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pippling's review against another edition
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 against another edition
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
sha's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
1.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty and Animal death
Moderate: Sexual content, Excrement, Violence, Death of parent, Forced institutionalization, and Miscarriage
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 sexamynbell's review against another edition
adventurous
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
The theme seemed like a book I would love, but it moved so slowly and felt like nothing was ever happening.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Death of parent, Miscarriage, Death, Excrement, and Infidelity
ginzura's review against another edition
started off promising, but I just was reading a lot of the same things, a literal regurgitation of things that have happened already. They walk around and just.. kept walking. The one character I had vague interest in was Agnes, but that’s beginning to fizzle out. I’ve lost my motivation to continue.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Sexual content, and Miscarriage
Moderate: Abandonment, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Injury/Injury detail, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Emotional abuse, and Death of parent
merle_bookdragon's review against another edition
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
kieranyes's review
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
The New Wilderness is brimming with interesting ideas and has a unique voice, but its persistent bleakness, clunky dialogue and ambiguity clouded my enjoyment. Basically The Walking Dead, but more bureacracy and without any of the zombies or action.
The good is that the world building is really intriguing and original. Set in a mid-future scenario where pollution makes city air fatal, a small community attempt to survive in a state otherwise set aside for strictly managed nature conservation. This state is off limits; no people are generally allowed there and even microplastics and human bodies have to be retrieved or Rangers issue massive fines, kind of like an authoritarian Yellowstone. A small community is permitted to live there as part of a trial into populating the wilderness. Even the most rebellious characters appear to recognise their personal impact on the wilderness while they are there as important. This speculative future where conservation is a powerful bureacracy in an apparently futile attempt to offset environmental degradation was really interesting, but to be honest the ambiguous style doesn't really colour this in. We mostly pick up on this through the characters arguing about the rules of the study and references to how things have become less available. Characters never seriously discuss systemic drivers of why or how the world is, and don't seem to care about these even when their children become too sick or even die from air pollution.
The central tension is between a mother and her daughter, and an additional one between an academic and a thug. Ideas of returning to nature and reorganising society in hardship are pretty clear, through a complicated and at times strained mother-daughter bond. However, we don't really know what anyone looks like; for a book inspired by indigenous culture its pretty colourblind, I think in an attempt at universality. In the same way, all characters have the same or very similar kind of clunky and simple speech. This is why it reminded me of the Walking Dead, a show not known for poignant dialogue.
Its also just really bleak. I'm all down for a depressing read but this was kind of relentless.It opens with a miscarriage. The daughter beats her own mother and never sees her again. In the end, it is implied the world's last wilderness is destroyed (the broader implications of this are not discussed). The Road and The Overstory were also bleak and explored similar themes, but managed to include moments of respite that this lacked.
Stacey Glemboski's audiobook narration was excellent.
The good is that the world building is really intriguing and original. Set in a mid-future scenario where pollution makes city air fatal, a small community attempt to survive in a state otherwise set aside for strictly managed nature conservation. This state is off limits; no people are generally allowed there and even microplastics and human bodies have to be retrieved or Rangers issue massive fines, kind of like an authoritarian Yellowstone. A small community is permitted to live there as part of a trial into populating the wilderness. Even the most rebellious characters appear to recognise their personal impact on the wilderness while they are there as important. This speculative future where conservation is a powerful bureacracy in an apparently futile attempt to offset environmental degradation was really interesting, but to be honest the ambiguous style doesn't really colour this in. We mostly pick up on this through the characters arguing about the rules of the study and references to how things have become less available. Characters never seriously discuss systemic drivers of why or how the world is, and don't seem to care about these even when their children become too sick or even die from air pollution.
The central tension is between a mother and her daughter, and an additional one between an academic and a thug. Ideas of returning to nature and reorganising society in hardship are pretty clear, through a complicated and at times strained mother-daughter bond. However, we don't really know what anyone looks like; for a book inspired by indigenous culture its pretty colourblind, I think in an attempt at universality. In the same way, all characters have the same or very similar kind of clunky and simple speech. This is why it reminded me of the Walking Dead, a show not known for poignant dialogue.
Its also just really bleak. I'm all down for a depressing read but this was kind of relentless.
Stacey Glemboski's audiobook narration was excellent.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Miscarriage, Death of parent, Animal death, Infidelity, and Death
Moderate: Animal death, Sexual content, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail
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