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A review by deedireads
The New Wilderness by Diane Cook
adventurous
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
All my reviews live at https://deedispeaking.com/reads/.
TL;DR REVIEW:
The New Wilderness is an immersive, quietly excellent book about survival, motherhood, growing up, and the beauty of the world around us. I really liked it.
For you if: You are looking for literary dystopia.
FULL REVIEW:
The New Wilderness is shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize, and after reading it, it’s clear why. This book is dark, compelling, immersive, and just plain expertly crafted. I don’t think it will be for everyone — it’s not very fast paced — but if you often enjoy the kind of books nominated for the Booker, I think you’ll like this one too.
“The Administration” is trying to discern if humans can live in nature again without harming it. A group of people agree to take part in the study and pack up and leave The City, where all people now live amid pollution and overpopulation. The main characters are Bea and Agnes, mother and daughter. The city was making Agnes sick, so leaving for the last wilderness is her Bea’s only hope of saving her. We get this in flashbacks, though — the novel starts several years after they’ve already been there and learned to survive.
This book’s excellence is quiet, but firm. It’s just plain good writing. It’s so clear that Cook is an expert at the craft, knows exactly what she is doing when she puts pen to paper. One thing I was particularly impressed with was how she manipulates time and space, speeding up so a whole year passes and then slowling down to a single night; zooming in to Agnes’s heart and zooming out so the group itself becomes a distinct character. In certain passages, it almost feels like you could be flying above them, a hawk or eagle, watching them traverse and struggle. Immersive and captivating, if you let yourself get swept away.
The book starts from Bea’s third-person narration, but eventually switches to Agnes, who is by then a preteen and, eventually, a teenager — we follow these characters for a very long stretch of time. That means we really get to know both of them, which is how Diane Cook brings out a fierce examination of both motherhood and daughterhood, about how mothers and daughters yearn to be both part of and apart from one another, how they can hurt one another so deeply and yet love one another despite it all.
Also, the opening scene of this novel is excellent: raw, devastating, the perfect set-up for the beauty and brutality of the world these characters live in. And then the second section, which is short, just plain sings. It could have stood alone. It could have been a prologue, or an opening chapter. But by placing it second, Cook creates a shape and pattern for the narration that hooks you and promises so much more.
There’s so much to learn about writing from this book. And about humanity, and relationships, and what we will do to survive and save the ones we love.
TRIGGER WARNINGS:
Stillborn birth, miscarriages; Parental abandonment; Animal death (hunting/surviving)
TL;DR REVIEW:
The New Wilderness is an immersive, quietly excellent book about survival, motherhood, growing up, and the beauty of the world around us. I really liked it.
For you if: You are looking for literary dystopia.
FULL REVIEW:
The New Wilderness is shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize, and after reading it, it’s clear why. This book is dark, compelling, immersive, and just plain expertly crafted. I don’t think it will be for everyone — it’s not very fast paced — but if you often enjoy the kind of books nominated for the Booker, I think you’ll like this one too.
“The Administration” is trying to discern if humans can live in nature again without harming it. A group of people agree to take part in the study and pack up and leave The City, where all people now live amid pollution and overpopulation. The main characters are Bea and Agnes, mother and daughter. The city was making Agnes sick, so leaving for the last wilderness is her Bea’s only hope of saving her. We get this in flashbacks, though — the novel starts several years after they’ve already been there and learned to survive.
This book’s excellence is quiet, but firm. It’s just plain good writing. It’s so clear that Cook is an expert at the craft, knows exactly what she is doing when she puts pen to paper. One thing I was particularly impressed with was how she manipulates time and space, speeding up so a whole year passes and then slowling down to a single night; zooming in to Agnes’s heart and zooming out so the group itself becomes a distinct character. In certain passages, it almost feels like you could be flying above them, a hawk or eagle, watching them traverse and struggle. Immersive and captivating, if you let yourself get swept away.
The book starts from Bea’s third-person narration, but eventually switches to Agnes, who is by then a preteen and, eventually, a teenager — we follow these characters for a very long stretch of time. That means we really get to know both of them, which is how Diane Cook brings out a fierce examination of both motherhood and daughterhood, about how mothers and daughters yearn to be both part of and apart from one another, how they can hurt one another so deeply and yet love one another despite it all.
Also, the opening scene of this novel is excellent: raw, devastating, the perfect set-up for the beauty and brutality of the world these characters live in. And then the second section, which is short, just plain sings. It could have stood alone. It could have been a prologue, or an opening chapter. But by placing it second, Cook creates a shape and pattern for the narration that hooks you and promises so much more.
There’s so much to learn about writing from this book. And about humanity, and relationships, and what we will do to survive and save the ones we love.
TRIGGER WARNINGS:
Stillborn birth, miscarriages; Parental abandonment; Animal death (hunting/surviving)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death
Moderate: Miscarriage
Minor: Animal death