Reviews - The Vaster Wilds

3.51k reviews for:

It took me 2 weeks to read the first 100 pages of this book and 3 hours to finish the last 150 pages, which pretty much sums up my feelings on it. Someone I know described this as a "female version of Hatchet," and I see why she thinks so. The writing reads like a lullaby, even though the content is harrowing at times. Groff illustrates the wilderness settings and the flashbacks to civility both in incredible detail. The girl, our main character, is someone I spent the whole book figuring out and who I could have spent more time with. My favorite part was probably in the fever section of the book, namely chapters 15-17, where there are interesting musings as the girl starts to ponder dominion, what's in a name, what is god, and a female's place in the world. Well done overall, though I wish the wrap up at the end had been stretched a little more.

rebekka_m's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous challenging dark informative reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

_drucifer_'s review against another edition

3.5

adventurous challenging dark reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

nicolesa's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

amurr910's review against another edition

3.5

challenging dark slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

mattdube's review against another edition

3.0

I don't think the project-- to capture an approximation of a 16th C voice-- really leads to much here. Lamentations is a poor girl in Colonial Virginia who leaves her settlement to survive in tge American wilderness, such as it is.

Groff does write here a mostly interesting voice, similar to a low rent Cromwell voice, and she alternates between scenes in the present woods and filling in L's past, in Englan and the New World. She verges on being an interesting character and her thoughts are well-developed as she becomes her own thing. But none of this is enough to elevate this above the status of a minor work, at least to me.

abeerkhan's review against another edition

4.0

This was a beautiful read and I really enjoyed it. It gets dark but the epiphanies the protagonist has were profound and moving. I’m not sure how a whole book about a girl alone in the wild (sometimes literally going in circles) had me hooked and that’s a credit to the richness of Lauren Groff’s writing. First book I’ve read by her; won’t be my last.

(As an aside, this time last year I read A People’s History by Howard Zinn. Zinn discussed at length the colonization and settlement of North America and the abjectly horrifying destruction that caused the indigenous population. He also talked about the difficult circumstances of the early settlers (starvation, attacks, cannabalization, etc.). To see that big picture up close from a single settler girl’s point of view in Vaster was a nice full circle moment. I’d love to read more from an indigenous perspective as well.)