Lost Boys: a 'sobering' journey to the heart of the manosphere

With the "crisis of masculinity" much in the news, the publication of this book could hardly be more timely, said Thomas Peermohamed Lambert in The Sunday Times.

In it, James Bloodworth, previously the author of an undercover study of the gig economy, sets out on a "personal journey through the manosphere", aimed at understanding why so many young men are "disappearing into a swamp of video games, pornography, fast food and despair". To this end, he interviews "leading lights" of the movement – a "veritable rogues' gallery of cranks and hucksters", many of whom are raking in vast sums by cynically inflaming masculine discontent.

In London, he meets Derek Moneyberg, creator of a guide for "aspiring high-value males". In Dubai, he meets the "dating guru" Michael Sartain, who claims men will attract more female attention online if they make themselves look like "a scumbag". While Bloodworth doesn't quite get to the bottom of "what is causing this global efflorescence of misogyny", he certainly "evokes it as well as anyone". His book, apart from anything else, is an "impressive feat of research".

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In an "excellent" first chapter, Bloodworth recalls how, as a "callow 23-year-old", he "forked out a couple of grand to take a course in seduction", said Thomas W. Hodgkinson in The Guardian. "This was the era of Neil Strauss's 2005 bestseller 'The Game'" – and Bloodworth charts how that "noughties pickup culture gave rise to the manosphere proper, as men who absorbed the lessons of Strauss's book found they still weren't having any luck, and got angry about it".

"Lost Boys" becomes "more generic" as it progresses – largely because the material gets less personal – but it is "sobering all the same". We learn about groups such as the Red Pill brigade, who claim the world is secretly run by women, and the toxic influencer Andrew Tate, who by 2023 was more recognisable to teenage boys than Britain's PM Rishi Sunak.

Bloodworth also helpfully busts some of the manosphere's "pernicious myths", said Richard Reeves in Literary Review. These include the false claim that women often wrongly accuse men of sexual assault, and the idea – common among incels, or involuntary celibates – that a "minority of men are getting all the women".

Occasionally, Bloodworth "goes astray" with his facts – as when, in a discussion of rates of male violence against women, he "omits to mention that these have been trending downwards". But overall, this is a "vivid" and absorbing look at one of contemporary society's most disturbing trends.