Please Join Us
Please Join Us
By: Catherine McKenzie
“Life is all around you. The more you know about it, the more you can shape it to your will. Pick your target, learn everything you can about it, and then go in for the kill.”
“That’s the thing about obedience. it feels safe. But it’s only safe if the person has your best interest at heart.”
I’ve read four of McKenzie’s books now. They do have some language (this one had 29 f-words and 18 s-words), but I keep reading them when they come out so she must be doing something right.
This one had good suspense and I liked that the main character was smart.
There are some #MeToo and anti-patriarchy elements in this book so if you don’t like that, you might want to skip this one.
Brief Summary
Nicole is partner in a law firm and has just received a warning that if she doesn’t bill more hours she may lose her partnership.
It was perfect timing, then, to receive an exclusive invite to a special retreat in Colorado for corporate women who are tired of having to work so much harder to get the pay, promotions, and recognition that men seem to get so easily. This was a networking club to help put women in prominent places.
“Women helping women succeed the way men have for centuries.”
Nicole adds the super cheap cost of $5000 to her work expense report, ignores her husband’s suspicions that it’s a cult and joins this retreat. No internet. No phone. Just a harmless networking event with polar plunges, long hikes in the middle of nowhere, and promises to stay loyal to the group and help each other whenever someone asks.
Also, don’t ask questions.
“To be like men in the world. Not to question how or why we get things, because they never do.”
These women actually are in top tier jobs and have a lot of connections. What could be wrong with this?
Nicole soon finds out when she does the group a favor and takes on a court case they’re (all) involved with. The questions keep accumulating and when she’s forced to help dispose of a body, she wants out.
But that might be harder than she thinks…
The Panthera Leo
The group is called Panthera Leo and its symbol is the female lion:
“The female lion. Because she’s the one that gets things done in the pride. Without women, the men wouldn’t eat, they wouldn’t have the ‘lion’s share’ to take. That’s true for humankind too, but often unacknowledged, even today. ‘The woman behind the man,’ sure. But she’s supposed to be nice and polite. She’s not supposed to be primal. Gentle, not vicious. Only men are allowed those attributes.”
The nationwide group is broken into smaller prides of 5 women. The prides don’t interact with each other.
They are told really harmless sounding things like:
“Influence is everything.”
“You should trust your pride. Instincts can lead us astray.”
“focus more on yourself, to find the things that can make you happy.”
“Sticking together is what protects you. Don’t get separated from the Pride because otherwise, you might end up with your neck snapped.”
I was expecting the more common type of cult in this book but this was a corporate cult. You weren’t entirely cut off from your loved ones, but there was a certain type of hold on these women that trapped them in this group.
I thought this deviation was very compelling.
It’s kind of an interesting thing to think about if you’re a conspiracy theorist. It’s easy to speculate that people in top positions owe others some favors or had some help getting there. What if all these people are part of some sort of corporate cult?!
Honestly, it probably wouldn’t take much to convince me of that these days. I think I’m becoming more susceptible to conspiracy theories. Please don’t take advantage of me.
The Patriarchy
It does seem like a lot of books written in the last couple years with strong female leads go down the road of anti-men, the patriarchy, blah blah. I’m not a believer of that. And some books go too far and I find them nauseating to read. (Ahem, Two Nights in Lisbon)
I’m just going to throw this in because asking questions is a good thing. If everything is the patriarchy, do the stats actually reflect that when considering equal things?
Thomas Sowell, in his book Discrimination and Disparities, reveals that, for example, when looking at salaries of faculty members at universities:
“Male faculty members in general had higher incomes than female faculty members in general. But among similarly qualified faculty, women who never married earned higher incomes than men who never married.”
Just because we may see less women than men as CEOs does not mean there is discrimination or inequality. Equal outcomes is not the measure of equality. A lot of women do get married and prefer to work less hours. When we compare the right things we find out that maybe there isn’t actually inequality at all.
This is not to discredit all of the #MeToo power/control instances where men took advantage of women as a prerequisite to work-related things. That is a for sure a problem and for sure needs to stop.
I’m merely proposing that the whole ‘patriarchy’ thing may be a bit blown out of proportion.
Also, it is not lost on me how women who promote the patriarchy-cause often seem to promote that women need to be more like men. I don’t know what they mean by that, but it’s a little insulting to women if, in order for women to be ‘better’ we have to be ‘more like men.’
Shouldn’t we be proud to be women? Men and women ARE different. They look different, they’re built different, they think different, they process different. Ask any neurologist. But different does not mean superior to either gender.
I get that there are conversations to be had about gender differences and what is right and wrong, but I’m just tired of the world constantly telling me I’m generally disadvantaged because I’m a woman and I need to try to be like men, but not just like men, superior to men.
In Please Join Us, the Panthera Leo leaders make some strong statements:
“Putting men in charge of women’s companies is one of our specialties. Diversity this and diversity that and sensitivity training and you know what’s changed? Exactly nothing, that’s what. If you have a vagina then you’re handicapped. God forbid if you have a kid or show an emotion at work.”
“That’s part of what we’re about. Creating an environment where you don’t have to think like a woman. You don’t have to query why you got something or whether you deserve it. You can just be a man about it.”
I don’t necessarily think McKenzie wrote Nicole as someone who would go that far. After all, she is married to a man whom she loves and respects. They are both intelligent lawyers, who, though they had their struggles, remain committed to each other and respect each other’s voice and work.
I like that Nicole likes to ask questions. She is regularly scolded by the Pride for asking questions but she is not cowed by them. She is smart enough to recognize when something is off and secure enough to protest.
Here’s one of her wisdoms when the group is promoting changing their lives:
“I think that sometimes people change just for change’s sake. And that’s not necessarily a good thing. It’s easy to think that the grass is greener on the other side, but it isn’t always better, just different.”
Conclusion
If the swearing isn’t too much for you, I would recommend this book. I think I liked it better than a couple of her other ones. I talked a lot about the patriarchy stuff, but I didn’t feel like the entire book was a megaphone for modern feminists. It was largely relegated to the Panthera Leo and Nicole was largely resisting them.
The plot was driven by Nicole learning more about them and investigating why her life was falling apart because of them and how to overcome it.
It was a smart thriller and I appreciate that. I get tired of the insecure, easily controlled, unreliable female protagonist with attachment issues. Nicole was definitely not that.
It’s a quick and intense read, and though I said in a different review that I might not read any of hers anymore, I might have to take it back… I’m probably going to read the next one…
Oh wait, one more thing… the last page. WHAT?! I’m genuinely confused. And whenever I try to figure it out, I’m overwhelmed and I give up. Feel free to share your theories with me in the comments. But those will probably be spoilers, so other people should avoid reading them. Kthanks.
One last side note: If you are interested in the whole cult thing and how language is used to manipulate people, I would highly recommend Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism. It’s a great and entertaining read that will help you be able to see red flags in seemingly innocent (but prevalent) tactics people use to convince you to ‘join them.’
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
This book just released August, 2022! You can purchase a copy using my affiliate link below.
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