Reviews

The book was fine overall. It was very well written and researched. The first half of the story was pretty boring in my opinion, but the second half was much more interesting. I thought the mother-daughter dynamics that were explored throughout the book were very insightful and nuanced. It felt real. I feel like this book had something, but didn't fully embrace it. I think it could have been much better.

posydee's review against another edition

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Very slow paced and the story and characters didn't keep my attention.

hazelnutz's review against another edition

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5.0

Loved this!! Amazing story about survival and fierce love between mothers and daughters. I will be thinking about this book for a long time, it gripped me from start to finish.

I think the main characters compassionately portray an estranged family bond under exceptional circumstances. I was surprised to see Bea leave and the perspective shift, I was expecting to take part mostly of Bea's thoughts of her role as a mother and survivor. Following Agnes forced me to remember what I had learned about Bea and keep her motivations and humanity in the back of my mind, all while learning about Agnes and understanding her conflicted feelings towards her mother.

Agnes growing up and becoming a mother herself was a very satisfying full circle moment and I love how by the end she houses the trauma of her upbringing right alongside her love and understanding for her mother. In my mind Agnes doesn't forgive Bea but understands her and will forever grieve the relationship they could have had were the circumstances different.

One of my favorite moments in the book was Agnes claiming her agency and leaving Bea behind because Bea refuses to follow, in my interpretation this is what causes Bea to fully see her shortcomings as a mother and painfully understanding her own mothers feelings when Bea and Agnes left for the Wilderness. To me this moment is where Bea lets go of her role as a mother and Agnes lets go of her role as Bea's daughter, both of them sort of growing up.

bsmith27's review against another edition

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3.0

I really wanted to like this book. It is a dystopian novel set in our future when pollution is ruining some people's health. A mother and stepfather decide to go into the wilderness to help their daughter who is ill. They are in government land and there are lots of rules. They have to be hunter gatherers and there are about 20 people. The novel switches narrators about half way through to the daughter because the mother leaves upon hearing that her mother died. The daughter has essentially been raised in this odd environment and is very intune with animals and nature. However she also tries to trap a boy by trying to get pregnant. The mother finds her way back to them and then has a plan with a ranger to go to private wilderness but the ranger took her money and doesn't deliver. The program was ended and the girl ends up in the city. The characters were off and difficult to identify with.

bex_knighthunterbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional reflective slow-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

3.5

A meandering story were we follow a group surviving in the wilderness in a dystopian future. The group are volunteers in a experiment, but where the experiment seems to have already petered out by the time the story starts. This book is very much my sort of thing, and I enjoyed a slow-paced story of small group dynamics, foraging, hardship, and growing up in the harshness of nature. It was interesting seeing how their values had shifted from their time in the wild, and how the main group are set against others (the wardens, the newcomers, and then finally the mavericks). There was also a very complex mother-daughter relationship at the centre of the story, with POVs from both of them, and a lot of misunderstanding and blame between them. However, the world was not as complex as I was hoping for. This has been described as cli-fi but I'd say only in its barest and least interesting sense - set in the near future climate change is alluded to have happened, but the future is more one of compound problems stemming from over-consumption, overpopulation, and a new order that seems to push most people into poverty and illness. This world is only painted in the broadest of strokes, and has very little nuance or complexity - for instance, everyone seems to live in 'the city' where there is no nature, and is served by various production districts/states. The ending is also quite abrupt and I'm not sure how I feel about it - I like that it doesn't feel predictable but it also makes the book feel a little meaningless. Just generally, I'm a little lost in what the message or themes were - do we need nature to be our whole selves? or can we not be trusted to live in nature as we will always grow to exploit it too far? Maybe that wasn't the point of this book, but I feel it was so perfectly placed to explore those questions, but it didn't do enough for me on those.

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