It’s Not a Cult by Lauren Danhof

Mona Awad’s All’s Well meets Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt in Lauren Danhof’s darkly humorous debut, in which a daughter races to save her mother from a dangerous cult before it’s too late.

Glinda Glass is truly trying her best. After dropping out of her graduate school program, she moves back to her childhood home with her mom—who has not only joined a cult, the Starlight Pioneer Society, but has also become enraptured by its charismatic and menacing leader, Arlon. Meanwhile, Glinda spends her days working in the Drench-the-Wench dunk booth at the local Renaissance fair with her only friend Troy—who may be falling in love with her.

When Glinda learns that the cult will be turning her family’s home into their commune, she decides to take matters into her own hands—by infiltrating the cult and taking it down from the inside. There, she realizes things are far more sinister than she could have ever imagined and that she must get her mom out from under the spell of Arlon by any means necessary.

But Glinda can’t do it on her own; to save her mother, she’ll have to confront her own history of trauma and grief and repair her relationships with her sisters and Troy, no matter the cost.