Review by Booklist Review
Arman quickly agreed to spend a week at Beau's campground in the California mountains, a place he believed would help him solve his myriad and acutely real problems. But while the charismatic man's homily of social order sickness and cultural syndromes initially made sense, in the confines of the compound, surrounded by Beau's followers and their intense, vaguely mystical rhetoric, Arman's not as convinced. After a difficult night of confrontational therapy, he's had enough and decides to split. On his walk home, though, he discovers Beau's bloodied body and quickly returns to the compound for help. Only, once he gets everyone's attention, Beau's body and the van it was in are nowhere to be seen, and Arman is missing a few hours of memory. Kuehn effectively builds a confounding, cult-like atmosphere in the compound and a convincing conspiracy swirling around Arman's experiences. While the ultimate pay-off leaves quite a few questions frustratingly unanswered, the eerie atmosphere of the compound, Kuehn's skillful hand at characterization, and the twisty scheme should nonetheless hook readers.--Hunter, Sarah Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
With his drug-addicted father in and out of jail and his neglectful mother wishing him out of the house, 17-year-old Arman seeks solace and guidance in Beau, a charismatic adult who promises a way to free Arman from his feelings of inadequacy. Arman joins Kira, a fellow classmate, and Dale, her boyfriend, on a retreat with Beau. Instead of the campsite expected, the three find themselves on the Evolve compound, a center of more than 100 devotees committed to uncovering their truest selves through exercises that challenge their abilities and memories. When the compound's leader disappears and factions within the camp turn ugly, Arman, Kira, and Dale must decide whether they are being manipulated and how to escape. Balancing Arman's experience with Beau's inner thoughts, Kuehn (Delicate Monsters) elevates the religious cult novel with this sophisticated psychological mystery centered on the concept of the double effect-that the "greater good outweighs the smaller evil." Though certain characters are more archetypal than three-dimensional, the book's philosophical undertones and uncertain ending are transfixing. Ages 14-up. Agent: Michael Bourret, Dystel & Goderich Literary Management. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up-Seventeen-year-old Arman Dukoff is shy around girls and awkward and longs to get away from his drug-dealing stepfather. With $2,000 in hand, he runs away from home to join self-help guru Beau at a retreat near Big Sur. When Arman arrives at the camp, things aren't what he expected, but he does start to click with a girl. Confusion ensues with strange rules, rituals, and jargon. Then Beau goes missing. Narrator Ryan Gessell pulls listeners into Arman's world. The plot is a bit slow to take off, but listeners will be on the edge of their seats as the book progresses. VERDICT An intriguing psychological thriller. Listeners who like suspenseful titles such as Anna Collomore's Ruining will enjoy this audiobook. ["Kuehn's specialty in depicting mental illness and her sharp, quick writing are on display in her latest novel, but it is her satirical integration of New Age hippie rituals with the pseudoscientific jargon of the self-help retreat world that is the most compelling addition": SLJ 6/16 starred review of the Dutton book.]-Jessica Moody, Olympus Jr. High, Holladay, UT © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Seventeen-year-old Arman is anxious, self-loathing, mostly ignored by his mother and stepfather, and ashamed of his incarcerated father. He makes an easy mark for Beau, the charismatic founder of a remote "retreat" called Evolve, whose mission is to inoculate participants against "social order disease." Although Beau takes a particular interest in Arman (because, it's later revealed, Beau is seeking a successor), Arman can't shake the bad feeling he has about Evolve and sneaks away from the compound. Beau catches up with him, but then things take a surreal, suspenseful turn. Manipulated psychologically and sexually, drugged without his knowledge, trying to comprehend a situation that appears to involve conspiracy, murder, and even the paranormal, Arman can't trust anyone -- or even his own mind. Interspersed with events at the compound are disturbing second-person, present-tense vignettes that relate the recruitment of a young woman. Kuehn's novels (Charm Strange, rev. 11/13; Complicit, rev. 7/14; Delicate Monsters, rev. 7/15) frequently explore the unreliability of perception and memory, as well as the human mind's ability to protect itself from harmful information and situations, and this book is no exception. The reader experiences Arman's profound disorientation and panic along with him, even as details provided by his experiences and in the vignettes call his judgment into serious question. Foreboding builds inexorably to a conclusion that feels both tragic and inevitable. katie bircher (c) Copyright 2016. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Strange occurrences at a secluded self-help retreat threaten 17-year-old Arman's already fragile mental healthFor as long as he can remember, Arman has taken medications for numerous chronic physical and emotional ailments. So when Beau, a reassuring but mysterious man, invites Arman to a healing retreat in the hills of Big Sur, he accepts. He's nervous but eager for a chance to move beyond his sense of brokenness. At the retreat compound, Arman is among strangers, except for his classmate Kira, a black girl who is the daughter of a famous civil rights attorney, and her boyfriend, Dale. Like Arman and most of the other characters, Dale is white. Arman is at once comforted and confused by Beau's interest in him and by his encounters with a beautiful girl, a cook at the compound. But talk of "inoculation" and "quarantine" and the program's other odd rituals unnerve Arman, as effectively conveyed in Kuehn's third-person narration. When Beau disappears, Arman is the only witness to what may have been a murder or a suicidehe's not sure which, because he can't remember exactly what happened. Arman's tale of self-discovery is woven into the bigger mystery of Beau's fate, but the result of the latter is less than enthralling. More gripping is the insightful and empathetic look into the mind of a teen struggling to heal.Rich prose and a complex main character salvage this suspenseful but less-than-satisfying mystery. (Thriller. 14-18) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
