Captive

A Mother's Crusade to Save Her Daughter from the Terrifying Cult Nxivm

By: Catherine Oxenberg, Natasha Stoynoff

Narrated by: Catherine Oxenberg

Including a new afterword, Captive is an emotional, ripped-from-the-headlines exposé that lays bare the inner workings of the secretive NXIVM cult that shocked the world.

I am a mother whose child is being abused and exploited. And I am not alone.

In 2011, former Dynasty star Catherine Oxenberg joined her daughter, India, at a leadership seminar for a new organization called NXIVM. Her then twenty-year-old daughter was on the threshold of starting her own professional life and they both thought this program might help her achieve her dream. But quickly, Catherine saw a sinister side to the program that claimed to simply want to help its clients become the best versions of themselves.

Catherine watched in horror as her daughter fell further and further down the rabbit hole, falling under the spell of NXIVM's hypnotic leader,Keith Raniere. Despite Catherine’s best efforts, India was drawn deeper into the cult, eventually joining an elite “sorority” of women members who were ordered to maintain a restricted diet, recruit other women as “slaves,” and were branded with their leader’s initials.

In Captive, Catherine shares every parent’s worst nightmare, and the lengths that a mother will go to save her child. Catherine’s efforts finally led the FBI to take notice—and the journey is not yet over. A powerful depiction of a mother’s love and determination, and with horrifying insider details never revealed in any news story, Captive will keep you reading until the very last page.

Higher level analysis is needed before critiquing.

When I looked at picking this book up, I noted a lot of reviews complain about the author (and narrator - she is one in the same). She engages in a tremendous amount of name dropping, but I think it is important to remember that NXVIUM preyed specifically on this caste of people, and preyed on them specifically because of their character foibles. The author often times demonstrates shockingly poor psychological insight. But this is a part of the story - and I think there is tremendous value in this not being censored. I also don't want to be that girl who screams from the couch to the character in the horror movie not to open the door. I'm not saying any of this because I think I'm better. To be honest, I understand the allure of NXVIUM much more intuitively than I think she does. I think at many points in my life, probably were it not for the large checks they demanded (my mother's financial sense imparted on me would have prevented me from writing them in spite of being able to afford them and would certainly never have let me run up credit card balances) I see myself as someone who would easily have been susceptible to a cult like this. So I think this is basically an unvarnished tale. The author's flaws are directly related to how she and her daughter ended up in this mess, but in the sense of how slick this cult was a marketing operation that spearphished people like her. We should think about how any of us could equally be suckered in with the right pitch. Any of us.

Fantastic Read!

This book was so in depth on so many fronts. From the initial foray into Nxivm to the trial and after

Beautiful story of a mothers love

Honest, real, and raw. It was interesting to hear a NXIVM story from a family members perspective. Catherine Oxenburg’s voice, both physically and metaphorically, was strong and captivating making this a binge worthy listen!

What a story!

I hate to write that I loved it, given what people have been thru for this book to come to light. As a former CBI employee, while I we thought something was odd, never to the extent described in this book. I was the travel and conference planner for the organization that Keith founded in the early 90's, then to company folded, I did side work out of Toni's home. I stayed in Toni's home to care for her son while she had traveled. I just floored by the description of the behind the scenes activities. The book gave a lot of insight to things that were going on. I hope the Oxenbeg family as well as the Natalie family find peace.

Captive is captivating!

Loved it! I could not stop listening to it. I feel like Catherine Oxenburg should do more audible narrations...she was amazing!