School Library Journal Review
Gr 10 Up-Seventeen-year-old Ruby Jane Galbraith is drowning in grief. Her little brother has been killed in a devastating accident that leaves her father in prison and her mother totally bereft. Ruby blames herself and withdraws from the world. But when she meets a beautiful boy named Fox, who is handing out water bottles with the label "Boundless Body Boundless Mind," she sees an opportunity to emerge from grief. As Fox takes Ruby to the Red House, Ruby meets others who all belong to the Institute of the Boundless Sublime. Though her friends immediately call out Fox and his "family" as a cult, Ruby allows herself to be seduced. The pain and sorrow in her life block out everything except Institute, Fox, and eventually Daddy. At the Institute she is given new clothes, an ultra-restrictive diet, and a name. Quickly the dream of the Boundless Sublime gives way to dark and terrifying secrets. Now she must decide just how far she is willing to go. Wilkinson has created a page-turning thriller that twists and turns its way to an explosive conclusion. But more than that, the author has drawn a portrait of how attractive a cult can be to an average, ordinary person. The story moves through scene after unflinching scene of Ruby's descent into the cult and her struggle to leave. The prose does not shy away from the horrors Ruby finds as she tried to question everything about her new community. A suspense-filled read not for the faint-hearted. VERDICT A good choice for most YA shelves.-Elaine Baran Black, Georgia Public Library Service, Atlanta © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
A lurid tale of running towardnot froma 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) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
In this compelling but sensationalist story, a grieving teenager finds peace and purpose with a community of other broken people seeking healing only this is no support group: it's a cult. After the devastating loss of her brother, Ruby meets Fox, the serene (and, yes, beautiful) boy who hands out water bottles labeled, Boundless body. Boundless mind. He brings her into his lively, close-knit family at Red House, an outreach location for the Institute. She assumes the Institute itself will be similarly warm, and she's willing to overlook warning signs to the contrary, if it means being with Fox. Ironically, when they become too close and are brutally punished, Fox begins to doubt, while Ruby begins to believe. Wilkinson has a difficult job: Ruby's transformation seems sudden and thus unconvincing, but it comes from documented brainwashing techniques. More troubling is the story's third act, which is an overdramatized thriller instead of an authentic psychological study. This is a frustrating but also gripping look at how cults prey on the vulnerable, and should foster some interesting discussion.--Hutley, Krista Copyright 2018 Booklist