The Project: A Novel

By Courtney Summers

The Project is a pulls-no-punches story from New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award winning author Courtney Summers, about an aspiring young journalist determined to save her sister no matter the cost.

The #1 Indie Next Pick and winner of the International Thriller Writers Award.

BELIEVE HIM, BETRAY HER

1998: Six-year-old Bea doesn’t want a sister but everything changes when Lo is born early. Small and frail, Lo needs someone to look out for her. Having a sister is a promise, Mom says—one Bea’s determined not to break.

2011: A car wreck, their parents dead. Lo would’ve died too if not for Lev Warren, the charismatic leader of The Unity Project. He’s going to change the world and after he saves Lo’s life, Bea wants to commit to his extraordinary calling. Lev promises a place for the girls in the project, where no harm will ever come to them again . . . if Bea proves herself to him first.

2017: Lo doesn’t know why Bea abandoned her for The Unity Project after the accident, but she never forgot what Bea said the last time they spoke: We’ll see each other again. Six years later, Lo is invited to witness the group’s workings, meet with Lev, and—she hopes—finally reconnect with her sister. But Bea is long gone, and the only one who seems to understand the depths of this betrayal is Lev. If it’s family Lo wants, he can make her a new promise . . . if she proves herself to him first.

Powerful, suspenseful and heartbreaking, The Project follows two sisters who fall prey to the same cult leader—and their desperate fight back to one another.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Feb 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9781250105745

Courtney Summers

Courtney Summers is the bestselling and critically acclaimed author of several novels for young adults, including Cracked Up to Be, All the Rage and Sadie. Her work has been released to multiple starred reviews, received numerous awards and honors--including the Edgar Award, John Spray Mystery Award, Cybils Award, Odyssey Award, and International Thriller Award--and has been recognized by many library, 'Best Of' and Readers' Choice lists. She lives and writes in Canada.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

1998

She’s at Mrs. Ruthie’s house, eating one of Mrs. Ruthie’s peanut butter cookies, staring out Mrs. Ruthie’s living room window and waiting for her parents to come home.

From here, Bea can see her house with all its lights off and the front door locked. The wooden swing hanging from the tree in the front yard rocks idly in the summer breeze. The driveway is empty. All of this makes her stomach hurt, but not enough to abandon the cookie, so yummy and so soft. She wants to be where the action is—at least that’s what she heard her father say when he left her with Mrs. Ruthie. Bea made it no easy feat, screaming and clutching at his legs, a wild thing, while Mrs. Ruthie watched, aghast. (She was very relieved when the tantrum deescalated into woeful sniffles and that was when the peanut butter cookies appeared.)

Her father kneeled in front of Bea and gave her a kiss.

I’d take you if I could, Buzz. One of his many nicknames for her. Bea, Bee, Busy-Bea, Buzz. She awaited a promise—Mom and I will tuck you in tonight—but he made none. He was going to the hospital. A little sister was waiting there, much earlier than expected. There was supposed to be one more calendar picture to go.

Bea is six years old, old enough to know what a big sister is. Her best friend, Ellen, is a big sister and she’s seen plenty of them on TV. She understands it means that she came first, and if being a big sister were only that, it would be easy enough. But there’s something else about it that feels harder to accept; she sees Ellen, and those girls on TV, as slightly outside the spotlight, little more than an afterthought. Bea doesn’t want to be a big sister. She’s been the one most loved by her parents and always wants to be the one her parents love the most.

---

She spends an uncomfortable night in Mrs. Ruthie’s guest room. Mrs. Ruthie doesn’t know how to say good night to her like her parents do, and the next morning when her father comes to pick her up, tired and strained, Bea hits him in the side like she did when she was three and he was saying something she didn’t want to hear. He holds her wrists gently in his hands and says, We don’t hit people, Bea, you know that. She starts to cry. He lets go of her wrists and just holds her, asks her what the matter is. You left me with Mrs. Ruthie and you forgot my bear and I don’t want a sister, is what she wants to say but doesn’t. He thanks Mrs. Ruthie and carries Bea back to the house. When he lets her down at the threshold, she runs to the baby’s room and there’s no baby there and she’s very relieved. She calls for her mother, but her mother isn’t there either.

They’re at the hospital, Dad tells her, where the action is.

They meet Mom in the waiting room and Bea is confused because she still looks like she has a baby in her. Mom gives Busy-Bea a hug and waits for Bea to say something honey-sweet but Bea can’t. Let’s go see your new sister, her mother finally says, and Bea yells, I don’t want a sister! and sits on the floor with her arms crossed and her lip jutted out. Her parents exchange helpless looks over her head. Dad finally picks her up, but Bea wants to be carried by Mom. Mom can’t carry her because she’s sore and stitched-up from the birth.

Just one more reason to hate the new baby.

They keep her sister in a special place. At least that’s how her parents describe it to her. It’s because she couldn’t wait to get here and see you, they say. Sure. When Bea thinks special, she thinks of things that are pretty pastel and glitter-adorned, but the room her parents lead her into—after she washes her hands—is cold and scary. They take her to a see-through box and inside it is a little baby, tubes sticking all in and out of her, up her nose, kept in place by tape that barely seems able to hug newborn skin.

It’s so upsetting, Bea starts to cry.

---

It’ll be hard, having a new baby, Mom tells her when they’re in the family area, which cannot disguise the hospital of itself. They sit on a threadbare couch, Bea tucked against her mother’s side, her head rested against her mother’s swollen breasts. It’ll be hard, you having a sister. Bea doesn’t want to hear this. She wants to hear that it will be easy and nothing will change.

I hope, Mom continues, you’ll still have room to love your father and me.

A question forms in Bea’s eyes and her mother explains how different it is, the connection between siblings. It’s not like what Bea has with Mom and Dad. Having a sister, Mom says, is a place only the two of them will share, made of secrets they never have to say aloud—but if they did, it would be in a language only the two of them could speak.

Having a sister is a promise no one but the two of you can make—and no one but the two of you can break.

When they go back to the cold and scary room, Bea studies the baby. She’s so tiny and new. The baby seems to sense family near, her impossibly small limbs twitching a little in their direction. Mom and Dad each have a hand on either of Bea’s shoulders. Her father asks if Bea would like to name the baby. Bea wonders for a long time if she wants to when suddenly, a name finds her like lightning, in a voice that isn’t her own—as if it came from that place her mother just told her about, spun of secrets yet to be shared. The beginning of a language only the two of them can speak. A promise.

2011

Bea stands over the body of her little sister. Tubes run everywhere in and out of her, kept in place by flimsy hospital tape and tethered to machines whose rhythmic, persistent noises offer the only proof of life. A ventilator helps her to breathe.

Breathes for her, Bea corrects herself.

Because Lo is not breathing on her own.

The parts of Lo that are visible beneath all the hospital’s trappings look like bruised fruit—but the kind you throw away, the kind you can’t even cut open to find pieces to save. Bea reaches out, letting her palm hover over the top of Lo’s hand. She’s afraid to touch her, afraid any contact she makes will disturb Lo’s tenuous connection to life.

And you are not allowed to die.

She was at the movies with Grayson Keller when it happened. The Thing. A doomed team at an Antarctic outpost who didn’t know better than to leave well enough alone splashed across the screen while Grayson’s hand was up her shirt and then, despite her best efforts, down her pants. She’s not sure what part of the movie was on when the semi crashed into her parents’ SUV, killing them both on impact, and she doesn’t know if the credits were rolling by the time they got the Jaws of Life to pull Lo from the wreckage. She’d turned her phone off, as the theater so kindly asked everyone to do, and forgot to turn it back on again. Then Grayson took her to a party where she made sure he saw her up against a wall with another boy, one who let her guide his hands where they felt best and trespassed nowhere further.

On the walk home, close to midnight, she thought it was strange her parents hadn’t texted her. Sure, she was older than having a curfew so it was nothing they had to do, but Bea likes to be where the action is and now, more than it ever used to, that makes Mom and Dad worry.

When she reached the house, the driveway was empty.

The front door was locked and the lights were off.

---

She buried her parents alone because it couldn’t wait. She hopes she did it well enough. Mrs. Ruthie was a big help and now she’s spending her days trying to track down their great-aunt Patty, the only living relative Bea and Lo have on their (dead) mother’s side. They’ve never met but Patty should probably know this happened.

---

There’s so much wrong with Lo now that what the accident did isn’t going to be what kills her. It’s the infection she’s gotten since. The doctors have met it with every antibiotic they have and Lo is full of so much fluids, her fingers and arms and feet and face swell. Today, when Bea steps into the hospital, a nurse tells her to stay the night if she can stand it. Bea can’t stand it.

Stay anyway, the nurse tells her.

Lo was a strange kid; her whole childhood foreign to Bea, lacking all the magical impulses of her own. Bea ran toward the world without looking back and Lo couldn’t seem to head in any direction without the assurance of a point of return. When she was six, Lo would wake up in the night crying with her sheets soaked through and go to Bea about it, never Mom or Dad. She always looked so pitiful, Bea couldn’t be mad.

I had a nightmare, Lo would say in one breath while begging Bea not to tell anyone she’d wet the bed in the next. Bea didn’t have the heart to tell Lo that Mom and Dad knew—who else was doing the laundry? Still, they’d change the sheets together and clean Lo up, and Bea would tuck her back into bed, trying, unsuccessfully, to get to the root of whatever terrified her sister awake so she could make it stop. One night after Bea put her to bed, Lo looked at Bea with wide eyes and asked her if she was ever afraid of all the things she didn’t know could happen to her. Bea told Lo no. She only believed in things she could see.

Lo wants to be a writer.

Bea is tormented by all the stories her sister will never get the chance to tell.

---

Bea goes to the hospital chapel where no one is, the journey comprised of one halting step in front of the other until it comes to an end. She collapses in front of the altar and the cross, pulled down by the weight of her grief, and she weeps.

I’ll do anything, she says to the ground because she doesn’t know where else to look.

I’ll do anything.

She lies down right there, her eyes bloodshot, her cheeks slick with tears, the skin around her lips and nose breaking away from her, rubbed raw and sore.

God, she whispers and it’s all she whispers, over and over and over again. God, I’ll do anything. Please, God …

And then He appears.

PART ONE

SEPTEMBER 2017

I woke to the promise of a storm. It wasn’t in the air but I felt it in my bones. Sunlight edged the corners of my covered window and if I’d told anyone to pack an umbrella, they would have told me I was crazy because when I threw the curtains wide, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. But my body never lies and by the time I get to the train station, it’s raining.

Damn.

I slowly raise my eyes from my lap, unclenching my fingers from fists. My cab driver is leaned forward, staring through the windshield at the dark gray shroud overhead. I dig my wallet out of my pocket and fumble for some bills, passing them over the seat before getting out. The first few drops of rain land cold against my skin and the downpour starts in earnest the moment I’m safely through the automatic doors. I turn to watch the people who didn’t get so lucky as they scramble for cover.

Fuck’s sake, a woman mutters as she fumbles in, drenched, dragging two miserable toddlers alongside her, a boy and girl. The boy starts to cry.

I face the station and check the noticeboard against the wall. I’m ten minutes early; no delays. A relief, though not in terms of arrival. When I close my eyes, I see the mess of blankets atop the bed I forced my aching body from, awaiting me.

I turn and stumble into a human wall, a man. Or a boy. I’m not so sure. He might be a little older than me, maybe a little younger. Time has yet to stake a claim on him in any definable way. His eyes widen just slightly at the sight of my face.

Do I know you? he asks.

The apples of his cheeks are a fevered red against his pale white skin, and there are dark circles under his brown eyes, like he hasn’t known sleep in any recent sense of the word. He has a greasy mop of curly black hair and he’s very thin. I’ve never seen him before and I like the way he’s looking at me less and less, so I sidestep him, leaving him to his mistake.

I know you, he says at my back.

I join the crowd gathering at my platform. I hate the preboarding jostle, of finding myself amid an impatient collective that has lost all sense of assigned seating. Soon, I’m surrounded by twitchy passengers, their shoulders touching my shoulders, elbows touching my elbows. I press my lips together and close my eyes, rubbing my hands together. I love wasting a day off at the doctor’s office for my annual diagnosis of still kicking, whatever that means.

Whoever will lose his life for my sake will find it.

I still at the strangeness of the words, at the newly unwelcome familiarity of the voice they belong to. I open my eyes and glance beside me to see if anyone else heard, but if they have, they do what I don’t, keeping their faces pointed down the tracks, awaiting the train. I decide to do the same, ignoring the heavy presence behind me until there’s a push against my back, and those words again—but closer.

Whoever will lose his life for my sake will—

I face him. "Look, would you back the fuck off—"

You’re Lo, he says.

It stuns me into silence. His eyes broker no argument, more certain of me than I’ve ever been of myself. Before I can ask him how he knows my name, where he ever could have heard it, he opens his mouth once more. The rumble of the oncoming train drowns him out, but I read his lips: Find it. He grasps my arm and moves me aside to push through the disgruntled travelers standing between him and the edge of the platform. The edge of the platform and the …

Hey, I say at his back. Hey!

No one sees him until he’s made a clean jump onto the tracks and then everyone sees him and they all watch, waiting for what he’ll do next.

There’s still time, someone yells.

There’s still time. Maybe he just had to get this close to the other side to realize it was there all along because sometimes that’s the moment life brings you to. But more often than not, it feels like it’s this one: you lie down on the tracks and the train is coming.

The boy, trembling, lifts his head to be sure.

I turn away, my heart pounding, and force myself back through all the bodies until I’m free of the immediate crowd, only to be trapped by another greater swell of onlookers.

One of them screams, Don’t do it! But it’s already done.

OCTOBER 2017

I’ve been answering Paul Tindale’s phone, replying to Paul Tindale’s emails, scheduling Paul Tindale’s appointments and getting Paul Tindale’s coffee for exactly one year. Lauren brings this to my attention—as if I wasn’t already acutely aware—when I arrive at the SVO office, eight a.m. as usual, balancing breakfast in my arms. I artfully arrange the assortment of bagels, croissants and donuts on the kitchen island and watch as she plucks a pastry from the center of my masterpiece, fucking with the whole aesthetic. She’s flawless as always: black hair knotted into a messy top bun; large, black-rimmed glasses a stylish interruption across her face; her signature merlot lipstick perfectly complementing her golden-brown skin. She says, Happy anniversary, newbie, ahead of her first delicate bite before wandering away.

Low-rolling thunder sounds over the building, a precursor to a greater storm. I grab a chocolate croissant and make my way to my desk tucked in the corner directly outside Paul’s office. I pass a row of cubes to get there, empty for now, but in another hour, the dissonant sounds of keyboard clatter and office banter will float over dividing walls. It’s a small space but SVO makes good use of it on account of having such a small staff. Two years ago, Paul founded the magazine out of pocket, envisioning a place for radical perspectives and bold new voices. He’s been paying for it ever since. He’s hoping a few out-of-the-box choices on his part—establishing outside of NYC, pushing premium content—will eventually pay off and get him acquired by a publisher that can pull him back into the city while retaining total control over his vision. For now, it’s respectably fledgling and it’s exciting waiting for the moment we take off and fly, knowing that when it happens, I’ll get to say I was part of it.

I log in to my desktop and check his Google calendar. He’s got something at lunch, but it doesn’t say what. After that, two conference calls with potential sponsors.

The phone on my desk rings. I pick it up.

"SVO. Paul Tindale’s office."

After twenty seconds, there’s no response—just the faint sound of someone breathing. I look to Lauren, rolling my eyes.

Breather? she asks.

I hang up. I’m so sick of this shit. Who did he piss off this month?

"Who doesn’t he piss off?"

I close his calendar and open up the feedback inbox next, sorting hate mail from constructive criticism, and, every so often, a compliment or two. I’ve just deleted a message that says Paul Tindale is a real asshole when he makes his entrance, clapping his hands together. Hustle harder, folks. His rallying cry. I still remember the heady thrill I got the first time I witnessed the morning ritual I’d read about—and memorized—from his New York Times profile.

Paul Tindale: Any Truth, Any Cost.

He winks at Lauren and raps his knuckles against my desk as he passes, says, Straight up, Denham, which means coffee. I make my way to the kitchen and put the percolator on, trying to ignore the flush of embarrassment his lack of anniversary-acknowledgment inspires. I couldn’t believe it when the Paul Tindale caught me at the end of his public lecture at Columbia University. I’d braved NYC for the first time on my own just to see it, and I was—for once in my life—immediately rewarded: he asked me to work for him. Paul made a name for himself in his early twenties by connecting the dots on a series of cold cases, ultimately uncovering a still-active serial rapist who just so happened to be a rising star in the NYC political scene—then made an even bigger name for himself by exposing every bigwig who knew and helped cover it up. I said yes on the spot, thinking it was as close to a movie as my life was ever going to get. Now I’ve been answering his phone, replying to his emails, scheduling his appointments and making his coffee for exactly one year.

---

Arthur Lewis is Paul’s twelve o’clock. He arrives wearing the storm, his clothes soaked through. I immediately understand it as something he’s subjected himself to on purpose; a way for the world to bear witness to his pain. His suit hangs heavily off his frame, reminding me of a boy playing dress-up in his dad’s clothes, though this man is long past his boyhood. Rain collects in the harsh lines of his ruddy face and plasters his thinning black hair to his forehead. His red-eyed gaze travels over the room with a certainty belied by his pitiful demeanor. It’s an odd juxtaposition, his being so out of place and still somehow looking like there’s no place else he’s supposed to be. This is the first time I’ve seen Arthur in over a month. A series of condolences float through my mind, all of them offensively lacking. It doesn’t matter anyway, because when Arthur shuffles over to my desk, the black hole of his grief steals my voice away.

I didn’t tell Paul I was at the station the day Jeremy died. Didn’t tell him even after he told me Arthur was Jeremy’s dad. Arthur, who shows up at the office every now and then to grab lunch with Paul. He’s always been nice to me.

After it happened, I was haunted. I lay in my bed at night and replayed the moment over and over: the rain and the train, Jeremy saying my name, the slow forming of words on his lips—Find it.—and the feel of his hand on my shoulder as he gently moved me aside for his own ending. It was a relief when his connection to Arthur revealed itself because I knew, then, I must’ve been a story his father told him that Jeremy couldn’t quite shake. Girl with a face like mine. The only remaining question was what to do with the story Jeremy gave me. Tell it to Paul? Let Paul tell it to Arthur?

There’s black-painted lettering on the stark white wall of SVO’s office:

ALL GOOD STORIES SERVE A PURPOSE.

I realized mine served none.

So I didn’t tell Paul.

Arthur blinks, dazed as the wounded, but before either of us can say a word, Paul emerges from his office. The contrast between the two of them is almost obscene. Paul’s face hasn’t hurt his career any, which is something I’d never say to him. Even in his forties, he has a rugged handsomeness that, when he was younger, they called beautiful. He’s white with thick, dark blond hair gelled back from his face and a neatly kept beard taking up its lower half. There are hints of middle age at the corners of his eyes and mouth suggesting a life well lived outside. His body is in the kind of shape that suggests it too. He might as well be the sunrise to Arthur’s gloaming and it makes it painfully uncomfortable to look at them both.

Art, Paul says, his forehead creasing. Hey.

Arthur loses himself in Paul’s tenderness, reaching his hands out to his old friend. It becomes a scene: Paul folds Arthur into his arms, acting as a shield between him and everyone else in the office who can’t seem to turn away. Arthur sobs, and the spectacle of him makes my stomach turn. Paul is easy about it, though, because Paul is easy about everything. He begins guiding Arthur into his office and then his eyes meet mine over the top of Arthur’s head. He asks me to pick them up lunch.

---

SVO shares the building with a bar and it’s possible Paul meant something liquid when he said lunch, but I head across the street to this trashy diner, Betty’s Kitchen, and pay for two to-go bowls of bacon mac because it’s the most comforting sounding thing on the menu and maybe Arthur needs something like that, if he can eat at all. The place is busier than it usually is; people seeking refuge from the weather for the cost of a dollar pop. I wait for my order by the door, leaning against the noticeboard on the wall with my eyes shut, flyers fluttering against my shoulder with the arrival of each new customer. Forks and knives against plates. Murmured conversations happening over them. The television in the corner plays Days of Our Lives, which makes me think of Patty, who missed more church than episodes even though there was no one she loved more than Jesus.

Mommy, her face.

I open my eyes.

Mommy, what’s on her face?

The tiny, inquisitive voice comes from my left, and I turn to it and find a young girl—maybe four or so—staring up at me from the table she’s seated at with her mother. She has wild, curly hair pulled into tight pigtails that look like pom-poms on either side of her head.

Mommy, she says again, while looking right at me. What’s on her face?

Her mother finally looks up from her phone. What, baby? Then she follows her daughter’s gaze to mine, her expression immediately desperate, begging me for an out. She wants me to pretend I didn’t hear it or, barring that, explain it kindly to her daughter for both their sakes. I look to the little girl and her eyes widen. My undivided attention and its absence of warmth unsettles her to the point her lower lip trembles and she starts to

Reviews for The Project

[fionaanne · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Incredibly well-constructed and written. I really needed more of the protagonist's rationalization and emotional state at the end of part 2 though; I just wasn't buying it, too abrupt.

[carolesrandomlife · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

My feelings are a little mixed with this book. I thought it was okay but I was never really hooked by the story. At one point I actually considered not finishing the book but decided to stick with it in hopes I would start enjoying it more. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t dislike the books but I didn’t really like it all that much either.This story is told from two points of view. Lo survived an accident that killed both of her parents as a teenager. She stayed with her Aunt for a while but she has mostly been on her own. She wants to get noticed as a journalist and thinks that the story to get her noticed is The Unity Project, which happens to be the mystery she wants to unravel for herself. Lo’s sister joined The Unity Project Years ago and she wants to know what happened to her. The second point of view is Lo’s sister, Bea. Bea joined The Unity Project right after the accident that killed her parents and left her sister clinging to life. She was completely taken in with Lev, the leader of The Unity Project. It was interesting to see her life inside the cult and look at the decisions that she made.The timeline does jump around a bit so I found that I really had to pay attention to keep up. I never connected with any of the characters in this book so I never felt invested in the story. I honestly didn’t care what happened to any of them which is why I considered not finishing the book. There were a couple of twists in the story but none of them really grabbed me. There was nothing bad about this book but it just never clicked for me.Therese Plummer and Emily Schaffer did a great job with the narration. I thought that they added a lot to the story and the quality of their narration was one of the reasons that I decided to stick with the book. I wouldn’t hesitate to listen to more of their work in the future.I think that a lot of readers will enjoy this one more than I did. While I don’t see myself recommending it to others, I would still encourage others to give it a try if it sounds interesting.I received a digital review copy of this book from St. Martin’s Press via NetGalley and borrowed a copy of the audiobook from my local library.

[heatherlinc · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

“The Project” was such a disappointment after reading “Sadie” by the same author, which blew me away. I was expecting a dark, emotional thriller. Instead I got a novel where very little happened. I never connected with Lo. She was weak and annoying and her sister, Bea, wasn’t much better. In fact none of the characters were appealing. The plot was slow and boring, especially the second half. I usually find novels which focus on cults fascinating but this one was meh.

[roses7184_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

If you know my reading tastes, then you’ll know that I am always in to read anything that has to do with cults. The fact that an individual can be so charismatic and intuitive, and then use those skills to create something so sinister, is fascinating to me. My favorite kinds of stories are always about those on the inside looking out. Those who were lured in, and then realized that they had to escape. So when I saw the premise of The Project, I knew that it was going on my reading list. It hit all those little reader buttons inside my brain, and I was thrilled. Perhaps my excitement was a little too high though, because this book and I had some problems with one another.Starting with the kudos, I have to say that I was immediately won over by the relationship between Bea and Lo. Although it wasn’t ever “perfect”, what sisterly bond ever is? Their connection felt realistic to me. I felt for Lo so deeply, as she tried to get back the one person that she had left in this world. I struggled not to tear up as her only living relative constantly ignored her, and pushed her away, in favor of the cult that ensnared her. In the same vein, I had so much love for the rawness that was Lo’s character. Not only had she lost so much around her, but she’d lost a portion of herself after the accident. I understood her pain, saw her fault lines, and wanted to comfort her.It is the pace of this story that I truly struggled with. The first third, where Lo was digging into the history of the The Project, was perfect. I’m generally not a fan of alternating points of view, but in this case I couldn’t get enough of flashing back to Bea’s story and slowly uncovering what was really going. As the book neared the middle though, things drastically slowed down. This is also the point where I started to feel like Lo’s character was sliding uncomfortably into someone to pity instead of support. I truly felt like she had been built up to be someone who, despite everything, was fairly strong. Or at least that she put up a good front. Which made the latter half of this book extremely upsetting for me.The other issue was that I never truly believed in Lev Warren. As a cult leader, I expected him to be larger than life. Someone who others were enraptured by, and wanted to follow. Instead, he felt a bit hollow to me. Like the idea of what a leader of this kind should be, without the actual flesh on the outside. I had a hard time believing that anyone would want to give their lives up for him, much less that he would be able to sway someone like Lo to his side. It felt manufactured, and I can’t deny that this made me sad. I was fairly sure I knew how this book was going to end by the mid point, and I was right. So I also felt like I missed out on any surprises.I’m rambling, I know. My feelings about this story are all over the place. On the one hand, The Project is excellently written. Anyone who has read Courtney Summers’ stories before knows exactly what I mean. Bea and Lo were real people to me, and I was invested in their story. On the other hand, this book just didn’t deliver what I was hoping for. Maybe it’s because Sadie, Summers’ last book, completely broke my heart but this one fell flat for me.

[rmarcin-630843 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Two sisters, a charismatic man, a cult The Project tells a story of two sisters, bound together by love and tragedy. Bea doesn’t want to be a big sister, but when her sister, Lo, arrives, Bea becomes Lo’s champion, helping her fight to survive. When tragedy strikes 13 years later, Bea once again steps in to push her sister to survive. In doing so, she calls on God for help. When Bea sees Lev, She mistakenly believes he is a savior. This begins Bea’s entry into the cult known as The Project. Lo works in publishing, but is only a secretary/assistant when she wishes to be a writer. She wants to do a story on Lev and The Project, and tries to infiltrate the cult for information. She searches for her sister, Bea, but is told Bea has left The Project. While investigating the cult, Lo is pulled under the spell of Lev. The story culminates in Lo having to make choices to save her family and sacrifice so much to learn the truth. This is a quick read, but powerful in the bonds of family and the allure of cults to those who are vulnerable.

[needmoreshelves · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Probably more like a 3.5 - some parts were very, very good (Lev, the creepy cult leader, was incredibly charismatic, so very easy to see how young women would get drawn in), but there were some jumps in time and logic that made the story just not quite fully realized.

[jmchshannon · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Courtney Summers is an author known for her biting commentary on one aspect of modern culture. In her latest novel, The Project, she tackles those who prey on the grieving and the lost. She does so with her trademark precision and emotion-laden prose.The Project flips between two sisters, past and present. Bea tells her story in the past, remembering the birth of her sister as well as the tragic accident that killed their parents and endangered her sister’s life. From there, we see how Lev Warren and The Unity Project fill the void left by her parents and assuage the rage and guilt she feels after the accident.Lo’s story is in the present, five years after the accident, at which time she just wants to talk to her sister again and make a name for herself as a journalist. Witnessing a suicide one morning on her way to work is the catalyst for everything that follows, as the grieving father insists The Unity Project, the very same organization that seemingly swallowed her sister without a trace, is at fault for his son’s suicide. What follows is an emotional cat-and-mouse game wherein you begin to question The Project, Lo, Bea, and everything else.Your confusion stems from the fact that The Project is not inherently evil. Their entire purpose, at least on paper, is to cater to the needs of those living without – opening up centers for the homeless and destitute, offering a place of refuge for teens with no other place to go. Their entire business plan is to help others, and they do so without pontificating or without requiring anything from those seeking their services. It is difficult to find fault with any organization so devoted to helping those in need.This help even extends to Lo, who, we discover, never properly dealt with the trauma of her accident and her sister’s abandonment. As she dives deeper into the organization and meets with Lev Warren, founder and head of The Project, she begins to undercover her longing for love, support, and family. Except, as Lo begins to understand The Project’s attraction, readers learn from Bea’s story that The Project has a darker side.The Project is a novel that certainly keeps you guessing as to The Project’s real intentions. Your feelings about it shift as much as Lo’s does. This lack of a villain leaves you off-balance and uncomfortable as you search for a source of your unease.While not as bitter as some of Ms. Summers’ previous novels, The Project makes up for it in emotion. Lo is truly a tragic figure, abandoned by her only remaining family member at the same time she must come to grips with losing her parents. The scars from that accident are not just physical but cleave to her identity in a way that not even she realizes. At the same time, we understand Bea’s need to escape, to seek solace in a higher purpose, to make sense of her world which so suddenly and violently changed. Both sisters must deal with survivor’s remorse, and you are simply along for the ride.The Project is Ms. Summers’ answer to the oft-asked question of how someone would voluntarily enter a cult-type organization. Through Bea and Lo, we see the appeal. However, just like with the sisters, Ms. Summers helps us understand that when it comes to cults, there are no easy answers.

[miss.mesmerized · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Lo Denham has lost her parents in a car accident in which she herself was also seriously injured and which marked her with a scar for life. Her sister Bea, six years her senior, is the last bit of family she has, but she has not been able to contact her for months. It must be The Unity Project’s fault, the sect Bea joined when she couldn’t make sense of the loss she experienced anymore. When a man claims that The Unity Project killed his son, Lo decides to take a closer look and to get nearer to the charismatic leader Lev Warren with the aim to expose the group’s doings in the magazine she works for. However, Lo is not prepared for the experiences she makes there.Courtney Summers narrates the story from different points of view at different points in time, thus we get both sisters’ perspective on the highly emotional events in their lives. This also creates a lot of suspense since from the beginning, there are gaps which need to be filled to make sense. It also underlines the different characters of Lo and Bea which, nevertheless, does not hinder them from being fascinated by the same man. The crucial point is most definitely the psychological impact a major tragic event such as the loss of the parents can have on young persons. Coming to grips with such a stroke of fate which does not make sense and is hard to understand is not only very hard but also makes people fragile and prone to others who are eager to exploit their situation. The leader of the group is surely an interesting character, it is easy to see how he manages to win people for his project and how he can make them follow him blindly. In this way, the novel also cleverly portrays the mechanism which work behind sects and which make it difficult to immediately see through them and more importantly to leave them.I thoroughly enjoyed the novel due to the multifaceted characters and the message beyond the suspenseful and entertaining plot.

[fastforward-46127 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

My expectations for this book were pretty high given how much I liked the author's previous book, Sadie. Both books involve storylines with two sisters. While Sadie was a gripping and haunting read with characters I felt invested in, this book missed the mark and was more of an average read rather than something special.After surviving a car crash that killed her parents, Lo Denham goes to live with her aunt. Her sister, Bea, is old enough to take care of Lo, but instead joins The Unity Project which has garnered praise for its charitable works. However, Lo believes it's a cult and is determined to expose the group and be reunited with Bea. But things go topsy turvy when Lo meets with The Unity Project's founder, Lev Warren.I find the subject of cults fascinating and so I'm baffled why The Unity Project was kinda boring to me. The potential for an interesting story was there but yet it managed to be lackluster. It's pretty much the same case with the sisters. They have the setup of an intriguing background but yet I didn't find myself caring much about the either one. Neither character appeared fully fleshed out and there were times throughout the story when I didn't understand their actions and motivations.At the very least the author's writing talent was present, but the story as a whole wasn't a winner for me.Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an advance copy! All thoughts expressed are my honest opinion.