Jesus Freaks: A True Story of Murder and Madness on the Evangelical Edge

The trouble with this book is that Lattin can't decide if he wants to write a true crime book or an expose of a cult. There are ways to balance these beautifully -- Jon Krakauer did it in Under the Banner of Heaven. But Jesus Freaks really falls short. I felt like I never got enough information about the murder/suicide or enough analysis of the cult. It was more like a stew of facts set on my plate without much connection to each other, and there was no analysis of how these things happen to make the book feel whole.

Fascinating subject matter, and a terrifying story, but I wish it had been more cohesive.

Very much a troubling story of a cult called The Family. I had thought it would be a simple story of murder with some twisted version on Scripture, but this was one heck of a cult that believed in pretty much nothing but using sex to control its members. It got to be difficult reading through this at times, especially on how open they were with having sex with children, even publishing a story on it complete with pictures!

The guy who ended up defecting, who was raised like this, is the one who was unable to handle his years inside of this cult, and went after one of the women who molested him. In all honesty, I can't blame the guy for what he did, while I don't approve of it. This is not a book for the faint of heart, and it definitely show more cast a bad light on the rest of us Christians when folks commit such awful things in the name of God. show less

This is not the easiest book to form an opinion on. The topic is probably one of the most heinous things to be written about - the systematic sexual, emotional and physical abuse of children under their brand of Christianity.

The writing itself is average, but the topic overcomes the sub-par writing being such a... shocking time line of events which numerous people thought were acceptable under the guise of their religion: incest, paedophilia, child pornography, adultery and corporal punishment are all prevalent.

There are strange gaps in the book's storyline that are puzzling, and distract from the on going disaster of the children's lives and the at times seemingly escalating depravity of the adult members of the group. If not for such show more gaps I would rate it higher.

Possibly the most distasteful and deplorable part of the entire book is that despite all the actions which have taken place, all the abuse, sexual and physical, the entire leadership has legally walked away clean as they covered their tracks, continually changed their names and moved from country to country.

These people are, basically, evil.

They used religion as a means to exercise control over others to abuse them.

This is a book about that. show less

Interesting subject. Unremarkable writing, with some odd gaps. I don't know enough about the story to know how accurate this is.