OCTOBER 2014 - AudioFile
Narrators Candice Moll and Fiona Hardingham understand and respect their characters—two girls who spend a semester in the wilderness. While Sibylla navigates her newfound popularity, her friendships gone stale, and her first sexual relationship, Lou copes with her boyfriend’s sudden death and being the new girl in school. Just as Wood never condescends to her characters by reducing their feelings to clichés, Hardingham deftly avoids overplaying Sibylla’s awkwardness and worry in her quick, blunt internal monologues, and Moll takes her time with Lou’s never-to-be-sent letters to her boyfriend and shows her desperate heartbreak through a calm, almost detached tone. Both narrators prove themselves, like the characters they play, to be highly capable. E.M.C. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine
The New York Times Book Review - Megan McAndrew
…Wood perfectly captures teenage self-doubt. This and her unsentimental rendering of the glorious, messy rush of first love elevate Wildlife far beyond standard kids-at-camp fare…Wood is frank but never crude, and often hilarious…Wood tackles big themes head-on: identity, friendship, justice, love, death. Her characters are all compelling and believable, but it is Lou who will stay with you, guarding her pain while sitting through compulsory grief-counseling sessions.
Publishers Weekly
★ 08/04/2014
In her first novel published in the U.S., Australian writer Wood eloquently traces the emotional growth of two girls during their high school’s required nine-week term of outdoor education. With a new look and new fame due to a recent professional modeling gig, 16-year-old Sib has just had her first kiss, with handsome athlete Ben Capaldio. Meanwhile, new student Lou is bereft after the death of her boyfriend, but she vows to hide her grief while reluctantly preparing to leave home for camp. The two girls are strangers when they become cabinmates, but Lou is drawn into Sib’s personal dramas and complicated relationships with three peers: Ben, her new boyfriend; Michael, her oldest friend; and Holly, her manipulative best friend, who has a cruel streak. Sib’s and Lou’s alternating narratives intimately express their respective losses of innocence and their tenuous attempts to chart new territories in rugged, unfamiliar surroundings. Their voices reverberate with honesty, vulnerability, and deep emotions and will leave a lasting impression on readers. Ages 15–up. Agent: Cheryl Pientka, Jill Grinberg Literary Management. (Sept.)
From the Publisher
Praise for Wildlife:
A YALSA 2015 Best Fiction for Young Adults Selection
A Booklist Magazine's 2014 Editors' Choice
A VOYA Perfect Tens 2014 Selection
"Enchanting...[Wood's] unsentimental rendering of the glorious, messy rush of first love elevate Wildlife far beyond standard kids-at-camp fare. The wilderness is exquisitely described, and when it comes to what's on everyone's mind, Wood is frank but never crude, and often hilarious...Wood tackles big themes head-on: identity, friendship, justice, love, death. Her characters are all compelling and believable."
—New York Times Book Review
* "In alternating points of view-Lou's lyrical journal entries and Sib's first-person narrative-Wood builds a believable story of misguided friendship, betrayal, and empowering growth...With exceptional candor, honesty, and nuance, Wood tells a heartening and compelling story of the importance of agency, self-confidence, and true friendship."—Booklist (starred review)
* "Wood eloquently traces the emotional growth of two girls during their high school's required nine-week term of outdoor education...[Sib and Lou's] voices reverberate with honesty, vulnerability, and deep emotions and will leave a lasting impress on readers."—PW (starred review)
"The mounting interpersonal tension will keep readers deeply engrossed, as will the narrators' honesty and humor...This exceptional novel is Australian author Wood's American debut, but readers will want to get their hands on her first book, Six Impossible Things."—The Horn Book
"A writer to continue to watch."—Kirkus Reviews
"A beautifully crafted novel with achingly real characters that I couldn't get out of my head."—Melina Marchetta, author of the Printz Award-winning Jellicoe Road
"Sharp, true, and achingly honest, Wildlife totally gave me the feels. I got lost in this smart and beautiful book."—Siobhan Vivian, author of The List
Melina Marchetta
"A beautifully crafted novel with achingly real characters that I couldn't get out of my head."
School Library Journal
★ 07/01/2014
Gr 9 Up—This story takes place in the mountains outside Melbourne, Australia. Sib's class is spending a quarter of their 10th grade year at Mount Fairweather, an "outdoor education campus" of their private school. The students go on solo hiking overnight trips, have to follow chore charts, and learn to adapt to shared living spaces. Holly, Sib's best friend and a drama queen, has dominated their relationship since childhood. Sib is likable but not popular, naïve but not clueless, smart but not a show-off: Why does she cling to someone this mean and insecure? When Ben Capaldi, a catch, moves in on unsuspecting Sib, she's all aflutter at first. But as she befriends Lou, a defiant newcomer, she realizes that her self-worth is all tied up in what others see and expect of her. Lou, privately battling grief and loss, isn't an easy person to know or to take advantage of; she'd rather be alone. Still, she's self-possessed; when she chooses to speak, it's through a performance of the Beatles's "Blackbird" that earns her the audience's hushed silence. Before Fairweather, Lou had another life. Memories of her first times with Fred suggests that puppy love can be the real thing; in fact, Lou and Sib relate losing their virginity with such refreshing candor that Wildlife validates the sexual needs of girls everywhere. The believable characters will win over fans of E. Lockhart's The Disreputable History of Frankie Landua-Banks (Hyperion, 2008).—Georgia Christgau, Middle College High School, Long Island City, NY
OCTOBER 2014 - AudioFile
Narrators Candice Moll and Fiona Hardingham understand and respect their characters—two girls who spend a semester in the wilderness. While Sibylla navigates her newfound popularity, her friendships gone stale, and her first sexual relationship, Lou copes with her boyfriend’s sudden death and being the new girl in school. Just as Wood never condescends to her characters by reducing their feelings to clichés, Hardingham deftly avoids overplaying Sibylla’s awkwardness and worry in her quick, blunt internal monologues, and Moll takes her time with Lou’s never-to-be-sent letters to her boyfriend and shows her desperate heartbreak through a calm, almost detached tone. Both narrators prove themselves, like the characters they play, to be highly capable. E.M.C. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2014-07-29
In alternating narratives, two high school sophomores chronicle their private school's nine-week wilderness experience: Introspective Sib gets a taste of dating a popular boy, and grief-stricken Lou begins to recover from her boyfriend's death. The semester begins just as a modeling gig brings Sib to the attention of the school's most popular guy, Ben, leading to a lot of make-out sessions but little conversation. Dazzled and a bit puzzled by Ben's attention, Sib is woefully unprepared to navigate the popular crowd's dating rituals. Her missteps are used by her "best" friend, Holly, to raise her own meager social ranking, making her a consistent though predictable villain. Holly's machinations are almost unfailingly met with Sib's quick forgiveness, sapping their storyline of much of its potential punch. More engaging, however, is Lou's grief and recovery, which is largely detailed through the tone of her observations of the social dramas unfolding around her, transforming from dismissive to engaged. Lou's friendship with Sib's friend Michael, an intellectual pining with unrequited love for Sib, injects the novel with believable sincerity and poignancy. Lou's story also provides hints of interesting back story for secondary characters, especially her friends spending their own semester abroad. These moments when Wood allows her characters to deviate from what's expected of them mark her as a writer to continue to watch.A pleasant, promising, slightly uneven American debut. (Fiction. 14-18)
