The Wilder-Women

The Wilder-Women by Ruth Emmie Lang

January 2024

3 out of 5

Books N Hooks Book Club

“...I like the idea that two people can have all the odds stacked against them, but they figure out a way to make it work, because their love for each other is more important than all the other bullshit.”

The Wilder-Women is a fantasy book about two girls who go on an adventure to find their mother who left them when they were younger. The way they find her is not in your typical way, but through echoes, memories and visions. Not everyone has the same “powers” as them which makes it hard to explain how they are able to find her or leads to where she will be. But little did they know, there are more people like them then they think and are able to help find their mom. Did their mom have these same powers and could explain why she left when the children were young without any explanation.

“She sings to it, the bird
A sing about itself
And she thinks:
How easy it would be
To open the door to its cage
And let it fly free
But the bird doesn't even look at the door
Her youngest extends a finger
Barely glances off the crown of its head before it takes Flight
I scared him, her daughter says
No, honey, she answers
It was just time for him to go”

I have never read a fantasy book so I was not sure what to expect. I read this because it is apart of a book club I am in, which I am thankful for expanding my reading genres. Although when I read this I would not have considered this fantasy as much as just fiction. The story, character development, and the adventure the author brought me through was good but it was lacking something. In the end it was a happy ending, and pulled a lot of necessary pieces together but I feel for a fantasy it should have more about the “powers” they had or mystical creatures- this was more a magical realism.

"Although her wings were imaginary, Nora felt an almost continuous desire to stretch them, to unclench the knot in her back that tied them down and with one powerful flap, lift off into a cloudless sky."

• Adventures

• Family

• Magical

• Powers- “sixth sense”

• Mystery

• Realism vs fantasy