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pippling's review
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
This novel felt like an epic adventure. A story set in a not-too-unrealistic future where the world is too full, too polluted, there are no more trees, and wildlife is gone for good - apart from in the last Wilderness. The story is told from two perspectives; a mother who has brought her daughter to The Wilderness in a last ditch attempt to save her life, and her daughter who, after growing up in the Wilderness has a complicated relationship with her mother and her companions, but to whom the Wilderness is home.
The ending was quite bleak and it felt a bit rushed. I felt like there was room for a lot more story there, but I flew through the final chapters and found it exhilarating nonetheless!
The ending was quite bleak and it felt a bit rushed. I felt like there was room for a lot more story there, but I flew through the final chapters and found it exhilarating nonetheless!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment, Animal death, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Medical trauma, and Miscarriage
solanum's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
tense
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death of parent, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Pregnancy, Sexual content, Abandonment, Miscarriage, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Infidelity
caseythereader's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Abandonment, Miscarriage, Blood, Child death, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Grief, Death, Death of parent, and Infidelity
Moderate: Sexual content and Pregnancy
rachaelwho's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Felt extremely long. I kept thinking it was nearly over. I found it exceptionally bleak.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Colonisation, Infidelity, Terminal illness, Abandonment, Child death, Death, Miscarriage, Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic relationship, Blood, Ableism, Animal cruelty, Death of parent, and Toxic friendship
Moderate: Sexual content
Hunting, survival sexoceanxbluess's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
mysterious
tense
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Child death, Death, Miscarriage, Animal death, and Sexual content
lasamviela's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Miscarriage, and Animal death
Moderate: Animal death, Grief, Sexual content, Animal cruelty, Child death, Miscarriage, and Blood
Minor: Vomit, Animal cruelty, Child death, Medical trauma, and Excrement
madeleinebay's review
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Miscarriage, Grief, and Pregnancy
thevioletfoxbookshop's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
The New Wilderness by Diane Cook is heartbreaking, timely, terrifying, and beautiful at the same time.
In a not-so-distant future, civilization has overtaken the planet, with the exception of one natural preserve known as The Wilderness State. This last bit of untouched nature is heavily protected and the only people allowed onto the preserve are the rangers and twenty volunteers. Those twenty volunteers call themselves the community and are part of an experiment to see if humans can live alongside nature, follow rules set forth for them, and not impact the natural world or destroy it. Bea count herself lucky to be amongst the community, not so much because she loves nature or because the nomadic lifestyle of the community is easy, but because the clean air of The Wilderness saved her daughter's life. Being in the city spelled death for her daughter, Agnes. But the years in The Wilderness State have taken their toll on the community, on the rangers, and on the land. In a world where human progress has paved over nearly every bit of the earth, will this motley group prove any different? Do human values change once they've reached the brink of no return? And what does that spell for our own future outside of Cook's fictional world?
The natural world in The New Wilderness is a character all on its own. Breathtaking, fierce, everchanging, and full of both life and death, the wilderness is both unforgiving and abundant. Immersing yourself in the wilderness state is a comforting return to nature, but also a cruel reminder that mother nature can be ruthless. And the human characters are no simpler.
The New Wilderness is about what happens when you mix the illogical, emotional, often egotistical ways of humans mix with the powerful, yet fragile natural environment. On the surface, it's about how humans impact the environment, but it's also very much about how the natural world impacts humans. And that two-way relationship has positive and negative aspects in both directions. The New Wilderness also deals with how humans interact with and impact each other. Again, sometimes for good and sometimes not so much. Even the central mother-daughter relationship in the story is layered and muddy, heartbreaking and touching.
I've seen some negative reviews of this book from people who expected a dystopian thriller. And this is both dystopian and thrilling, but not in the way you're expecting. It's emotional, cerebral, and making a very serious point. This book is not brain candy; it's not The Hunger Games; it's not supposed to be an unputdownable page-turner or pure entertainment. And in all honestly, I think the negative reviews on the dirty river's book review site are a symptom of the larger problem that I think Diane Cook is trying to address in this book. Humanity is uber-focused on immediate satisfaction, reliant on modern convenience, and disconnected from the natural world and what true survival entails, that we've lost sight of the big picture and the importance of the planet we inhabit.
The Natural Wilderness is definitely going to stay with me for a long time. As I watch new condos being built, consumerism take over, and the rainforest burning on the nightly news, I think of that last piece of nature and how long it will be until we've consumed even that.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Child death, Animal death, and Death
merle_bookdragon's review
adventurous
challenging
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Hm, so I am still not entirely sure what I thought of this book. I chose this book as part of my master thesis corpus and the premise sounded really interesting. I still think that the concept of the book is a good basis to explore family relationships under specific circumstances, I just think parts of the book were simply not my style.
The book is divided into 7 parts and it started out really well until around parts 5 and 6 where it took a bit of a downward spiral. I do not want to spoiler too much but I think was mostly bothered me that nothing was explained, not even at the very end. There is no explanation as to what the state of the world is to make living in it so horrible except for "there is a lot of smog" but that's nothing new. Additionally, between time jumps, especially one character changes their personality quite a bit, which could have been explained. Without any explanation, I started to instantly dislike them and kept wondering what the hell had happened at this time. I understand that keeping readers in the dark is a common tactic but without any resolve, in the end, it is simply unsatisfying. For example, as a second book for my MA, I read The Ones We're Meant to Find by Joan He. In this book, I was also very confused for a long time because a lot of information is withheld from the reader for a long time. But in the end, you still receive an explanation, which might not make you like the story or the characters more but at least you learn about a motive. That was really missing in The New Wilderness.
Also, this is really just personal preference butall that very vigorous and animalistic fucking around the campfire really did nothing for this story. It just made me skip over those parts and grow more annoyed with all the characters for some reason. Oh well.
The book is divided into 7 parts and it started out really well until around parts 5 and 6 where it took a bit of a downward spiral. I do not want to spoiler too much but I think was mostly bothered me that nothing was explained, not even at the very end. There is no explanation as to what the state of the world is to make living in it so horrible except for "there is a lot of smog" but that's nothing new. Additionally, between time jumps, especially one character changes their personality quite a bit, which could have been explained. Without any explanation, I started to instantly dislike them and kept wondering what the hell had happened at this time. I understand that keeping readers in the dark is a common tactic but without any resolve, in the end, it is simply unsatisfying. For example, as a second book for my MA, I read The Ones We're Meant to Find by Joan He. In this book, I was also very confused for a long time because a lot of information is withheld from the reader for a long time. But in the end, you still receive an explanation, which might not make you like the story or the characters more but at least you learn about a motive. That was really missing in The New Wilderness.
Also, this is really just personal preference but
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Animal death, Abandonment, Blood, Death, Sexual content, and Miscarriage
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Death of parent, and Grief
maddiebusick's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Really interesting and compelling concept. It lagged a bit at times but I guess that reflects the way these characters were living. I enjoyed the fact that this was an environmental warning of a novel without being set in space.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment, Animal death, Blood, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Murder, Sexual content, and Violence