's an accurate portrayal of such a community, but it certainly was plausible. Lyla is a strong character who has to bravely pit her own contradictory thoughts against Pioneer, who usually tells them all what to think.

Great book. Thought-provoking, and a serious page turner toward the end.

An interesting YA thriller that explores the community dynamics of a modern day cult. Narrorated by one of the Community's teenage girls, we follow along she prepares for the near-future apocalypse, but not everything is as it appears. Can she trust the Community's profit?