Reviews

The Beautiful and the Wild by Peggy Townsend

alexandbooks's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

2.0

tasha131's review

adventurous mysterious tense fast-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

3.5

smalltownbookmom's review against another edition

4.0

A highly entertaining domestic suspense thriller set in the wilds of Alaska that sees a woman tracking down the husband she was told committed suicide with their young son in tow only to find him living off the grid with a whole other family hiding out from drug dealers.

Now that she's found him though he's not about to let her go and she soon finds herself trapped in a old shipping container forced to try to figure out a way to escape somehow with her son and no way to reach civilization.

Full of twists and turns and a shocking high octane ending. This was great on audio narrated by Karissa Vacker and perfect for fans of books like Room by Emma Donoghue or Quiet tenant by Clemence Michallon. Many thanks to @prhaudio for the complimentary ALC in exchange for my honest review!

beth_mn's review

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

4.0

allisonrae13's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense 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? Yes

1.75

nahelizara's review

dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.0

miss_kristen's review against another edition

dark emotional medium-paced

5.0

chillawesome's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

mosaicheartsxx's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad 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? It's complicated

4.0

this book was certainly a ride. usually, I'm not a fan of "now and then" plotlines but somehow, this one worked. I enjoyed the alaskan landscape the author fed us with. however,

I was excited to read this book mainly because it featured a woman trapped in a locked room and I wanted to see how she would get herself out. I felt like the book sold itself based on this information, and yet liv is out without much trials, and without her own efforts. she was let out after a little sweet-talking to her captors. that part made me feel a little disappointed because i was invested to see how liv would use every single weapon, physical and emotional, to get out of the shipping container. alas, this wasn't the case.

 

despite that, I still enjoyed the book. I love how flawed every character is and it felt cult-like hearing

mark and angela quote kai huang so earnestly. it was honestly creepy how much they worshipped kai huang so desperately.

 

and the way I rate books is also based on how much of a page-turner it is; this one kept me going throughout the night eventhough i knew I should be sleeping. so yeah. a solid book, folks.

oldandnewbooksmell's review

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

3.0

Trigger Warning: murder, death, rape, wilderness survival

Following her husband into the Alaskan wilderness after he “died”, Liv Russo ends up in a shipping container-turned-storage shed by her husband and his new lover. She vows to do anything to protect her son and escape. Carrying her own secrets, Liv must navigate the tough(er) world around her with the extreme weather, one bad incident away from starvation, and the dangerous wildlife. With winter’s arrival knocking on the door, Liv knows she must face her past and be sneaky in order to make it out alive.

I originally wanted to read this title because I was trying to step outside my usual reading comfort zone and also I wanted a book set in Alaska. This was… okay. It’s marked as a mystery but I guess maybe I don’t read enough mystery to know the feeling of a mystery (if that makes sense). Definitely felt the thriller aspect of it though, especially when it dealt with the survivalist parts of the story.

This book also went back and forth in time, but would still sometimes be in “Present” when the chapter would be marked as “Then” and that kind of threw me off a little bit.

I have such mixed feelings about this overall though, and I’m not quite sure if I’m going to be able to explain why. I both liked and hated the story and its setup, but I enjoyed the ending and how it was finished. It felt more of a survivalist story, but we still didn’t have a lot of survival stuff. I would have loved to know more about Rudy and what all he knew and understood about what was happening…

Overall though, I’m glad I read it, and enjoyed it quite enough. I feel like I will end up recommending this as a survivalist story moreover than a mystery though.

*Thank you Berkley and NetGalley for an advance digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review