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Reviews
A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Hope, Deception, and Survival at Jonestown by Julia Scheeres
sconroy9697's review against another edition
5.0
This was so interesting. I didn't know anything about this sad story.
dinasamimi's review
4.0
What a truly insane story. I thought I knew a decent amount about Jonestown, but I was wrong. Loved that Scheeres writes through the lens of the congregants and takes a deep look into how these people were entrapped into Jim Jones's web of crazy. Quite the page turner.
marieintheraw's review
4.0
Jonestown is a thing that has pretty much always fascinated me, but this book is really well written and it's pretty heartbreaking at times.
danne789's review
5.0
This book blew my mind. The Jonestown Massacre took place a decade before I was born, so I really only knew superficially what happened. This book was a much deeper look for me. Reading what happened directly from survivors and victims was a lot. Jim Jones was a lot more manipulative than I had realized.
The author put this book together based on recordings, interviews, memoirs, and 50,000 pages of documents put together by the FBI. I really appreicate the depths the author went to in this book. I appreciated her notes on what happened to survivors after the massacre. I appreciated the way she blended narritive and her own notes.
If you're someone who wants more detail on Jim Jones and the lead up to the murder-suicides, I definitely recommend this book.
The author put this book together based on recordings, interviews, memoirs, and 50,000 pages of documents put together by the FBI. I really appreicate the depths the author went to in this book. I appreciated her notes on what happened to survivors after the massacre. I appreciated the way she blended narritive and her own notes.
If you're someone who wants more detail on Jim Jones and the lead up to the murder-suicides, I definitely recommend this book.
squirrelsohno's review
5.0
Let me begin this review by saying yeah, yeah, this really isn’t the type of book I normally read and review for my blog. In fact, this will probably be one of the stranger things you view here because non-fiction generally isn’t my thing after six years of political textbooks and memoirs about Presidents and Secretaries of State. The Jonestown deaths happened nine years before I was even born, but I’ve read all the books I can get my hands on about it because it is a moment in our past that we really should remember and reflect on, and that includes young women ages 18-30.
A THOUSAND LIVES by Julia Scheeres starts with a main point – the people who eventually died with the Peoples Temple in Jonestown did not join a cult. They thought they were joining a church that cared, a group of people who were genuine in their search of equality. What the victims wanted was something genuine and desirable – a world without discrimination and hate. Scheeres uses a mixture of documents collected from Jonestown and the Peoples Temple and firsthand accounts to piece together a story that reads like literary fiction while being all too real. The stories these people tell mix horrifying elements, control, and domination with hope for the future, hope for a better life. The way Scheeres tells the story of Jonestown is perfect, eloquent, and heartwrenching.
From the stories of scared teenagers looking for a second chance to elderly women who strove to be equal with the world around them, the stories in A THOUSAND LIVES will make you step back and think about your world and what you would do if you were in their shoes.
So yeah, this isn’t my usual blog fare. I mean, yeah, it says in my review policy section that I like books about cults, but I didn’t expect that I would ever post a review of a book about a cult on Book Brats. I never thought that many other people my age with my taste would want to read a book like this besides me. But do I think you should give it a shot.
“Those who do not remember history are bound to repeat it.” A quote that Jim Jones used to stir his people, but at the same time, a quote that is so true. If we don’t remember our past, we really are bound to make our mistakes all over again.
VERDICT: A stirring retrospective of a deranged leader and the fanaticism that lead to the deaths of hundreds of people looking for real change. A definite must read.
A THOUSAND LIVES by Julia Scheeres starts with a main point – the people who eventually died with the Peoples Temple in Jonestown did not join a cult. They thought they were joining a church that cared, a group of people who were genuine in their search of equality. What the victims wanted was something genuine and desirable – a world without discrimination and hate. Scheeres uses a mixture of documents collected from Jonestown and the Peoples Temple and firsthand accounts to piece together a story that reads like literary fiction while being all too real. The stories these people tell mix horrifying elements, control, and domination with hope for the future, hope for a better life. The way Scheeres tells the story of Jonestown is perfect, eloquent, and heartwrenching.
From the stories of scared teenagers looking for a second chance to elderly women who strove to be equal with the world around them, the stories in A THOUSAND LIVES will make you step back and think about your world and what you would do if you were in their shoes.
So yeah, this isn’t my usual blog fare. I mean, yeah, it says in my review policy section that I like books about cults, but I didn’t expect that I would ever post a review of a book about a cult on Book Brats. I never thought that many other people my age with my taste would want to read a book like this besides me. But do I think you should give it a shot.
“Those who do not remember history are bound to repeat it.” A quote that Jim Jones used to stir his people, but at the same time, a quote that is so true. If we don’t remember our past, we really are bound to make our mistakes all over again.
VERDICT: A stirring retrospective of a deranged leader and the fanaticism that lead to the deaths of hundreds of people looking for real change. A definite must read.
hayleybeale's review
5.0
This was an extraordinarily gripping story - despite the fact that I knew how it was going to end. Scheeres does a marvelous job of evoking the paranoia and fear (as well as the tight feeling of community) that led so many members of the Peoples Temple to mass suicide. Though Jim Jones is a central figure, the book is more about a handful of people who either survived Jonestown or who left journals. Using these primary sources, along with the tapes of meetings (including the last one), Scheeres gets right to the heart of the inevitability of this tragedy.
carolynrasp's review
dark
informative
sad
medium-paced
5.0
I love a good narrative non-fiction, especially one about one of the most well known cults. This was incredibly well researched and I learned a lot about how Jonestown came to be. The first hand accounts from survivors added so much. Some of it was VERY hard to read, especially at the end, but Scheeres did a good job of humanizing the victims and explaining why they joined and why they stayed.
modern_analog's review
4.0
I am incredibly interested in the psychology of faith. How did nearly 1,000 progressive Christian socialists go from joining a hippy-esque communal movement that preached racial equality, to being trapped in a jungle in Guyana, worshipping a controlling and paranoid drug-addled leader, ultimately killing themselves and their children by drinking Kool-aid spiked with cyanide?
If you're interested, this book will tell you. Well-researched using FBI files, survivor stories, and tapes the Temple leadership self-recorded to document their own existence, this book paints a picture of how a group of idealists ended up trapped by a charismatic and controlling leader in a hell on Earth so tangible that death seemed preferable.
If you're interested, this book will tell you. Well-researched using FBI files, survivor stories, and tapes the Temple leadership self-recorded to document their own existence, this book paints a picture of how a group of idealists ended up trapped by a charismatic and controlling leader in a hell on Earth so tangible that death seemed preferable.
sfrench95's review
5.0
*Worth the read, but you need to be in a good head space.* I did not know much about Jonestown. My heart broke through the entire book and for the people. The book is very informational and I found it very interesting. It usually takes me a couple of weeks to finish a non-fiction book, but I finished this one in 2 days.
stevem0214's review
5.0
Absolutly chilling!! Stephen King never wrote anything this scary, since this is real!! Give this one a read and get online and listen to the FBI Tape Q 042, "The Death Tape". This was Jim Jones' tape of the end...he's talking to the people while they kill themselves.