A review by charvisioku
The New Wilderness by Diane Cook
4.0
I can see why this book has such a mixed bag of ratings and reviews. It's one of the most bleak things I've ever read in the sense that I finished the story, put it down and had to take a bit of time to process how hopeless and unsatisfying the ending is.
That's actually what I love about the book but it's not for the faint hearted. I read it as a study of human nature and how close we really are to reverting back to being animals - I love Agnes and would like to find more books with characters like her. I think her battle between her humanity and her animal instincts has been written extremely well and I found myself constantly swinging between admiring her mother's attempts to protect her and hating her mother for the damage her actions did to Glen and Agnes.
The characters are mostly very complex and often contradictory, which I'd argue is more realistic than a more traditionally well balanced character. The only thing I would say is that I find it a bit unrealistic that certain characters didn't do serious harm to others in the Community. I think there was a lot of room to explore how having no properly enforced social rules would lead to chaotic behaviour and I'm amazed that Carl didn't do worse things. There's a moment where he's quite intimidating and threatening towards Bea, but I found it difficult to believe that a person like him would stop at being threatening. That being said, I enjoyed the way characters were developed for the most part and there are some moments of dark humour, like the river expert being casually yeeted by an errant log whilst testing a river to see if it can be crossed.
There are some very confusing moments too, especially with Bea - I can't figure her out at all - but I think that was intentional and it kind of made me feel more like I was reading about the erosion of logic after people had been living wild for an extended period of time.
Would recommend but don't read it if you're not in a good place, it's very depressing and bleak.
That's actually what I love about the book but it's not for the faint hearted. I read it as a study of human nature and how close we really are to reverting back to being animals - I love Agnes and would like to find more books with characters like her. I think her battle between her humanity and her animal instincts has been written extremely well and I found myself constantly swinging between admiring her mother's attempts to protect her and hating her mother for the damage her actions did to Glen and Agnes.
The characters are mostly very complex and often contradictory, which I'd argue is more realistic than a more traditionally well balanced character. The only thing I would say is that I find it a bit unrealistic that certain characters didn't do serious harm to others in the Community. I think there was a lot of room to explore how having no properly enforced social rules would lead to chaotic behaviour and I'm amazed that Carl didn't do worse things. There's a moment where he's quite intimidating and threatening towards Bea, but I found it difficult to believe that a person like him would stop at being threatening. That being said, I enjoyed the way characters were developed for the most part and there are some moments of dark humour, like the river expert being casually yeeted by an errant log whilst testing a river to see if it can be crossed.
There are some very confusing moments too, especially with Bea - I can't figure her out at all - but I think that was intentional and it kind of made me feel more like I was reading about the erosion of logic after people had been living wild for an extended period of time.
Would recommend but don't read it if you're not in a good place, it's very depressing and bleak.