A review by alanaes
Wildlife by Fiona Wood

5.0

Easily one of the best books I've read this year. Fiona Wood masterfully weaves the voices of our two narrators together to create a touching, biting, funny, heartbreaking and heartfelt story of finding selfhood in the wilderness (actual or relationship-constructed). Sybilla and Lou are two very different girls who paths come together during a high school semester in the Australian wilderness. Syb is insecure but independent, navigating her first relationship. Lou is recovering from a life-changing, consuming loss and learning to be herself again. Both girls need to find a way to survive living with their classmates for several weeks of little-to-no privacy in the woods (with some less-than-kind frenemies). Alternately laugh-out-loud funny and tearjerkingly poignant, Wood's writing perfectly captures a realistic portrait of life in those murky find-yourself years. I can't recommend this one highly enough. (For fans of [a:E. Lockhart|173491|E. Lockhart|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1399077200p2/173491.jpg], [a:Jaclyn Moriarty|47290|Jaclyn Moriarty|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1199066598p2/47290.jpg], [a:Melina Marchetta|47104|Melina Marchetta|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1277655889p2/47104.jpg], etc.)

I received an e-galley of this title in exchange for an honest review. Thanks, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers and NetGalley!