I loved this book. I read it in an evening and I can tell
I will continue thinking about it. The lush descriptions of nature and the simultaneous urge and fear of becoming feral and merging with the woods...wow. I feel that.
In many ways this reminded me of one of my favourite books, Pond by Claire-Louise Bennett. The descriptions of nature reminded me of the remoteness of the life described in that book, and the specificity with which the protagonists notice specific details about their surroundings. It also somewhat reminded me of No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood, which I also loved, as both that book and this one deal with people who are intensely aware of the news and too much online and suffering as a result. And experiencing the world
through a lens that those around them do not entirely understand. All three of these books have strands of feeling uncomfortable in the world, pulling away, but simultaneously being deeply invested in everything going on in the world (though not in a healthy way). Like those books, this also gave me the feeling of reading thoughts I have had but never been able to articulate.
Reading this book felt like being sucked in to something mysterious, dark, and beautiful.
