Reviews with content warning for Violence - A History of Wild Places

Reviews tagging 'Violence'

A History of Wild Places by Shea Ernshaw

27 reviews

elliez's review against another edition

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dark mysterious 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

4.0

Review to come after I process my thoughts on the book.

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bandysbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful 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

5.0

A missing person mystery with magical realism and descriptive literary writing? Sign me up immediately.

The plot of this story isn't the most revolutionary. An author goes missing after a trip into the woods. A private investigator with supernatural abilities is sent out to find her. What follows is a beautifully written, winding story of her disappearance. There are plot twists, most of which I could easily predict, but it kept me entertained.

The main characters are all relatively interesting. Travis, the investigator, has the ability to see past memories when he touches things. Maggie St. James left behind some creepy children's books. And as we meet the members of Pastoral, we slowly are introduced to several charismatic characters as well. (Don't want to say much more because of spoilers)

What made this book so magical was the writing. It is simply gorgeous. It was such a vivid and visceral experience. I could imagine every scene in great detail. There was a magical quality to it all, even as the plot started to get darker. Atmospheric. Eerie. At times creepy. It's just the perfect mix.

All in all, if you like mystery, magical realism, and literary fiction, I think this just may be the book for you! It was definitely my favorite read in January.

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dalmavatai's review against another edition

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mysterious tense medium-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? No

3.0

This book... was a mixed bag. I loved the mystery: the books about Eloise, the charms on the necklace, the diaries, the setup was all so creative and gripping that I couldn't wait to find out what was going on. And I will say that I really liked the twists, I thought they were very satisfying and well done. For the mystery and the twists alone I do think this book was worth reading.

However, I just thought that the characters were quite bland and I didn't much care for them, and I didn't care about the nature/commune aspects either. This book kind of made me realize that I don't enjoy reading about a commune because it's just not something that I'm particularly interested in learning about. If it had gone darker I perhaps would have enjoyed it more because I do think I'm interested in reading about cults, but alas I was a bit bored for long stretches of reading this book. It was also too long in my opinion but my lack of enjoyment obviously contributes to me feeling that way.

An overall meh setting and bland characters with a very gripping mystery and a good payoff - a very mixed bag.

I will also say that without going into spoilers, I was not a fan of the disability (blind) representation at all, I thought it was a plot point that could've been handled with a lot more care which wouldn't have had the outcome that we ended up getting. It's a bit cheap so maybe look at reviews by blind people to see how they feel about it.

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