March 26, 1997: Heaven's Gate suicides.

As you may have noticed, I've been making an effort lately to highlight some of the books I've covered in the past. After all, we don't want to be all new, all the time, right? That gets boring.

So, yeah. Today is the anniversary of the last nine of the Heaven's Gate suicides. Wow, what with yesterday's Triangle Shirtwaist Fire post, I am picking some hugely depressing anniversaries to cover. [NOTE TO SELF: FIND A FUN TOPIC TOMORROW.]

So, CULTS.

I wrote about Eireann Corrigan's The Believing Game over at Kirkus a few months back, and among other things, it's a hugely enjoyable look at how a cult could form:

The first half of the book—as Greer gets to know Addison and starts to give Joshua the side eye—is a slow build, but then, at a not-exactly-school-sanctioned-retreat with Joshua and a few other McCracken students, it takes a sharp left into Crazytown. That’s when the gloves come off, Greer knows she’s not imagining things, and Joshua gets nauseatingly creepier by the minute. 

And back in 2011, I wrote about Pam Bachorz' Drought, which is about an immortal religious group that is very definitely viewed as a cult by outsiders. So that's an interesting twist on the topic. I had some issues with the book, but as I said in my review, it's one that would make for good book group conversation:

It raises questions about faith versus pragmatism versus faith tempered by pragmatism; about how religion can look when seen from the inside and out; about being protected versus being controlled; and about how being controlled is being controlled, regardless of the controller's motive.

Anyway, there are tons of other YA books that deal with cults and cult-like behavior, many of which I can't believe I haven't read. Most notably Micol Ostow's Family, but I know there are loads more.

Recommendations?