A review by sarahs_shelf_
The New Wilderness by Diane Cook

adventurous challenging emotional sad medium-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? It's complicated

4.75

I really really enjoyed this book. It took me a bit to get into it, but one I did it was fantastic. The story itself is sort of heartbreaking, I mean it's about the climate catastrophe and a group of people's final attempts to live outside of the City. In this near future pretty much everyone lives in cities and the air and living conditions have become so bad that children are deathly ill pretty much as soon as they're born. 
There was one portion of the book were the passing got a little slow for me and I really wanted to know what was going to happen...but overall I think the pacing is done really well. It's medium to slow paced and the movement of seasons really dictates the pacing of the characters lives which I always find soothing (even though, as I said it is mostly a heartbreaking book). One thing I found super interesting is the use of maps in the story, I think that's something that has stuck with me the most after reading this book, and I hope to have discussions with people about it. And of course the mother-daughter relationship is at the forefront of this story. I don't have much to say about it except that it was amazingly well done and I marked so many passages about them. 
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