What Should Be Wild, Julia Fine
What Should Be Wild, Julia Fine
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What Should Be Wild
A Novel

Author: Julia Fine

Narrator: Cassandra Campbell, Rebecca Gibel

Unabridged: 11 hr 41 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 05/08/2018


Synopsis

“Delightful and darkly magical. Julia Fine has written a beautiful modern myth, a coming-of-age story for a girl with a worrisome power over life and death. I loved it.”  —Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler’s Wife and Her Fearful SymmetryIn this darkly funny, striking debut, a highly unusual young woman must venture into the woods at the edge of her home to remove a curse that has plagued the women in her family for millennia—an utterly original novel with all the mesmerizing power of The Tiger’s Wife, The Snow Child, and Swamplandia!Cursed. Maisie Cothay has never known the feel of human flesh: born with the power to kill or resurrect at her slightest touch, she has spent her childhood sequestered in her family’s manor at the edge of a mysterious forest. Maisie’s father, an anthropologist who sees her as more experiment than daughter, has warned Maisie not to venture into the wood. Locals talk of men disappearing within, emerging with addled minds and strange stories. What he does not tell Maisie is that for over a millennium her female ancestors have also vanished into the wood, never to emerge—for she is descended from a long line of cursed women.But one day Maisie’s father disappears, and Maisie must venture beyond the walls of her carefully constructed life to find him. Away from her home and the wood for the very first time, she encounters a strange world filled with wonder and deception. Yet the farther she strays, the more the wood calls her home. For only there can Maisie finally reckon with her power and come to understand the wildest parts of herself.

About Julia Fine

Julia Fine is the author of the critically acclaimed debut What Should Be Wild, which was short-listed for both the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel and the Chicago Review of Books Award for Fiction. She teaches writing in Chicago, Illinois where she lives with her husband and children.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Julia on March 11, 2018

Maybe I'm slightly biased, but I'm a fan.......more

Goodreads review by Hannah on June 12, 2018

They grew me inside of my mother, which was unusual, because she was dead. There's a lot to love about Fine's debut novel, a book that blends magical realism with lore. The opening chapters are among its most dazzling: a child with a peculiar, dare I say it magical talent; a foreboding, two-hundr......more

Goodreads review by Melania 🍒 on August 22, 2021

3.5/5 It took me longer than it should to realize why I didn’t like this more while reading it. I mean, it has interesting magical elements, the characters are well built, with an overall quirky tone (many times I felt that I was reading something by Wes Anderson) and some dark, messed up stuff is ha......more

Goodreads review by Nell on June 02, 2018

What Should Be Wild is the book I've been waiting for, maybe since I was a little girl. What Should Be Wild is a promise, a warning, a breath of fresh air, frankly. Julia Fine, in her debut (!!!), deftly draws on fairy tales, seeks out their darkest roots, to craft a feminist story that carefully, a......more

Goodreads review by MaryBeth's on March 19, 2018

I think Julia Fine's debut novel What Should Be Wild is a fresh new voice for the literary community. The story was a bit confusing in the beginning but everything became clear at the end. Such an inventive, distinct, unique new story. i received an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an hone......more