The Liar's Daughter by Megan Cooley Peterson

When a book starts out by describing a child having her hair bleached to appease Mommy, you know some ish is gonna get weird.

When you read about a band of children being stashed at a special 'safe place' on the grounds of an old amusement park, you start wondering how weird.

When the narrator, 17-year-old Piper starts waxing on Father's wisdom, including such gems as
- stay inside the fence because Outside is full of poison, including diabetes medication
- don't let your 'brothers' see you undressed, because men are naturally weak and get rapey
- nothing good exists that didn't happen before whatever year 101 Dalmatians came out on VHS

...then you might find yourself wanting to put down the book and back away slowly, before that level of crazy leaks onto your purple corduroy bellbottoms  normal clothing.

Piper's story is broken into Before and After (social services and cops show up to reclaim all the kids and haul off the infallible Prophet  crazypants cult leader and his wife).  Her memories start to bash against each other, she's losing chunks of time and the new home she's landed in is dangerously close to cell phone towers and kids who don't respond with "that'd be aces"  if you suggest something fun.

Not a terrible book overall, and I always appreciate creepy abandoned amusement parks, but a little lower-end of the young adult difficulty spectrum.  As far as cults go, the activities were fairly tame,  especially compared to stuff like The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly.  If young readers are interested in fictional cults (and somehow a teen romance stuffed in there), The Liar's Daughter might be a good place to start.  If they're looking for more brainwashed meat on the bones and are somewhat trauma-resistant in their book selections, Minnow's the way to go.  Either way, they're good cautionary tales:  don't go with strangers, find help if the adults around you are doing stuff that feels wrong, and for the love of all that's good, no second-guessing the benefits of insulin.

My back yard has the best view (and the most necessary tetanus shots).