Publisher's Weekly Review
Peabody Award--winning journalist Marie adapts her podcast The Dream for a piercing debut investigation into the pyramid schemes underlying such well-known American brands as Amway, Avon, and Mary Kay--companies, Marie alleges, whose tactics enrich the few at the top of the pyramid while impoverishing the many at the base. Chronicling the early origins of these multilevel marketing companies, or MLMs, Marie describes how Tupperware began as a "Tupperware Wonder Bowl" that sold in retail stores until it was discovered by single mother Brownie Wise, who invented the "Tupperware Party." Marie tracks how MLMs have since come to function like quasi-cults--encouraging sellers to target friends and family for conversion and promising financial independence and imminent riches while discouraging negativity and excommunicating the faithless. These companies now wield great political power, Marie shows, noting that former education secretary Betsy DeVos obtained her government position after $82 million in political donations to Republican campaigns and causes from the DeVos family, owners of Amway, while Donald Trump earned $8.8 million promoting an MLM called the American Communications Network. Most revealingly, Marie reports on how the industry's lobby group, Direct Selling Association, has thwarted the Federal Trade Commission and defanged legislation intended to regulate MLMs. The result is an urgent and riveting exposé of the fraudulent tactics behind direct sales organizations. (Mar.)
Kirkus Review
Chronicling the rocky road to the so-called American dream. Peabody and Emmy Award--winning journalist and podcast producer Marie offers a biting exposé of multilevel marketing schemes (MLMs), triangular business structures that exploit people hoping to realize riches and success. MLMs, the author asserts, trade on the quintessentially American idea "that anything can be achieved through a combination of optimism and willpower." If people don't strike it rich through an MLM, they're criticized for not working hard enough, not having the talent to sell, or not wanting it enough. For individuals who feel disenfranchised, lonely, or isolated; for those discouraged with their jobs; and for some lured by lifestyles of the rich and famous, MLMs promise not only wealth "but also freedom, community, and status. They're promising autonomy and empowerment and the realization all of your dreams." Marie offers zippy, shrewd profiles of MLM founders and sensitive histories of individuals caught in their web to show how--and why--these businesses persist. Such companies may market sex toys (Pure Romance), cosmetics (Mary Kay), household products (Amway), health supplements (Herbalife), or athleisure (LuLaRoe). "In an MLM," writes the author, "the product being sold doesn't matter"; the "key architects" make money from recruitment fees and sellers' purchases of their own inventory. To make money, sellers must recruit other sellers, who need to amass their own inventories, aiming to sell to--or recruit--friends, neighbors, family, and co-workers. In Marie's interviews, sellers confessed to losing thousands of dollars; besides inventory, they shelled out for company-sponsored seminars and motivational materials. Yet, the author notes, despite being confronted with lawsuits by federal and state agencies, MLMs continue to prey on desperate people who want to believe in a meritocracy, where "all you need is grit and charm to reap its rewards." Eye-opening reporting on a prolific scam. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
The Dream's Marie turns the origins of her hit podcast into a breezy, pulls-no-punches deep dive into the world of pyramid schemes--oops, "multilevel marketing opportunities." MLMs are deeply rooted in the American dream of being one's own boss, controlling one's earnings, and excelling through consumerism, and Marie tracks the evolution of triangle-shaped business models and their frantic sprints to stay ahead of governmental regulation. As these businesses paired religion, morality, and positive thinking with their goods, Marie links the self-improvement movement to MLMs (whose executives use yet another way to part the sales force from their money). But all the bootstrapping in the world doesn't change the fact that people recruited to these schemes are virtually guaranteed to lose every cent, deluged with mind games as they're ordered to rope family and friends into a new "business" that they neither own, control the inventory for, own stock in, or receive benefits from. Firing off her trademark sassy asides, Marie's blunt honesty will attract readers of Amanda Montell's Cultish (2021) and Emily Lynn Paulson's Hey, Hun (2023).
