This was a phenomenal book, it may be my favorite nonfiction read of the year. My jaw dropped to the floor at multiple points throughout this book. While conspiracies aren’t new, QAnon is certainly a more recent topic that you don’t often see in-depth discussions about. This book does a wonderful job explaining how of people of all backgrounds can fall into the QAnon rabbit hole. Jesslyn Cook shares the stories of five individuals and how QAnon has impacted their lives, relationships, and careers. Despite being a contentious topic, Cook explains it in a way that’s digestible, thought-provoking, and educational. With the upcoming election, QAnon rhetoric certainly isn’t going anywhere. This was a sad, yet very necessary read. Thank you for the opportunity to review this ARC, I look forward to more from this author!

Jesselyn Cook's The Quiet Damage was a fascinating read. Cook takes us into the lives of five families impacted by the QAnon conspiracy theory, At times devastating and others, hopeful, The Quiet Damage sheds insight into the reasons why people become so influenced by these theories to the point of damaging decades-long relationships. Cook expertly tackles difficult topics and stories with grace and humanity. I would recommend this title to those interested in cults/conspiracy theories and are looking for an engrossing, fast-paced read.

As someone who has read a lot about politics and the groups that take part of it and shape it, I found this book to be very interesting. I've read a lot about the topic so some of it was repetitive but I found the stories Cook decided to tell about the individuals to be insightful and shows a true understanding for his this affects people and those around them

I have only known someone peripherally involved with Qanon. Yet I have read and seen many news reports about the baseless claims that the group touts.
This book was a heart breaking read into the depths that some people have gone down into the Qanon rabbit hole. The damage that the rabbit hole has done to their families.

I was so hoping for more closure in the book with the people profiled. And really only one did get out. The others were still in. It was a sad, hopeful book that really tugged at my heart strings.

Studies show that 19% of Americans believe in QAnon related theories, which I’m fairly certain is the fifth sign of the apocalypse. This book covers the stories of five families, couples, rural white parents, urban Black sisters and more torn apart when a member of the family is caught in the web of QAnon and conspiracy thinking to the exclusion of common sense.

The author says she tries to give some personhood and dignity to the five individuals involved with QAnon, and God bless her for not wanting us to see them as the absolute lunatics they likely are. Because after reading the book it is difficult, let me tell you.

One of the five was the most interesting to me because unlike the others, Alice started out hating Donald Trump, she was a Bernie Sanders acolyte. The story of her involvement was interesting, she became a Trump lover too, and, for Alice, as she turns on a dime, it became clear that she is a person who just desperately needs to believe in something to save the world, regardless of what it is.

For another, a woman who is a truly terrible mom, she seemed to be an example of what, to me, so many of the January 6ers represented, success “generally hinged upon their status as dissenters rather than on the legitimacy of their dissent.” In fact, maybe this is true of most of those who continue to support Donald Trump, after everything; they are simply angry and he gives them permission to, no, encourages them to be angry…when maybe there’s really nothing, objectively, to be angry about.

The world of QAnon appeals to those who feel powerless, but the author notes that many white, college educated people have been sucked in too. To a cult that believes that a group of elite pedophiles keeps child underground so they can drain their blood and feed of their adrenochrome. Oh, and COVID isn’t real. I weep for this country

And keep in mind that the risk is not gone. Donald Trump, who has made favorable allusions to QAnon in the past as just been officially anointed as the Republican nominee for President of the United States. Democracy is still on the table. It seems like that for, at the very least, 19% of Americans, and actually for many more than that objective truth does not matter, it’s whatever craziness we choose to believe that is paramount. Looking at the insanity of QAnon through the eyes of five individuals/Trump lovers is the perfect way to show one of the ways in which the Republic has gone horribly wrong. Highly recommended.