The Wild

By Owen Laukkanen, pub date September 14, 2020

Best enjoyed outside where you can smell fresh air and dirt–even better if you can surround yourself with forest.

Dawn messed up. Dawn messed up bad enough that her mother and her step dad showed up at her middle aged drug dealing boyfriend’s house to pick her up and drag her off the Out of the Wild, a program for wayward teens. Now, Dawn is experiencing some of the toughest situations she’s ever had to deal with…at least the ones she’s willing to talk about.

Along with other messed up kids like her and int he company of two counselors, it looks like Dawn is going to be hiking non-stop over the course of the next three months until she can prove that she is responsible and respectful and has turned her life around. Maybe it will give her the opportunity to confront ‘WHAT SHE DID,’ the thing that started her down this path in the first place.

When things go horribly awry, Dawn is not only going to learn–quickly–about what she is capable of and what she is willing to do in order to survive, she will also need to learn what Doing the Right Thing really means if she has any intention of living with herself.

I’m a sucker for survival stories, especially those where someone who is completely unprepared to get lost in the woods does exactly that. Extra points when something nefarious or untoward is occurring at the same time. So many extra points. I really dug this whole story and I practically gobbled it all down in one sitting.

It reads as a very matter of fact guidebook without losing its flavor. Even with the obvious foreshadowing–and I mean, the author literally tells you that something bad is going to happen and points out mistakes that the characters make–there were still some surprising twists and turns. It gets very Lord of the Flies-y while also maintaining the dark, urgent, survival-driven vibe of the movie “The Edge.”

Laukkanen did an amazing job of describing the landscapes and scenes, the struggles, aches, and pains, and even the scent of the very air. You are sucked right into the story, experiencing it right next to the characters and embracing the exhaustion, excitement, and fear as if you are there. Highly recommend.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Children’s for the advanced reader copy, provided in exchange for an honest and fair review.