carolined's review against another edition

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hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

Beautifully written and informative. Exploring the less glamourous side of rewilding and coming up hopeful.

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horizonous's review against another edition

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hopeful informative reflective slow-paced

4.0


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lanid's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative inspiring reflective

5.0


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questingnotcoasting's review against another edition

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informative medium-paced

4.0

This was fascinating. It's a travelogue of abandoned places around the world, some of which I'd heard of, like Chernobyl and Varosha in Cyprus, but most of which I hadn't. There were a lot of different reasons each place became abandoned including war, natural disasters, industrial contamination, climate change and human resettlement and it was all so interesting to learn about. There were are few times where the nature descriptions started to go over my head because I couldn't picture the plants or animals Flyn was describing but generally it was an easy read because I was so intrigued. Through exploring all the different places she discusses topics like climate change, rewilding, agriculture, invasive species and nature's resilience. I certainly don't know enough about those subjects to have big opinions of my own like I've seen in some reviews but I feel like I learnt a lot from this and it gave me a lot to think about. 

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oceanxbluess's review against another edition

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informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

This book was not what I expected at all.

When I was first made aware of this book, for some reason I immediately thought it would be all doom & gloom, and that if I read it I wouldn’t finish it but I was SO wrong!

Flyn’s writing is entirely captivating, I would even go as far to say mesmerising. In every chapter I felt fully immersed in each of the abandoned areas, it was a super easy, refreshing read. I found myself reading a chapter at a time, travelling across the globe to places I didn’t even know existed. 

Throughout the book we visit Scotland, Turkey, Estonia, Ukraine, USA, France, Tanzania & Montserrat, discussing the effects of landfills, war, radioactive waste, agriculture, introductions of non-native/invasive species and other manmade issues impact the nature of an environment once it’s been left to its own devices.

This book is incredibly well-written, you can tell how much time and research went into each and every page. Flyn goes into so much detail about the history of each location, including stories from local people, and also gives her own experience of each place which made the whole book truly magical. She immerses herself completely into every location, giving beautiful descriptions of how nature is reclaiming the land of abandoned places. 

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