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catherine_the_greatest 's review for:
Into the Jungle
by Erica Ferencik
Nine years later, I wish I could wrap my arms around my younger, stupider self and tell her to hold on tight, because flying to Bolivia on a scam was the least in a series of bad decisions I was about to make.
And that pretty much sums up the entire book: a series of bad decisions made by a nineteen-year-old who grew up in the U.S. foster care system. Used to stealing and doing whatever else it takes to survive, Lily resorts to working in a run-down hotel in Cochabamba, Bolivia, running with other troubled girls from the U.S. and Europe. Then she falls in insta-love with Omar, a mechanic in his mid-twenties, who grew up in a remote jungle village. After two months, she follows him to his village (because his nephew was killed by a jaguar and only he can avenge the death) and tries to assimilate. Kind of. Really, she just whines about how unfriendly all the women are, while she basically moons around, having sex with her boyfriend. For the first 3/4 of the book, the most exciting thing that happens is that she realizes she's pregnant in the middle of the jungle, hundreds of miles from civilization as she knows it. (This is not a spoiler, because it's revealed in the prologue, which doesn't even fit with the version of events that occur later in the book.) All of this is described in excruciating detail through overwrought prose.
And then, in the last quarter of the book, shit gets real. (Real ridiculous.)
This novel is being marketed as a thriller, which it is not. Despite occasional heavy-handed foreshadowing, there's no real suspense, other than wondering what stupid decision Lily is going to make next. I'm really surprised this isn't this author's first novel.
And that pretty much sums up the entire book: a series of bad decisions made by a nineteen-year-old who grew up in the U.S. foster care system. Used to stealing and doing whatever else it takes to survive, Lily resorts to working in a run-down hotel in Cochabamba, Bolivia, running with other troubled girls from the U.S. and Europe. Then she falls in insta-love with Omar, a mechanic in his mid-twenties, who grew up in a remote jungle village. After two months, she follows him to his village (because his nephew was killed by a jaguar and only he can avenge the death) and tries to assimilate. Kind of. Really, she just whines about how unfriendly all the women are, while she basically moons around, having sex with her boyfriend. For the first 3/4 of the book, the most exciting thing that happens is that she realizes she's pregnant in the middle of the jungle, hundreds of miles from civilization as she knows it. (This is not a spoiler, because it's revealed in the prologue, which doesn't even fit with the version of events that occur later in the book.) All of this is described in excruciating detail through overwrought prose.
And then, in the last quarter of the book, shit gets real. (Real ridiculous.)
Spoiler
After basically ignoring her infected insect bites for months, it turns out Lily has a life-threatening disease that can only be cured by visiting a homicidal tribe even furthur into the jungle. Then Omar is killed and she must navigate her way back to his village. On the way, she gives birth, by herself, in the middle of a monsoon, and -- still bleeding and dosing her newborn with frog venom to keep him silent -- she busts out all kinds of previously untested jungle skills to save his village from vicious poachers. Well, almost. It's really the murderous jaguar and the aforementioned homicidal tribe that end up coming to the rescue and wiping out the poachers. And then, totally unscarred -- in fact, vastly improved -- by her traumatic, near-death experiences, Lily returns to the U.S. with her infant and makes a better life for both of them, never forgetting her experience in the jungle. Ri. dik. u. lus.This novel is being marketed as a thriller, which it is not. Despite occasional heavy-handed foreshadowing, there's no real suspense, other than wondering what stupid decision Lily is going to make next. I'm really surprised this isn't this author's first novel.