This latest novel from the highly talented Groff represents the next evolution of her writing career. There are certain similarities: the action set against a backdrop of an rebellion from religion, a dominant female character, and some beautiful prose. But there are notable differences too. Gone is the humour and the verve of Fates and Furies; the message in The Vaster Wilds is more one of endurance and anger. The first abstract noun also reflects the journey taken by the novel's narrator in the eponymous wilds. The action focuses on an early settler girl in America escaping from the confines of her (religious) community. There is no doubting her resourcefulness. She survives by working with and respecting nature – what was here first – rather than casting it into opposition, per the first founders. Read The Vaster Wilds, therefore, as a subversion of the American myth/dream. Part of the problem I found was the pace of the action, the events are narrated almost entirely in the head of Lamentations – the hero-protagonist. I did like the pace, her wander at nature and its revelations. At times I compared The Vaster Wilds to Ishiguro's The Buried Giant. Madeline Miller is another good analog. However, The Vaster Wilds never felt fully balanced, and also I felt it held together less well than some of Groff's other works. 8/10.
By Lauren Groff