Wild

by Alex Mallory

[KitsuneBae]

This review can also be found on Thoughts and Pens.


This book made me realized that I should have stuck with the Disney’s version of Tarzan. It has been so long since I watched the movie but I remember loving it. Meanwhile, Wild was frustratingly long, boring and forgettable. I can’t remember when I actually started reading the book because it felt like I’ve been perusing it for years.

For more than 300 pages, the story of Wild was all about long winded descriptions of this and that. For a contemporary story, it was agonizingly slow that almost rendered me to take a break from reading. At the beginning, I appreciated the author’s attention to details but after a hundred pages or so, it became very exhausting. There was a lot of set up that nothing much happened. This is a contemporary for goodness’ sake, not a fantasy.

There were a lot of unnecessary flashbacks that contributed to the length of the book. It didn’t help that I wasn’t able to develop a connection with all the characters. Dara, the female MC, was stubborn, incredibly stupid and has no self-preservation skills at all. But it seems like the author wants to portray her as some sort of a feisty heroine who can defend herself from anything. But things have just gone wrong. There was a scene in the book where Dara was almost mauled to death by a bear but what did she do? She froze in horror and thought of capturing the bear on camera instead of formulating ways to save herself. If that’s not stupid, I don’t know what is.

As for the male characters, Cade and Josh, they’re equally dull. Cade was the modern version of Tarzan and I thought that I was going to like him but nope. I expected him to be somewhat candid and has this innate skill of being funny but I was disappointed. On the other hand, Josh was uhm… I don’t know…I mean, he’s supposed to be Dara’s boyfriend but how the author executed their love story, it was unbelievable.

But anyway, Dara and Josh’s love story expanded to a love triangle when Cade entered the whole picture. I can’t further describe the love triangle because the way it was handled, it was almost non-existent. All I can say is that Wild has a weird way of dealing with romance.

As mentioned earlier, the plot development was sluggish and the ending was pure crap. I don’t know if the author really intended for that to happen so she can write a sequel or I really don’t know.

All in all, I felt so detached from Wild. I will only recommend it for die-hard fans of Alex Mallory, Tarzan and for those people who have sleeping problems. Wild will surely lull the latter to a deep slumber as what happened to me.


***Thanks Harper Collins for the e-ARC***