Content levels
Trigger warnings
Positive tags
Heroine archetypes
Protagonist archetypes
Themes
Synopsis
Set among lava sinkholes and logging camps at the fringe of the Northwest frontier in the early 1900s, WILD LIFE charts the life — both real and imagined — of the free-thinking, cigar-smoking, trouser-wearing Charlotte Bridger Drummond, who pens popular women’s adventure stories. One day, when a little girl gets lost in the woods, Charlotte anxiously joins the search and embarks on an adventure all her own. With great assurance and skill, Molly Gloss quickly transforms what at first seems to be pitch-perfect historical fiction into a kind of wild and woolly mystery story, as Charlotte herself becomes lost in the dark and tangled woods and falls into the company of an elusive band of mountain giants. Putting a surprising and revitalizing feminist spin on the classic legend of Tarzan and other wild-man sagas, Gloss takes us from the wilds of the western frontier to the wilds of the human heart.
Is Wild life appropriate for my child?
Suitable for most readers 13 and up.
A literary feminist reimagining of wild-man legends set in early 1900s Pacific Northwest, featuring a trouser-wearing adventure writer who becomes lost in the woods and encounters mountain giants. Mild peril and frontier survival situations; appropriate for mature middle grade and up.
What to know going in
This book has mild violence, no sexual content, and mild language. Content notes include child harm.
Publisher ages reflect reading level; our rating reflects content maturity — they can differ.
Who'll love this
Readers who love wilderness survival stories with a feminist twist will enjoy following Charlotte's transformation from adventure writer to real adventurer among mysterious forest giants.