Forager is an engaging memoir of a childhood spent in a cult, each chapter containing a field note about a plant.

Thank Algonquin Books, #partner for the finished copy of Forager: Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult in exchange for my honest review.

I always love picking up memoirs because I love to get a glimpse into someone else’s life, especially someone who has had experiences drastically different from me. And of course, when I see the word “cult” involved, I’m even more inclined to pick it up because I’m just so fascinated by anyone who has lived in or been part of a cult.

Despite being raised in an abusive, ultra-religious cult where she was often left alone and to fend for herself outdoors, Michelle Dowd learned some incredible survival skills along the way. This book isn’t an easy read, especially in the first half where we see her being quite vulnerable as she relives those days back on the mountain where she was left isolated, having to fend for herself, or being subjected to emotional, physical and sometimes even sexual abuse. But what she was taught was to survive and that she did.

I loved how each chapter starts with a description of an edible plant and the plant’s purpose. I looked forward to these brief pauses from what was becoming a very raw and painful journey. But by the end of the book, I also realized it is these plants and this knowledge that helped Michelle survive. How powerful is that!

This isn’t going to be a book for everyone. It’s a coming-of-age story that is emotionally disturbing, heartbreaking and tough to read at times. But it’s also a story of survival and resilience, and for that, I’m glad I picked it up.

Title: Forager: Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult
Author: Michelle Dowd
Genre: True Crime, Science, Religion
Standalone or Series: Standalone
Rating: 3 Stars

Thank you to Algonquin for an advance copy of Forager.

Michelle grew up in Southern California, in a remote part of the Angeles National Forest that her family referred to as “The Field.” Here a group of people led by her Grandfather live in isolation and learn to prepare for doomsday. Following an extreme literal interpretation of the Bible and following a strict set of rules set forth in the patriarchal community, Michelle and the other kids are raised in a sterile and unloving environment. With nature guiding her, Michelle learns to rely on the land more than another person and finds the strength she needed to break free from the family holding her back.

Forager was a very interesting book. I mean, most books about cults are, right? It’s a fascinating look into humans and how differently people can view the world and how to survive it.

Michelle divides her experiences and story up with segments on specific plants that she grew up learning that were crucial to survival in some way or another and I found that to be a really cool way to integrate the parts of her life that ultimately saved her into the story of her very unfortunate and upsetting upbringing.

That being said, I did get a little lost or lose some interest when the plant segments went on a little longer than I found necessary. I picked Michelle’s book up solely for the true crime aspect of it, so for me there were moments where I found myself thinking okay that’s interesting but let’s get back to the cult portion of things. I do think because Michelle is so incredibly knowledgeable about plants that this book could bring a variety of readers in. I learned a lot about a subject that I hadn’t intended to and it is always cool to walk away from a book having learned something unexpected.

People love a good cult memoir, and Michelle Dowd uses her deep knowledge of and relationship with the natural world and the physical and spiritual nourishment that comes from knowing how to forage in order to craft such a memoir with a novel spin. Not only does she introduce us to the crucible of "The Field," which forged her, but she offers us a piece of that intimate nourishment with each new plant species. This book honors what it took for her to stay alive and to flourish beyond the where she was planted.

A lyrical account to the real life of Michelle Dowd.


This was very well written! I highly recommend this to people who search for books about Cults and true accounts.

Memoirs about leaving religious extremist groups or cults always have a high interest value for me. The narrative is framed with lessons from Dowd’s childhood about foraging and wilderness survival. The clear breaks from narrative to survival material highlight rather than detract from the structure of the memoir. Dowd highlights her early infatuation with language and that comes through in her writing style. Definitely a recommended read for fans of this genre.

As a cult book aficionado, I had to read this book. This one was quite interesting because it involved nature and living off the land. The author of the book was the granddaughter of the leader of the cult. This cult was based in the Angeles National Forest in California. There really wasn't a name for the group. They were a religious cult where men were superior to women. The men went on "Trips", which were traveling revivals. Sometimes these revivals were used for proselytizing and other times they had a circus act. The women stayed back at the "Field", which was where the church was located, or on the "Mountain" which was the home of the author and her family. They also had a campsite nearby that housed many of the boys involved in the cult. The book was very informative in that it discussed the flora that you could consume safely. It was also sad reading what the author had went through. It was a good book. Although, some of the things she wrote about could have been explained more.

As a general rule, I don't like to give star ratings to memoirs and autobiographies. Please take the star rating with a grain of salt.

'Forgarer' is very dense on multiple fronts. Dowd's writing style felt very layered and sweeping, sometimes looping back in on itself. The events of her life are often heavy, which I personally had to take breaks from in order to process. There were also long quotes from the Bible, which were the most difficult for me to parse through as I did not grow up in a Christian household and have had very limited experience with the Biblical stories referenced. All that to say, this book took me a long time to get through. There was just so much to digest and take in. A lot of it was relevant, either for the narrative of Dowd's life or to serve as complementary context and metaphor.

Like many other reviewers, I did pick up this book expecting there to be more information regarding the familial cult that Dowd endured. However, I don't think that this is the focus of her book. This is her story told with the relevant context of her upbringing, but the focus is still Dowd and her experiences, not the cult. If you want to read this book only for information about an obscure cult, I'd recommend you skip it.

At first, I really wasn't into this book. It felt like it relied a little too heavily on the foraging motif rather than the impact of life in a cult on a young woman and her family. But we got there.

It still feels weird to not like someone's memoir, but when the only evidence this 'cult' exists is from articles and interviews from Michelle alone, does this cult exist? Is this just a grab for money?

If cult experts, especially those that focus on the multiple ones in California know nothing about this so called cult, does it exist?

While I'm grateful to Algonquin for giving me a copy to review, I'm worried that they didn't do their research either.

For a memoir, this is very bare boned. Minimal information shared. Minimal actual foraging information. It's like she's still trying to protect a lot of people. Which I guess would make sense if she's scared for the people still involved, but it could also be to protect her lie?

Very sad, abusive childhood. As a mother, this book enraged me for the author. She wanted to protect her mother, who is still alive, but I don't think her mother deserves her protection. Starved, abused, and basically on her own, Michelle somehow manages to survive, and then thrive.

Thank you Netgalley and Algonquin Books for the ARC!

Forager is a memoir in which Michelle Dowd describes her upbringing in a survivalist cult that was led by her grandfather. She primarily discusses the survival skills she learned as a child and what led to her eventual decision to leave the cult.

A common complaint I see for I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy is that because Jennette chose to write from the perspective of the age she was at the time of the story she’s telling (for example, she tells the story of her birthday party when she was 6 from the perspective of her 6 year old self instead of providing the insight she now has as a 30 year old woman), the stories she shared from her childhood were limited and less compelling. I never understood why people disliked that choice. I think it really works in that book. But now that I’ve read Forager I completely understand why some people were bothered by that it. The stories that were shared in Forager felt so incredibly limited by the childlike voice the author decided to use. The writing is simplistic in what *I think* is an attempt to imitate a child’s way of thinking (I emphasized that I only *think* this because the writing style extended up to when she was 18) and honestly I found it grating. I kept hoping that she’d grow up within the story so the tone of the writing would change, but it never did.

Here’s my primary problem with this book: In the prologue Michelle Dowd wrote that she chose to withhold a lot of information because her mother requested it and she wants to protect and respect her family. She also said that she didn’t want to tell her grandfather’s, or anyone else’s story, but to only tell her own story. She didn’t even describe many of the most important beliefs that this cult held aside from the facts that they believed the world would end very soon and they believed her grandfather was a prophet (or something like that. Maybe he was the reincarnation of the messiah. I really don’t want to go back and check) who would live for hundreds of years. I think Forager suffered because of these choices. I don’t think it’s possible to write a compelling memoir about how you left an abusive cult headed by your family without being willing to HEAVILY criticize your family. She did talk about some of her parents’ and her grandfather’s abusive behaviors, but she held back from providing more information about why they are the way they are and what their history is within the cult. She especially didn’t talk enough about her grandfather’s history as a cult leader. By (mostly) only providing her limited perspective from her childhood without providing much context surrounding the cult or sharing at least a little bit from the life stories of the people in the cult she wrote a book that felt hollow and incomplete. And there were some important things that were mentioned in passing that she simply brushed over. I understand that writing a memoir doesn’t mean that a person needs to be willing to describe the details of everything they’ve ever experienced in their lives, but I think that this book wasn’t detailed enough.

I’ll end with this: I don’t think this Forager is well written in general. The structure is strange, not in a way that felt experimental and intentional, but in a way that made it simply seem badly written. I think I might’ve enjoyed reading Michelle Dowd’s story if it had been written by someone else.

In conclusion: I hated this. I don’t recommend it at all.

FORAGER is the harrowing account of Dowd’s escape from her family’s religious doomsday cult called the Field. Dowd grew up on a mountain in the Angeles National Forest of California preparing for the apocalypse. She was forced to practice forest survival skills and developed a deep understanding of the natural world which became extremely useful to her. Her adolescence was completely devoid of nurturing and she suffered from starvation, isolation, and emotional and sexual abuse. Dowd conscientiously details her troubled relationship with her family and explains how her curiosity is what led her on the path to freedom. I admire Dowd’s courage and strength for prioritizing her own life and sharing her story. Highly recommend for fans of The Glass Castle and Educated.

I could not finish enough of this book to be able to leave a comprehensive review, but I hope it finds its audience and I am grateful to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an advance copy.

I really enjoyed Forager, as it was not your standard "cult memoir," I liked the nature writing and how Dowd foraged to survive in the Field. It was brutal to read at times but very insightful.

Forager is a memoir about the author's experience growing up as part of The Field, a cult led by her own family. She is neglected, abused, and unloved by her parents, craving attention, affection, and even mere touch. Always inquisitive from a young age, Michelle isn't as "good" as some other children and frequently feels that she will be left behind at the end of the world while the rest of her family ascends to heaven, which is what her extremist cult aims to prepare for. Growing up in nature, Michelle is taught survival skills by her mother and a love for nature, learning to forage and survive on her own. As she becomes more and more disillusioned with her life in The Field, these survival skills are what will help her to escape, along with her own intellectual curiosity and critical thinking, which teach her to view the biblical stories she was taught in a different light.

This was such a touching memoir. I loved the author's focus on nature and the wonders of plants. The ending was incredibly strong and really tied things together. My only complaints are that a significant portion of the book in italics seemed to be scripture, which obviously is what justifications for things that happened in The Field were drawn from, but it was a bit excessive at times and I couldn't always tell what was scripture and what was interpretation from her grandfather. I wish I heard more of her own voice during those moments. And although I understand the focus on her life in the cult and her gradual escape, I do wish there was a little more information on what happened after she left. We jump immediately from her leaving to the present day, and it was a bit unsatisfying because I had so many questions about how she survived and adjusted to the world after that! I hope she'll consider writing a follow-up memoir.

Would likely be a great read for people who enjoyed Educated, and Cultish is a great complement for better understanding how this cult works. Finally, this book can be rather emotionally intense so I'll add a few content warnings for physical and emotional abuse, terminal illness, suicide, eating disorders, sexual assault, and religious abuse/manipulation.

I think this book could have been so much more. It was like a much weaker Educated with plant studies thrown in. I kept zoning out as it failed to hold my attention, so I often felt I may have been missing something. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book was equal parts heartbreaking and interesting. Based upon the true story of the author's upbringing, Forager will leave readers feeling hopeful for the author, and thankful for the things they have that can so easily be taken for granted. I loved the way each chapter opened with a drawing of a plant or tree that the author was taught to use as a food source as she tried to survive in a very dangerous family cult. The story is intriguing and well-written. I had a hard time putting it down.

In this unique and compelling memoir, journalism professor and writer Michelle Dowd opens up about her unsettling upbringing in the “Field,” a cult created by her grandfather. Members of the Field believe that apocalypse is imminent and “comfort and care are sins.” Abused and malnourished, Dowd becomes an expert forager to survive, gaining the crucial skills that eventually lead to her escape and freedom.

Thank you NetGalley and Algonquin Books for accepting my request to read and review Forager.

Genre: Biographies & Memoirs | Nonfiction (Adult)
Published: 03/07/23

The synopsis shares the author escaped the cult. Sadly, she is connected mentally and physically. That is where cults prevail. In addition, cult leaders know people are outraged by their methods and won't do anything. People will not get involved. Being raised in a cruel setting never leaves you. The choices Dowd made are based off of good versus evil that she was taught early in life. Likewise she was taught don't cry, ignore the pain.

Three stars represent the genre and topic. Three stars is my standard for this type of book.