Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Wild Life

3.59 of 5 stars 3.59 · rating details · 427 ratings · 104 reviews

It is the early 1900s and Charlotte Bridger Drummond is a thoroughly modern woman. The sole provider for her five young boys, Charlotte is a fiercely independent, freethinking woman of the West who fully embraces the scientific spirit that is sweeping the nation at the dawn of the industrial age. Thumbing her nose at convention, she dresses in men's clothes, avoids housewo...more

Paperback, 272 pages

Published September 17th 2001 by Mariner Books (first published 2000)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend

Best Diary Novels

44th out of 107 books — 119 voters

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

Epistolary Fiction

158th out of 225 books — 240 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 817)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Jul 27, 2007 Zab rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: otherworlds

It's all about the prose, not the plot, with Molly Gloss, so if you're in the market for gorgeous sentences about the small towns and forests of the Pacific Northwest, definitely pick this book up.

This is not to say that things don't happen in the novel; the feisty yet pragmatic late-nineteenth-century pulp-novel-writing feminist protagonist leaves her brood of children and goes back to nature - way, WAY back - in the company of some creatures that I imagined as a cross between a Sasquatch and a...more

like 4 likes · see review

Sep 06, 2007 Bee rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: all and sundry

Probably my favorite book of the last couple years, Wild Life simultaneously explores pioneer life, the conflicting draws of creativity and family, the history of trashy fantasy novels, the nature of evil, and a magical and enduring Pacific Northwest legend. All wrapped into a whalloping adventure with an engaging and fast-paced plot. Spectacle with depth. LOVED it.

like 4 likes · see review

Jul 23, 2007 Cynthia rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: everyone

Shelves: readandboughttokeep

I walked around inside this book for days. It's written as the diary of a woman - pioneer feminist raised on the Columbia River in Washington, mother of 5, novel-writer, adventurer, tough-minded poet-tongued - set in 1902 when the Douglas fir were as big around at the base as our houses are now. You may not like historical novels or diary forms or stuff about the Pacific Northwest - never mind what you don't like. You'll be amazed at this book. I liked Jump-Off Creek, also by Gloss, but I loved...more

like 2 likes · see review

Dec 10, 2012 Cleo rated it 2 of 5 stars

It has come to my attention that Goodread's rating system is different from Amazon's and from my blog's, so take that into account:

I was interested in the premise of this book; very much so. Charlotte Bridger Drummond, a cigar-smoking, trouser-wearing writer living in Washington state, writes popular adventure stories, though she despises the genre and prefers Jules Verne. Then, when a little girl gets lost in the forest, Charlotte sets out to join the search and rescue her. Now this is where th...more

like · see review

Oct 18, 2011 melissabee rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: own

this is one of my top ten favorite books i own, and that's saying alot, as i have an obscene amount of books. i bought this at the gift shop in nepenthe (in big sur) on my way out to a 5-day solo backpacking trip in the ventana wilderness. that, and the fact that i have taken training in search and rescue, tracking, and wilderness survival made this book the perfect choice to take along on my own little adventure.

the setting is 1905, in the pacific northwest. the protagonist is charlotte, a wido...more

like · see review

Apr 07, 2010 Melinda rated it 1 of 5 stars

This is the title that the King County library system has chosen as their official selection for the popular "If All Of Seattle Read the Same Book" program. I think that two of the main reasons they selected this book are that Washington is celebrating its 150th year of being a state, and Molly Gloss lives in nearby Portland.
This is a scattered and laborious tale of man-hating Charlotte who is raising 5 boys in the Pacific Northwest at the turn of the (last) century. Charlotte is a pulp writer o...more This is the title that the King County library system has chosen as their official selection for the popular "If All Of Seattle Read the Same Book" program. I think that two of the main reasons they selected this book are that Washington is celebrating its 150th year of being a state, and Molly Gloss lives in nearby Portland.
This is a scattered and laborious tale of man-hating Charlotte who is raising 5 boys in the Pacific Northwest at the turn of the (last) century. Charlotte is a pulp writer of romances who admires Jules Verne and despises the genre of books she writes. She does it for the money.

Charlotte is a "visionary" who envisions things like electric-powered washing machines and devices to fly in. Luckily, Ms. Gloss has a hundred-year perspective in which to make Charlotte seem smart and ahead of her time. Charlotte is one of the most mean-spirited heroines I have ever had the misfortune to meet. She enjoys freaking out the detested men she meets by wearing men's garb and chewing cigar butts, but making sure her lovely chestnut hair is always attractively arranged.

The most interesting part of the book is when Charlotte becomes lost and has a Sasquatch encounter. I'll give Ms. Gloss credit for that. However, when nearly struck by lightening she manages to save her precious diary, but neglects to remember her boots. Then, she spends 6 weeks lost in the muddy wilderness barefoot. And before that, she spends several nights in a tent with a bunch o'men, and woops! is (of course) molested.

The whole time she is lost she desperately desires to be back with her boys, but the author never goes into what they might have been thinking or feeling for all those long weeks. Plus, in a journal entry 3 years after her disappearance, she writes that she wishes she had more time to write, and that her family takes up way too much of her precious time.

She certainly didn't seem to learn much.

Also, the book is peppered with exhausting pages of irrelevant writings about people the reader has no relationship with, stories from magazines and a bunch of other drivel that I didn't care about.

The end result is a fragmented, confusing and incomplete story that takes too long to get off the ground, and then when it finally does, it's way too brief. I really disliked Charlotte, and I just couldn't get past that.

I suppose that some see Charlotte as the first feminist, but she is so grating that I had no sympathy for her. The only saving grace in the book is that what is happening in "real time" is written in regular font and has artwork by it that is supposed to resemble a frayed edge of paper, so the frustrated reader can skip past all the meaningless essays and get into the story. Then you can go back and read all the filler and find out that it's really not all that interesting.
(less)

like 1 like · see review

Dec 05, 2012 Iain Coggins rated it 5 of 5 stars

A poignant study of human identity, personally, socially and naturally. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. Molly Gloss has achieved a mastery of storytelling, conjuring a completely real sense of person and place, then embedding an improbable element therein that in turn becomes just as authentic. As soon as you think you've got the book figured out, it takes a u-turn into ever greater depth. I am more than impressed, I am touched by what this author has accomplished. If I were to criticize anythi...more

like · see review

Jun 18, 2009 Mary-Beth rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, historicalfiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Ugh. I started out really liking this book. The heroine starts out amazingly awesome and witty and brave and fun and, okay, flawed. She's a little abrasive and a little caught up in her own work as a writer. Then she gets what I can only see as an unjustifiable punishment and returns meeker and more 'appreciative of what she has.'

Sorry, but it doesn't seem like a good thing when someone's personality ends up so deformed that they are not even themselves anymore. She used to revel in being uncon...more

like 2 likes · see review

Apr 17, 2013 Ellen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: all-time-favorites

I LOVED this book. It was a random find at the used bookstore one day when I was in a hurry and just needed to grab something to read because I had forgotten my "entertainment bag" at home. And I am so glad that I picked this book off the shelf.

Personal reasons that I liked this book: It is set in the Pacific Northwest, an area that holds a special place in my heart. Also, the main character is a writer and the book has a lot to say about the art of writing. Since I am a writer myself, these tho...more

like · see review

Apr 13, 2012 Dixie Diamond rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 1900s, fiction, women, borrowed_books

I kind of liked this.

I liked some of the writing, mostly the writing that didn't apply to Charlotte, whose self-satisfaction wore thin pretty quickly. Some of the small descriptions were very inventive and effective. Some of the bigger ones were a little repetitive.

I didn't like Charlotte, but that's okay. Authors shouldn't have to make their protagonists universally likable. However, I couldn't tell if Gloss liked Charlotte, either. I think she did since Charlotte seemed to be a bit of a Mary S...more I kind of liked this.

I liked some of the writing, mostly the writing that didn't apply to Charlotte, whose self-satisfaction wore thin pretty quickly. Some of the small descriptions were very inventive and effective. Some of the bigger ones were a little repetitive.

I didn't like Charlotte, but that's okay. Authors shouldn't have to make their protagonists universally likable. However, I couldn't tell if Gloss liked Charlotte, either. I think she did since Charlotte seemed to be a bit of a Mary Sue, but I'm not sure that the character came off as the author intended.

I can see why Charlotte would consider being needlessly rude a male privilege to be appropriated along with pants, smoking, and bicycles, but it seems like a false victory. Being confident is not the same thing as being a jerk.

I felt as though the book was weighted too heavily forward: The long build-up promised a more vivid and interesting climax than the book actually delivered. The creatures never really gelled for me and I never really cared about them.

I wasn't disappointed in the end, partly because I think it ended too abruptly for us to tell if her personality really had been broken or if she was simply still in a state of shock and physical distress, and partly because I think that sending her, filthy and disoriented, back to civilization was the only thing that made sense if the author didn't plan to kill her off. Harriet's fate didn't surprise me, either; maybe I read too much news. Sorry. I mostly read nonfiction so a fantastical ending would have spoiled the book irretrievably for me.

Mostly, though, I was left with the impression that Charlotte was a spoiled and privileged woman who got taken down a peg, and I can't really imagine that's what Gloss meant to depict. Charlotte seemed to be one of those people whose flippant, obtrusive, individuality is possible because other, more conventional, people pick up the slack. She seems to enjoy the notoriety of being outré (in a very provincial setting) in very easy ways (pants, bicycle, homemade cigars, dabbling writing career) without really have done much to earn it: She married young, had a pack of kids, and she's not even a serious writer. She doesn't seem to recognize that people like Melba enable her "me time", and repays them with condescension and mockery. I actually liked Gracie Spears better, little as we know of her. She wasn't desperate for attention.

I don't mean that she was "asking for it", but I cannot imagine how a woman would sleep in a pile of woodsmen and assume they wouldn't touch her. "Feminists" who assume female exceptionalism aren't really feminists.

She's too late to be the first feminist, but she might be the first hipster. (less)

like · see review

Dec 09, 2011 Danielle rated it 3 of 5 stars

So I've just finished reading Wild Life by Molly Gloss and am feeling a little ambivalent about it. On the one hand it is a well written and thought-provoking story with a wonderfully independent heroine (I like smart female characters who show a little moxie), but on the other I thought I would never finish the book (and it is quite short--about 250 pages). It is the latest reading choice of the Slaves of Golconda, and I was very excited about the story. One of the reasons I enjoy readalongs (t...more So I've just finished reading Wild Life by Molly Gloss and am feeling a little ambivalent about it. On the one hand it is a well written and thought-provoking story with a wonderfully independent heroine (I like smart female characters who show a little moxie), but on the other I thought I would never finish the book (and it is quite short--about 250 pages). It is the latest reading choice of the Slaves of Golconda, and I was very excited about the story. One of the reasons I enjoy readalongs (though my track record of late with the Slaves has been a little spotty) is being able to widen my reading horizons and read books that may well be outside my normal comfort zone. Wild Life is a novel that crosses genres as there is a sci-fi/fantasy slant to the story, and in this case it also deals with gender issues as well. There is a certain amount of stretching of the imagination needed in the story, but I don't mind that really. So, what's not to like right?

The story is presented as a series of journal entries by Charlotte Bridger Drummond, a feminist and freethinking woman living with her five sons in the Pacific Northwest in the early years of the 20th century. Charlotte's husband left one day on the ferry never to return. She could avoid the stigma of being an abandoned wife by claiming one of the bodies that frequently washes ashore but prefers to think of her husband alive somewhere and happy rather than drowned and dead. She doesn't manage too badly on her own, however, as she pens dimestore novels of spunky heroines who get caught up in wild adventures. She likes to think she might be the natural successor to her idol Jules Verne, but she realizes her work crosses the line from serious to marketable.

Charlotte spends most of her time, as much as she can anyway, either writing or reading, which is no easy task considering the number of literary and scientific journals that arrive on the ferry every month. Not a fan of cooking or cleaning and with a rather elastic sense of motherly guidance she leaves the more mundane domestic duties up to her housekeeper, Melba.

"My personal belief if that a woman's worth doesn't lie in the cleanliness of her house; and at the commencement of each of Melba's absences I always am determined on principle, to let the housekeeping pile up. It is Melba's belief, though, that a woman who neglects her home is unnatural, an abnormity more horrible than Frankenstein's monster, and on her return there is a particular look she will give me as she surveys the disorder."

When Melba's granddaughter goes missing from one of the logging camps her father very foolishly brought her to, Charlotte is determined to not only travel there to discover the circumstances of her disappearance (by the time word makes its way from wilderness to the town it is stretched completely out of shape and distorted) but also to give a hand in the search as well. Charlotte isn't just determined but she is downright stubborn. She is an unapologetic intellectual who is sure she can succeed where others have failed. But several days into the search, she also gets separated from the group and even her trusty compass can't help her find her way back so completely turned around does she become.

At first she is sure she can catch up with the group of searchers, but as the days pass, her food runs out and she becomes cold and wet, her hope dwindles. Alone and afraid she senses she is being watched and realizes she is not alone in the wilderness. Literally at the end of her tether she latches on to a family of, I'm not sure what to call them--creatures that are much larger than humans but not too far removed from them either. They have their own language, so are unable to communicate, and while they are somewhat wary of each other they eventually allow Charlotte to tag along until she becomes almost one of them.

Interspersed in the narrative/journal entries are snippets from Charlotte's writing, both her stories and feminist musings, as well as sketches of the various characters (both primary and secondary characters of the story) and also included are quotes from authors and Native American folk tales. Taken together it creates a mosaic of sorts throwing light on different aspects of the story. These diversions become meditations on 19th century life, not exclusively of the West but certainly particular to it. She asks the reader (in however roundabout way) to consider many different things--the role of women in society, preservation versus the necessity of the logging industry, how animals are treated and what it means to be humane.

"I wonder if we might more easily become like animals than animals become like humans. As a species, we human beings seem no longer fitted for life in the wilderness--have been weakened by centuries of civilized life--but there may yet be something inherent in our natures, some potentiality which wants only the right circumstance to return us to the raw edge of Wildness."

I feel like I should be in love with this story. Charlotte is a remarkable, if fallible, woman. She dresses like a man when she needs to, rides a bicycle and when asked if she needs a light (she smokes an occasional cigar) replies she never takes a light from a man. She's smart and ever ready with a quick quip, which rolls smoothly off her tongue (there were loads of wonderful lines I could have shared!). Gloss vividly describes the Pacific Northwest, making it sound lush and beautiful and creates an intriguing picture of a vast wilderness--one where you can walk for days and never see anyone else (do places like that still exist here outside of state parks?). For the first two thirds of the story I was totally engaged and knowing that Charlotte would become lost in the wilderness I couldn't wait for that part of the story to arrive, but once it did I think I became frustrated by the many diversions and meanderings. I like that she pushes boundaries and asks hard questions, but for me it also broke up the flow of the story making me feel like I was plodding along.(less)

like · see review

Jul 14, 2009 Kylin Larsson rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a beautiful novel about a feminist pioneer in the Pacific Northwest. Charlotte, a single mother who supports five children by writing pulp fiction, goes on a rescue mission to find out what happened to her housekeeper's granddaughter. The young girl has disappeared from a logging camp and there are rumors of Sasquatch stealing the child. Filled with stories within stories and deep strains of compassion, bravery, and adventure, this is a must-read for fans of Pacific Northwest literature....more

like · see review

Apr 02, 2008 Faith rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: interesting-possibilities

I liked this a lot-- it was terribly funny, with a switch near the end. The heroine is a feminist writer and single parent of 4 or 5 young boys around the turn of the last century.

like 1 like · see review

Jun 08, 2012 Robin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was a hard book for me to read. The author used words I have never heard of, or else I didn't pronounce the words right. It was the kind of book I wish I had read on my Kindle. At least I could have used the dictionary aspect of it. I had to concentrate very hard at the beginning, to get used to the way the author wrote, so I had to read in the morning when I didn't have anything else on my mind. It got a little easier in the middle. Maybe it just got more interesting, but the last few page...more

like · see review

Apr 03, 2012 Christina rated it 3 of 5 stars

I love the way this story is presented, in the form of diary entries and vignettes, quotes and so forth. Charlotte has a strong voice. She's the sort of person that one might not get along with in real life, wouldn't strive to be like, but due to her colorful and well-written, believable character, she's quite entertaining.

The beginning did seem to drag a bit. I didn't try too hard to devote my full attention to this and did a fair bit of skimming I admit. But once Charlotte is lost it becomes...more

like · see review

Aug 09, 2007 Jody rated it 2 of 5 stars

I liked this book at first, but then I lost interest about halfway through and ended up just scanning the rest of it.

like 2 likes · see review

Aug 02, 2011 Carol rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was a hard book to rate. Gloss (a prof at my Alma Mater)starts out with her usual independent, I-can-do it spirited woman who has been widowed with several children (5 this time)living in the 'out-back' doing it her way with her mouth, okay! I can chuckle all the way through that, never mind I have no idea what it would be like to not have a spouse at my side. But in Wild Life, Gloss really gets carried away with the denizons of the forest. Hmmm! a tad out of my chuckle line. The most dishe...more

like · see review

Feb 13, 2011 Cynthia Richardson rated it 5 of 5 stars

A grand adventure story about a woman writer in the 19th century who must care for her children alone. She one day joins a search party that is hoping to find a missing child. But our heroine becomes lost in the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest. The novel details her journey as she seeks a way out of the forest. What she discovers there will alternately frighten, entice and amaze you. It is a book full of details about nature, creatures known and unknown, the industry of logging and a woman's...more

like · see review

Oct 05, 2012 J.C. rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: dissapointing-or-terrible-or-both

first fifty pages: Wow! interesting!

next 100 pages: okay....starting to get a bit tedious here.....

last 70 or so: i can't give this book any of my attention even if there was a gun to my head!!

Now, i'm all down for pretentious literary books. i'm cool with deep characters and settings, psychological symbolisms and metaphors that can span whole conversations. But this book....good lord it did its best to bore me to tears and not care for ANYTHING. i literally struggled just to finish the last se...more

like · see review

Jul 10, 2010 Ann-Marie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Years ago I enjoyed this writer’s novel The Jump-Off Creek, which also brings to life the story of an unconventional woman living on the northwestern frontier. This book, however, is both quirkier and richer. I'm not sure at what point I fell in love with it, but it was well after the point by which I usually know whether I'm going to love something, and it came as a delightful surprise. The free-thinking main character, Charlotte Bridger Drummond, supports her five boys by writing adventure sto...more

like · see review

Dec 06, 2012 Deborah Mantle rated it 4 of 5 stars

‘Wild Life’ by Molly Gloss is a difficult novel to categorise. It’s historical – it’s set in a pioneer community on the Pacific north-west frontier of the US in the early 1900s. It’s also feminist – the protagonist, Charlotte Bridger Drummond, is an independent, ‘free-thinking’, bicycle-riding, single mother of five boys who writes popular women’s adventure stories for a living. It has nature and the appreciation of life and wildlife at its core. While searching for a lost girl amongst the loggi...more

like · see review

Nov 06, 2009 Felicity rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Felicity by: Julie Madsen

Shelves: fiction, historical-fiction, novel, fantasy, western-usa, signed

This was a strange book, but very good. Part of what it does, quite deliberately I believe, is change course several times. I knew about the fantastic element in the book before buying it -- that, along with having read some of Molly's other gorgeous writing, pretty much sold it to me -- but I think the publisher would have served the book better by giving it a cover that didn't code it so unambiguously as Western historical fiction. Its ambiguities are part of its loveliness, and should be cele...more This was a strange book, but very good. Part of what it does, quite deliberately I believe, is change course several times. I knew about the fantastic element in the book before buying it -- that, along with having read some of Molly's other gorgeous writing, pretty much sold it to me -- but I think the publisher would have served the book better by giving it a cover that didn't code it so unambiguously as Western historical fiction. Its ambiguities are part of its loveliness, and should be celebrated instead of simplified away.

The story is told largely in diary entries by the 1900s adventure-writer protagonist, Charlotte, with interpolated articles and pieces of her published fiction. There are also interludes from other perspectives which I concluded were also written by Charlotte, and show a maturation in her insight and compassion that is, in its way, foreshadowing of the events of the book and their impact on her. In the early sections, before the plot ramps up, it's her voice that carries us along -- plucky and stubborn but also aware of her own failings and occasional ridiculousness. To a writer, female or not, her notes on and soul-searching about finding time for writing and negotiating your own literary ambitions will resonate.

Once Charlotte leaves on her quest -- to help find a lost child, which isn't a spoiler since it's mentioned on the first page's 'cover letter' -- some of the themes, like modernity and mechanization, start to come to the forefront. The landscape and equipment of 1900s logging in the Northwest United States is very interesting, and unfamiliar to most of us. Charlotte's self-conscious progressiveness and discomfort with primordial wildness becomes easy to understand in context when we see the vast taming action being carried out against the land.

As for the latter half, I'm unwilling to affect others' reading of it by going into much detail, but I will say that it follows a structure -- the deliberately paced, background-building plot that culminates in a transformative, lyrical journey -- that I enjoyed in Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness, and it's equally hard-hitting and effective here. The climactic and concluding sections of the book kept me pressed to the page, wiping away tears. I felt my skin prickle with the sense of visiting, or being visited by, another world lost in and for our own.(less)

like · see review

Jun 28, 2008 Cason rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

like · see review

Feb 14, 2013 Lori Brack rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book changed my life. The writing is exquisite, the story is full and important, the shape of the narrative is a revelation. I keep pressing it on other people, buy every copy I find at used book stores. For me, the melding of landscape, character, and possibility (it's hard to call this fantasy, I think) made me understand the potentials of fiction, and the poetic organization scheme pleases the part of me that wants art always, even when I also want a good story.

like · see review

Oct 29, 2009 Jennifer rated it 3 of 5 stars

I could appreciate this piece of historical fiction, but I didn't enjoy it. In it, an early-twentieth century feminist who feels stuck in her life as a single mother of five kids gets lost in the forest (and in turn loses her civilized self and all the trappings of modern domesticity. She also meets some wild bigfoot-like beasties). I thought the description of the Pacific Northwest wilderness was breathtaking, but I had trouble with the beasties. It was just not my thing.

like · see review

Apr 16, 2012 Amaenad rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is one of the loveliest books I've ever read, but if you're expecting sword-and-sorcery, or any of the typical fantasy themes, you'll be disappointed. This could almost be a historical novel, a rich, almost tactile, 19th Century travelogue of the Pacific Northwest's extensive wilderness. The fantastical part of this book is anything but escapist; it broke my heart. At the same time, it's lingered in my memory in a way few books have.

like · see review

Sep 14, 2012 Correen rated it 3 of 5 stars

In the early 20th century, Charlotte Bridger Drummond (CBD) lives on an island in the Columbia River in western Washington. She is courageous and daring, a widowed author and mother of five sons. The story takes her into the wild mountains of Oregon in search of a young girl. CBD trek takes her into experiences that completely reorient her thinking. It is a creative story, done in an interesting style, but I found it tedious.

like · see review

Jul 22, 2012 jess rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, ladyish

I loved the idea of this book. It's the early 1900s along the barely-populated banks of the mighty Columbia. Charlotte is the single mother of five (!) boys (!). Astoria is the nearest town and a lot of the action takes place near Mt St Helens. I live in that area, and reading about the region before the loggers cut it was great. Charlotte is a free-thinking, independent and ornery woman. She defies social conventions, dresses in mens clothing, rides a bicycle and supports her family with her wr...more

like · see review

Nov 09, 2009 Jesse Wolfe 5199 rated it 3 of 5 stars

It seemed to me that the first half of the book was mired in description of country life. Which was enjoyable, but not riveting. About halfway through, this inverts - suddenly I was reading a pageturner, but the descriptions grew sparse, abstract. Personally, I found the second half easier to to read and it carried me through to the end very quickly -- but I suspect it would have been a better book if it didn't have to do so.

like · see review

May 21, 2011 Nancy rated it 4 of 5 stars

If Wendell Berry was a woman writer. Love the heroine, strong woman raising 5 boys alone in 1905, Oregon logging area. She joins a search party for a child who has disappeared in the wilderness of Oregon and Washington. She gets lost and is rescued by a band of elusive, quasi-human beasts - Sasquatch. Philisophical discussion about animal vs. human. I am moving to the Oregon wilderness - oh wait, it's gone.

like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 27 28 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

Recommend it | Stats | Recent status updates

combine
Other Editions (3)

Genres

Historical Fiction

16 users

Fantasy

9 users

Book Club

6 users

Womens

3 users

Adventure

3 users

Novels

3 users

Speculative Fiction

3 users

Science Fiction

2 users

Academic > School

2 users

Adult Fiction

2 users

See top shelves...

Readers also enjoyed similar books

About Molly Gloss

Molly Gloss is a fourth-generation Oregonian who lives in Portland.

Her novel The Jump-Off Creek was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for American Fiction, and a winner of both the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award and the Oregon Book Award. In 1996 Molly was a recipient of a Whiting Writers Award.

The Dazzle of Day was named a New York Times Notable Book and was awarded the PEN Center We...more

More about Molly Gloss...

Books by Molly Gloss

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About Wild Life

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

Quotes from Wild Life

“I woke thinking: Is it possible that, after all, I am to go on living with the wild beasts while in the greater world others are out the peaks of the Himalayas, the dark heart of Arabia, and the secrets of the Poles--while in the civilized world electricity is spread to every corner, and the flying machine is invented--while in the laboratories and academies and astronomical observatories, by telescope and spectroscope and microscope, others are to discover the minute secrets of Life and the Universe--all this while I am living ignorant as a savage in the wilderness?” — 1 person liked it

“I rate highly any woman who will freely swear and say the word "stink," but on this occasion I would rather have had a woman with an appreciation for ancient relics and mysterious rooms hidden in the deeps of forbidding caves.” — 1 person liked it

More quotes…

title link	preview: Wild Life
avg rating	preview: Wild Life Goodreads rating: 3.59 (427 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/475582.Wild_Life?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1347578323l/475582.jpg[/img][/url] [url=https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/475582.Wild_Life?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Wild Life by Molly Gloss[/url]

Wild Life

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website