Come for the cute boy, stay for the apocalypse, beware the potential triggers.
A lurid tale of running toward—not from—a cult.
Guilt-stricken over her little brother’s accidental death, 17-year-old Ruby Jane Gilbraith is depressed and lonely, with a nearly comatose mother and (unbearably) pretentious poseur friends. When the otherworldly and childlike Fox offers her a water bottle and potential inner peace, Ruby follows him to the Institute. In this bleak commune/compound, the allegedly millennia-old leader, Zosimon, aka “Daddy,” preaches “elutriation” and exhorts the Boundless family to prepare for battle against the “toxicant” masses. Ruby, now “Heracleitus,” recognizes it as a cult but succumbs anyway. Once a doubting “sublimate,” Ruby experiences a traumatic montage of physical and psychological abuse until she is a zealot, unable to tell if she is a brainwashed follower or a fearful but conscious and conscientious criminal. An Australian romance/mystery writer, Wilkinson keeps to the former genre’s typical girl-redeems-boy trope but swerves into violent thriller/misery-lit territory to produce a grueling, unsettling read combining the sensationalism of satanic-panic public-service announcements with a first-love romance, a journey through grief, and repetitive, incoherent New Age/corporate-buzzword sermons. The setting and secondary characters are often vague, but Ruby’s transformations and suffering are depicted with a painful, unflinching focus and clarity. There is no author’s note or list of resources for readers who may find themselves stirred to action by any of the many issues raised by the book.
Come for the cute boy, stay for the apocalypse, beware the potential triggers. (Thriller/romance. 14-18)Pub Date: March 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-63079-100-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Switch/Capstone
Review Posted Online: Jan. 21, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.
The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.
Autumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart; their mothers are still best friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like[s] him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations.
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7782-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Perhaps a more genuinely enlightened protagonist would have made this debut more engaging
Audrey Rose Wadsworth, 17, would rather perform autopsies in her uncle’s dark laboratory than find a suitable husband, as is the socially acceptable rite of passage for a young, white British lady in the late 1800s.
The story immediately brings Audrey into a fractious pairing with her uncle’s young assistant, Thomas Cresswell. The two engage in predictable rounds of “I’m smarter than you are” banter, while Audrey’s older brother, Nathaniel, taunts her for being a girl out of her place. Horrific murders of prostitutes whose identities point to associations with the Wadsworth estate prompt Audrey to start her own investigation, with Thomas as her sidekick. Audrey’s narration is both ponderous and polemical, as she sees her pursuit of her goals and this investigation as part of a crusade for women. She declares that the slain aren’t merely prostitutes but “daughters and wives and mothers,” but she’s also made it a point to deny any alignment with the profiled victims: “I am not going as a prostitute. I am simply blending in.” Audrey also expresses a narrow view of her desired gender role, asserting that “I was determined to be both pretty and fierce,” as if to say that physical beauty and liking “girly” things are integral to feminism. The graphic descriptions of mutilated women don’t do much to speed the pace.
Perhaps a more genuinely enlightened protagonist would have made this debut more engaging . (Historical thriller. 15-18)Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-27349-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
