Aside from being a surf model and a professional Argentine Tango dancer, Renee Linnell is a serial entrepreneur who has founded or co-founded five companies and has an MBA from New York University. She is currently working on starting a publishing company to give people from diverse walks of life an opportunity to tell their stories. In her new book ‘The Burn Zone: A Memoir,’ she recounts how being smart and successful did little to prevent her from being severely brainwashed and lured into a cult and how people unknowingly give up their power in their desperate search for answers to life’s biggest questions.

‘The Burn Zone’ is the story of one woman’s search for Truth and the struggle to forgive and be free. It starts off with a Preface where Renee Linnell summarizes what she has learned along the way: that the only way to find real happiness is through embracing what makes each person unique. The Introduction sets up how her journey began with a meditation seminar in California in 2006 that changed her life, for better or worse. Her first experience with Lakshmi, the guru, in that seminar, was so intense that she knew without a doubt that it was exactly what she needed. The term ‘Burn Zone’ refers to the first few rows in a meditation session where the energy is the strongest. She was looking for answers; for guidance to help her navigate life’s unfortunate circumstances: death and a volatile homelife. The rest of the book is separated into six parts: Seeking, Tantra, Crucible, Alone, Into the Light and Whole. In Seeking, she describes her traumatic childhood and adolescence while Crucible is where her life starts to unravel and she wakes up to the realization that she was in a cult.

Cults are sometimes associated with poverty and living a sheltered life, but that is not always the case. Despite being educated and having travelled the world from an early age; she visited close to fifty countries by her early twenties, Renee Linnell’s search for deeper meaning left her vulnerable. She wanted to believe that her spiritual guides and gurus had her best interest at heart so she blindly followed their advice but it left her isolated and heartbroken. After seven years, she faced reality and after some deep soul searching, managed to finally find herself. This page turner of a memoir is part cautionary tale, part inspirational story that speaks volumes about what makes people human and their longing to belong. The language is down to earth and easy to understand without any complicated meditation terms to learn. She simply tells her story in the hopes of inspiring others to live their true self.  ‘The Burn Zone’ is recommended for readers who appreciate memoirs with spiritual and meditation themes.

“Embrace your skeletons in the closet. Pull them out and paint them pink. Celebrate them. Your skeletons are probably the most interesting part about you. Your difference is your destiny.”

*The author received a copy of this book for an honest review. The views and opinions expressed here belong solely to her.