Reviews with content warning for Injury/Injury detail - A History of Wild Places

I spent most of the book confused, and the twists and explanations felt like a reach but a very original plot and like-able main characters. “The Village (2004)” vibes.

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mtnest's review

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dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.75

If this entire book had been about Travis, I would have been way more interested. One of my least favorite tropes.

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litliz's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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billyjepma's review against another edition

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mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

God, I thought I'd never finish this. I picked up the audiobook of this almost on a whim, informed only by some positive reviews and the fact that it has a small cast of narrators, a feature I always enjoy. While it starts solidly enough, the plot quickly spirals into monotony. The story is little more than a conglomeration of tired true-crime trappings that meander in circles, devoid of memorable characters, meaningful tension, and satisfying payoffs. It's disappointing because the payoffs are interesting on paper, but the reasoning is so flimsy and half-baked that it feels like Ernshaw had to scramble at the end to come up with something.

The writing is mostly fine, despite some stylistic choices I didn't vibe with (no one should ever use "flesh" as often as this book does). There's a decent sense of environment and tone, too. I just spent most of the book waiting for something to happen, and when nothing did, wishing that it had more momentum so I could get to the end and move on.

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anarchist_al's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

A pretty disorienting read—we begin with a narrator whose storyline is simply abandoned for basically the rest of the book. It eventually makes sense, but was kind of a head scratcher for the majority of the book. I really liked the setting of Pastoral, with beautiful descriptions of trees and forest and darkness. I was really intrigued by Travis’s ability to read after images of an object’s history, and was disappointed that it wasn’t explored or explained more. It was very very light magical realism. Also,

the idea of a charismatic cult leader works really well, and that he could lead a community to believe existential falsehoods is totally realistic. However, the whole thing being hypnosis was kind of a stretch. If it had been another bit of magical realism special ability thing, I would have liked it more and it would have mirrored Travis/Theo’s ability.

Overall, cool concept and setting, cool mystery, interesting characters—an entertaining listen.

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anni_swanilda's review

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dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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