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3.69 AVERAGE
3.69 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
4.5. A very interesting study of power, parent-child relationships, and human-nature relationships. -0.5 because I thought it could have been edited down a little bit, and I would have liked the epilogue to return to Bea’s point of view. But that’s nitpicking - I liked this a lot, and it had an impressive scope and complexity.
(3.5) WOW I have so many thoughts. This actually completely exceeded my expectations. There are things I wish that were explored further and I felt like the ending was way too rushed but honestly I really liked this
Edit: changed my rating to 3 star because the more I think about it the more questions I have
Edit: changed my rating to 3 star because the more I think about it the more questions I have
Agnes is slowly wasting away in the pollution of a metropolis. Her mother Bea takes her to the last untouched land The Wilderness State where “the community” are experimental Guinea pigs to see if humans can exist in nature without destroying it.
If you like books where people endlessly walk but nothing really happens, this is the book for you. After a full week and 180 pages, I just couldn’t be bothered to find out what, if anything happens to these people.
If you like books where people endlessly walk but nothing really happens, this is the book for you. After a full week and 180 pages, I just couldn’t be bothered to find out what, if anything happens to these people.
dark
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
adventurous
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book was like if Lord of the Flies were worse and twice as long.
Let me clarify: I am not opposed to bleak dystopian stories. Nor am I opposed to gory survival stories or horror as social allegory. But in a book about deeply unlikable people, a harsh setting, and a devolving plot, there needs to be SOMETHING compelling about the story. Interesting characters? Great prose? More than half-baked dystopian worldbuilding? Sophisticated thematic reflection? This book had none of that. I kept waiting for it to get better (or for literally anything interesting to happen), and was continually disappointed. It touched on themes of motherhood, climate refugees, human social dynamics, and the seductive appeal of autocrats, but with little depth. And for a book that’s ostensibly about human interactions with ‘nature,’ you may be surprised to find there was next to no critical exploration of this - I sure was! A generous interpretation would be that the author was trying to do too many things and couldn’t quite get there on any of them, so let’s call it that.
On the positives: the descriptions of natural landscapes were mostly well done, the social dynamics of the group felt plausible, the mostly-raised-in-the-wilderness characterization of Agnes was decently executed, and I liked the nod to generational divides within politics and worldviews at the very end. But mostly, it just felt like someone put all the climate/environmental doom clickbait headlines into a document, connected them with some tenuous threads and no critical analysis, and called it a Booker Prize shortlisted novel.
On the positives: the descriptions of natural landscapes were mostly well done, the social dynamics of the group felt plausible, the mostly-raised-in-the-wilderness characterization of Agnes was decently executed, and I liked the nod to generational divides within politics and worldviews at the very end. But mostly, it just felt like someone put all the climate/environmental doom clickbait headlines into a document, connected them with some tenuous threads and no critical analysis, and called it a Booker Prize shortlisted novel.
TLDR: Promising synopsis, bad execution - I’m annoyed I spent my time reading this.