Wildlife by Fiona Wood
Rating: 5 out of 5 hearts384 pages
Released: June 2013
Buy it @ angus & robertson
Life? It’s simple: be true to yourself.
The tricky part is finding out exactly who you are…
In the holidays before the dreaded term at Crowthorne Grammar’s outdoor education camp two things out of the ordinary happened.
A picture of me was plastered all over a twenty-metre billboard.
And I kissed Ben Capaldi.
Boarding for a term in the wilderness, sixteen-year-old Sibylla expects the gruesome outdoor education program – but friendship complications, and love that goes wrong? They’re extra-curricula.
Enter Lou from Six Impossible Things – the reluctant new girl for this term in the great outdoors. Fragile behind an implacable mask, she is grieving a death that occurred almost a year ago. Despite herself, Lou becomes intrigued by the unfolding drama between her housemates Sibylla and Holly, and has to decide whether to end her self-imposed detachment and join the fray.
And as Sibylla confronts a tangle of betrayal, she needs to renegotiate everything she thought she knew about surviving in the wild.
A story about first love, friendship and NOT fitting in.
Review
What a lovely surprise of a book. I'm a bit over reading series at the moment, so I thought I'd read a stand alone novel for a change. Little did I know this could be seen as a companion type novel to Fiona Wood's first book "Six Impossible Things". Oh well, I will just have to read that one now because I'm completely hooked on Wood's writing. She has created the perfect teenage voice in her book.
Now for the characters. Sibylla (interesting name) is such a sweetie but is also a little lost. At times I felt for her. She's searching for herself and what better place to do that than the quiet wilderness. Lou is the broken girl, who, even though she may not think it, is actually quite strong. I want to read Six Impossible Things so I can see the Lou from the photobooth pictures she treasures so much. Another character which I probably loved the most was Michael. He is a super genius, nerdy guy which I think would be fun to be around. He's an interesting character.
I didn't read the blurb so I didn't know that we are reading from two character's point of view. Sibylla is written from the first person and Lou is written in the form of journal entries. It took me a couple of chapters to figure it out, so you can imagine it was a little confusing.
I wanted to read this because I had heard about it at one of the State Library's seminars and one of the presenters raved about it. I'm finding that Australian authors are amazing and their writing/books should be read all over the world. Makes me proud to be Australian.
If you're looking for a quick read with lots of heart, and things that will make you think about long after reading, then this is the book for you!
On the cover
Such a bright, pleasant cover. I can imagine laying/sitting along with those boots and looking up at the clouds and making shapes out of them. Being lazy and wasting the day away, dreaming of all those things you want in life.
What I'm reading next: I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga
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