I enjoyed O Sinners! but it took me a while to finish it. You jump back and forth between 3 perspectives: Faruq, Odo, and parts of a documentary. I really enjoyed the “past” with Odo’s time from the Vietnam war. I felt the most connection to this portion of the story. The fear and emotions of the characters really came through in these sections. The documentary portion definitely adds some history and backstory about The Nameless, but I found it harder to read and follow since it’s like you’re reading the script. The biggest sections are from Faruq and his journalistic adventure to learn more about The Nameless. Certain Faruq chapters I loved, others I felt drug on without feeling like the story was going anywhere. I think this book is going to bring out the love/hate reviews. People are either going to love the in-depth personal journey of facing the truth about the people we admire or they’re going to be bored. If this is the kind of book you generally like and the description is intriguing, go for it!!

O Sinners! is told from the perspective of Faruq Zaidi, a young journalist has recently lost his father, Odo, who spends some time in Vietnam with other soldiers, and a documentary style POV. Faruq investigates his fathers death then becomes involved with a California cult called the Nameless. The group is led by Odo, and they follow the 18 Utterances of the aforementioned cult. The combination of flashbacks, transcript then current day was a great choice by the author. Thank you NetGalley and One World for the ARC. You can check this out when it publishes March 18, 2025 wherever you buy books.

promising start that slowly deflated over the course of the story. the flashbacks were wholly unnecessary and a slog to get through, but the present day was engaging enough to keep me wanting to pick this up at any given opportunity. entirely personal gripe, but I don't love that once again, we have a main character who is an atheist man who was raised by a cruel muslim father, who wants nothing to do with the religion. I'm not sure if the author grew up around islam so I can't speak to the purpose of writing it this way, but to me it came off as extremely stereotypical and repetitive, given the way the religion is usually portrayed in western media.

I know I keep saying this but I am so sick of this seemingly endless trend in literary fiction of raising dozens of questions and answering none of them. what I used to write off as ambiguity that functions as a mirror for the reader now feels more and more like a cop out to avoid having to actually think things through to their logical conclusion. maybe it's a symptom of the times we're living in, and the way it feels impossible to imagine a future at all with everything that's happening. maybe I'm actually being very unfair to these authors but it's so frustrating that it really ruins my reading experience entirely, even if everything up until the end was spectacular.

Nicole Cuffy's prose is so breathtaking. Her writing style is so fluid, poignant, and enchanting. "O Sinners" is a beautiful and interesting story about a young journalist named Faruq who is writing a story about a charismatic cult leader named Ono who lives in the California Redwoods. Faruq is very suspicious and intrigued by Ono and his followers. Usually, I don't really like novels about cults, but this one was so well written and complex. The novel is divided up into the three sections. The first section is from the Faruq's point of view, the second section are flashback scenes of Ono's time serving in the Vietnam War, and the third section are transcripts from a film documentary about Ono's cult. I think the novel would've been stronger without the Vietnam chapters. I found those scenes confusing and dragged the overall story down. Overall, I enjoyed this novel. It was very eerie, emotional, and gripping. I really loved the scenes where Faruq curses Ono out. I don't know why but those particular scenes gave me heart palpitations. I definitely want to read Nicole Cuffy's debut novel, "Dances" now. She is a very talented storyteller. Also, the cover art is gorgeous!

Admittedly I'm biased, I am a huge fan of stories about cults. I'm a big fan of the framing device (the documentary bit was a ton of fun) and overall this was a very entertaining read!

I appreciate all the work that went into this, but did not finish it at 27%. i felt its length to be too long, the war parts were way more prominent than I thought they'd be which was boring to me, and the pacing was way too slow. unfortunately i won't be recommending this to anyone.

I appreciated the different timelines throughout the book that helped to slowly put the pieces of the story together. The characters were interesting and I was invested in what was happening to them. I was captivated and constantly wishing I had more time to read throughout the book. If you like interesting stories, especially about cults, this is one I’d highly recommend.

the book definitely had a strong premise and i liked the writing style on the Present and Movie sections. the vietnam war section wasn't great, though, and parts of the story got repetitive. 3.5 stars, rounded up. tysm for the arc.

The plot centers around a Muslim journalist, Faruq, who decides to write an article about a cult named Nameless. He travels to a gated city in California built by the cult’s followers to stay with them, where the enigmatic leader, Odo, resides. The story unfolds through four parallel threads: 1) Odo’s history as a Black soldier during the Vietnam War; 2) Instagram posts from the cult’s official account; 3) A transcript from a documentary that highlights the clash between the cult and an Evangelical church in Texas; and 4) Faruq in the present day, attempting to uncover information about the mysterious leader, Odo, and the workings of the cult.

The documentary portion of the book is particularly well done, with footnotes containing song names/soundtrack information, captions for photographs and videos, and accompanying dialogue. While the documentary itself is not explicitly shown, these elements help paint a complete picture of it. One of the book’s strengths is its ability to illustrate how cults can make individuals feel "seen," especially during times of emotional turmoil. In Faruq’s case, he is grappling with the grief of losing his parents and unresolved trauma regarding his mother and religion. Faruq is both charmed and distrustful of the cult, and the book does an excellent job capturing his ambivalence.

The narrative also explores how cults, even when trying to distinguish themselves from organized religion, often take on the same toxic characteristics. There are moments of humor, such as when Faruq is surprised to see cult members using Dial Soap in the gated city, a place where everyone seems so detached from ordinary human life. The book further excels in capturing Faruq’s emotions toward his own religion. While he does not believe in the cult or its messaging, the cult members and their ways help him confront his trauma, which he had buried for so long.

While the book does a good job at depicting both the horrors of the Vietnam War and the harsh realities of how the soldiers lived, as well as the prevalent racism and complex interpersonal relationships they developed, this aspect of the narrative was a bit of a letdown for me.. The present-day sections with Faruq and the documentary were engaging, but the narrative about the soldiers became repetitive and disorienting. Despite its significance in explaining why Odo became a cult leader, this part of the story falls short. It touches on his past, but never delves deeply enough to clearly explain what drove him to start the cult. The book is very readable, but at times it becomes bogged down by excessive repetition and constant narrative shifts.

Thank you to Netgalley, the author (Nicole Cuffy), and the publisher (Random House Publishing Group - Random House | One World) for an advanced copy. Thoughts and review are completely my own.

(Will be sharing to my Instagram closer to the publishing date)

amazing! so original i had been waiting for this book for a long time and i’m so glad i got to it! the plot was so immersive and the characters were so unreal.

Journalist Faruq takes on a new assignment to embed with a cult in California. He struggles to get straightforward information from Odo and his followers, but gets tangled up in culty things because of his own childhood trauma and vulnerability. At the same time, an alternate timeline of Odo's experiences fighting in Vietnam weave in and out, along with a documentary transcript about the cult's legal battles in Texas.
I may not have been in the mood for this. I didn't find Faruq to be a particularly sympathetic character, even with his personal struggles. He doesn't come across as a particularly good journalist, as he has a lot of trouble interacting neutrally and objectively (or heck, calmly) with his subjects, and doesn't acknowledge that he might be too compromised. I also found the world building around the cult a little tedious, although maybe necessary for fleshing things out. The Vietnam chapters were the most engaging, maybe because they didn't require a lot of embellishment to be effective. Anyone who has consumed other Vietnam media can picture those scenes.
I'm sure this has an audience but I got in too critical of a mindset to really enjoy it. Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the arc!

I have never read anything like this, and honestly, I’m still grieving the fact that it’s over. The way it weaves together three different storylines is masterful, with seamless transitions and pitch-perfect pacing. I was most captivated by the present-day narrative, but the book wouldn’t be the same without the other two. The Vietnam War sections made me feel the soldiers’ desperation, the documentary script added this intense performative quality, and the present-day story had an almost mystical energy.

Faruq, as a journalist, is supposed to be an objective observer, but his reactions and choices feel so deeply human that you can’t blame him for anything. I was completely hooked from start to finish, and I need a copy to pass around to friends. It’s such a singular, mesmerizing read—I can’t recommend it enough.

A journalist named Faruq investigates a cult called The Nameless in the woods of California and ends up living with them for months.

This book was so cool because it went in a direction that I was not expecting at all. It’s told through four interwoven narratives including 1) Faruq’s present day perspective, 2) the script of a documentary detailing one of the cult’s recent conflicts, 3) instagram posts published by the cult, and 4) a narrative from the past during the Vietnam War. These narratives work together to really paint a picture of how BIPOC have historically been, and continue to be, controlled in the U.S.. I think this gives the story more depth and makes it stand out from other books about cults I’ve read.

This is a book that left me with a lot of questions. It didn’t explicitly spell out the conclusions the reader was supposed to draw, and it left room for me to really think about and engage with the story.

Who decides what makes a cult a cult? What deems an organization *not* a cult (*cough* white evangelicalism *cough*)? Is a group of people that have been marginalized by American society finding community and ways to deal with trauma a bad thing?

O Sinners! releases on March 18, 2025. Thanks NetGalley and Random House Publishing for the arc!

(This review is posted on StoryGraph, Instagram, and TikTok on February 9, 2025)

O Sinners! has an intriguing plot as it takes a look at a cult. The story is told through flashbacks between two different timelines. I was very interested in reading this story. The story being unfolded between the two timeliness wasn't as seamless as it could be, so I struggled at times to stay focused. There were many elements that were interesting and I felt like the author did a good job of conveying the grief the MMC is experiencing from the sudden death of his father while also trying to investigate the cult.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for an ARC of this book! Unfortunately, this was a DNF for me. Between the present day, flashbacks to Vietnam, and documentary, I was incredibly confused. Usually I’m fine with following multiple storylines, but this felt disjointed.

The title, cover, and blurb drew me immediately into this book—I couldn't wait to start reading it. From the short graphics and the pithy title, I expected something more playful and irreverent, a novel heavy with social commentary and also a dose of sardonic humor. So while the main narrative was compelling, at 100 pages in (roughly 20%), this clearly isn't that book. Some elements of the novel just didn't work for me at all.

The main story follows Faruq, a reporter on assignment to investigate a cult that has rooted itself in the redwoods of Northern California while he mourns the sudden death of his father. Faruq's character felt vulnerable and quite real. Cuffy used his grief to explain the choices he was making in an understandable way that gave me compassion for Faruq and an appreciation for why belonging to a larger community centered around a forgiving father-figure would appeal so much to him. I wish Cuffy had stayed with Faruq and built more of his backstory into the beginning of the novel.

Instead, as Faruq's story goes forward, we learn about the origins of the cult leader, Odo. This is told in flashbacks to Odo's time serving in Vietnam. None of this worked for me. I have read a lot of fiction from this particular war, and it is likely my personal preference, but I am ready for stories that center the Vietnamese experience. (I am glad stories of Black soldiers and women in combat are being told, but I am personally looking for something different.) It is possible (and even likely) that Odo's experience in Vietnam shifts focus toward what the US military was doing and how it was impacting the people of Vietnam, but the tropes and narrative devices employed to tell this backstory were too familiar for me to connect with Odo and get to that point in the story.

The third POV in the novel is told by way of a screenplay of a documentary detailing the rift between the cult. It could be a formatting issue, or just how much exposition was packed into this part of the novel, but I found this incredibly hard to follow. I hope the final, printed novel can correct the formatting so others have an easier time.

There were moments when I thought Cuffy was going to bring in the irreverence I had been expecting from the title and cover. The way that Faruq engages with the various members of the nameless, there was more opportunity for Faruq to show the reader how he felt about their adopted lifestyle. When he meets a character named Aeschylus, Faruq never calls his name into question. He doesn't even seem to notice. (When someone pulls a name out like that casually—especially a mysterious cult leader—it feels worth mentioning! Faruq doesn't even seem to notice. There's no mention of a Euripides or a Sophocles maybe hiding around in the compound. He doesn't even raise an eyebrow.)

All in all, I hope the issue with the screenplay was, in fact, formatting, and that other readers feel more connected to the story. I am giving this three stars for being well written, even though it wasn't to my liking.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I’ve always been fascinated by cults—how one leader can manipulate a group into thinking and acting however they want. I’m currently taking a course called Deviant Minds, where we’re studying cults from both psychological and sociological perspectives, and it’s been really interesting so far. So when I read the summary for this ARC on NetGalley, I knew I had to read it.

For the most part, I enjoyed this book. The writing is beautiful, and the tone balances tension, dread, and hope. Faruq’s sections felt well developed, as did the documentary transcript narrative. However, Odo’s sections during the Vietnam War felt slightly repetitive and disjointed from the other sections—the writing style was noticeably different, sometimes even cryptic. But that was really my only issue with this book.

I had anticipated this to be an investigative thriller of sorts based on the summary, but it’s really not. It dives DEEP into Faruq’s trauma surrounding his family and his religious upbringing, and I was pleasantly surprised with where the story took me. This novel has a slow-burn quality that lingers and pulls you further into Faruq’s unraveling. By the end, it felt less like a mystery to solve and more like an exploration of identity, grief, and control.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC. Publish date is March 18th, 2025.

4.5 ⭐️ I thoroughly enjoyed each story this book had to tell. It’s told from the view of Faruq, a writer taking on a story about a well know “cult” called the nameless in San Francisco who had a bit of drama in Texas some years ago. It’s then told from the POV of a viewer of the documentary of the events in Texas. Finally, we see the events of the Vietnam war and how it shaped Odo, the nameless leader.

Even though the pacing was slow, each story was unique and every character its own. I never wanted to stop getting to know either Faruq or Odo. You see Faruq and the cult, how they’ve come to live in peace not with themselves but with each other as well, as one. Faruq has a lot of repressed emotions he needs to learn to face and deep down he knows this could be exactly what he needs.

This was a good book. Kept me intrigued. If you enjoy books about cults, this one will definitely keep you turning pages way up in the night..

I enjoyed this one, though it took a minute for me to get into it. Definitely inspired by Charles Manson. If you like cult-related books, this is for you