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A review by peggyd
The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
This is a bleak book that I read at the wrong time, picking it up right after I finished another bleak book (Demon Copperhead) and so I definitely need a break from bleak books. But I didn't know that when I started this.
Having said that, it's a Lauren Groff book, so it's beautifully written. Really just stunning prose from start to finish. I smelled the often vile smells, I could feel the bugs, fleas, and lice crawling on me and setting up shop in my clothes. I could see the beauty of nature: the waterfalls, the budding trees, the forest canopy, the birds diving and telling their stories. It's an immersive story.
Lamentations (AKA Zed) is on the run. Her mistress's vile new husband (a priest, natch) dragged them across the Atlantic to the new world and a fort where everyone is starving. After the death of her charge, the child Bess, Zed sees something vile, grabs up what little she can, steals her mistress's heavy cloak and gloves and RUNS. This is a story of survival; it's also a coming of age story for Zed who starts with a deep faith in God that gradually shifts as she looks at this new world with more experienced eyes. Each encounter, each struggle wears her down while also opening her up to a deeper understanding of herself, her past (spoiler: also bleak), and, ultimately, the brutality of the natural world, even as she grasps that colonization will only blight out its beauty and possibility.
We are just with her (and a few fearsome men), running with her, wondering where it could possibly end. For me, it ended how I expected--bleak--but the beauty of getting there and the beauty of the final lines, well, whew, they blew me away. Truly, I think Lauren Groff is a genius to make me love a book as relentless as this one.
Having said that, it's a Lauren Groff book, so it's beautifully written. Really just stunning prose from start to finish. I smelled the often vile smells, I could feel the bugs, fleas, and lice crawling on me and setting up shop in my clothes. I could see the beauty of nature: the waterfalls, the budding trees, the forest canopy, the birds diving and telling their stories. It's an immersive story.
Lamentations (AKA Zed) is on the run. Her mistress's vile new husband (a priest, natch) dragged them across the Atlantic to the new world and a fort where everyone is starving. After the death of her charge, the child Bess, Zed sees something vile, grabs up what little she can, steals her mistress's heavy cloak and gloves and RUNS. This is a story of survival; it's also a coming of age story for Zed who starts with a deep faith in God that gradually shifts as she looks at this new world with more experienced eyes. Each encounter, each struggle wears her down while also opening her up to a deeper understanding of herself, her past (spoiler: also bleak), and, ultimately, the brutality of the natural world, even as she grasps that colonization will only blight out its beauty and possibility.
We are just with her (and a few fearsome men), running with her, wondering where it could possibly end. For me, it ended how I expected--bleak--but the beauty of getting there and the beauty of the final lines, well, whew, they blew me away. Truly, I think Lauren Groff is a genius to make me love a book as relentless as this one.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal death, Sexual assault, Excrement, and Vomit