The Wilderness

A Novel

De: Angela Flournoy

Narrado por: Angela Flournoy, Aja Naomi King, Ashley Nicole Black

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

FINALIST FOR THE KIRKUS PRIZE FOR FICTION

FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITIC CIRCLES AWARD FOR FICTION

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION

LONGLISTED FOR THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE

Named one of the Washington Post's 10 Best Books of the Year

One of Barack Obama's "Favorite Books of the Year"

Named a Best of the Year by The New Yorker, The Boston Globe, Publishers Weekly, Vogue, Elle, Time, Kirkus Reviews, Electric Literature, Town & Country, Alta Journal, NPR, New York Public Library, Chicago Public Library, Book Riot, Audible

"Flournoy has delivered a future classic—the kind of novel that generations to come will read to understand the nuances and peculiarities of this time." — Harper's Bazaar

An era-defining novel about five Black women over the course of their twenty-year friendship, as they move through the dizzying and sometimes precarious period between young adulthood and midlife—in the much-anticipated second book from National Book Award finalist Angela Flournoy.

Desiree, January, Monique, and Nakia are in their early twenties and at the beginning. Of their careers, of marriage, of motherhood, and of big-city lives in New York and Los Angeles. Together, they are finding their way through the wilderness, that period of life when the reality of contemporary adulthood—overwhelming, mysterious, and full of freedom and consequences—swoops in and stays.

Desiree is estranged from her sister Danielle, and the two nurse bitter family wounds in different ways. January’s got a relationship with a “good” man she feels ambivalent about, even after her surprise pregnancy. Monique, a librarian and aspiring blogger, finds unexpected online fame after calling out the university where she works for its plans to whitewash fraught history. And Nakia is trying to get her restaurant off the ground, without relying on the largesse of her upper middle-class family who wonder aloud if she should be doing something better with her life.

As these friends move from the late 2000’s into the late 2020’s, from young adults to grown women, they must figure out what they mean to one another—amid political upheaval, economic and environmental instability, and the increasing volatility of modern American life.

The Wilderness is Angela Flournoy’s masterful and kaleidoscopic follow-up to her critically acclaimed debut The Turner House. A generational talent, she captures with disarming wit and electric language how the most profound connections over a lifetime can lie in the tangled, uncertain thicket of friendship.

Great read

I loved the realness of the characters. The audio really helped draw readers into the story.

Beautiful Writing

This portrait of female friendship and how adult decisions shape multiple lives is very moving. The characters in this novel are felt like the complex personalities of real women, and the various ways we show up in life and friendship (or don’t). The author also offered a dystopian twist, which was terrifying in its realism. A book that makes you want to cling tight to the women in your life and at times wish the wilderness wasn’t quite so wild.

Toni Morrison style lyrical prose for the millennial age

Beautifully written and performed. It felt like both a collection of personal stories and a commentary on social issues

Friendship wrapped in love poetic social commentary

What a beautiful book. Complex characters and a testament to friendship - black female friendship - and how that is love and commitment, not always perfect t or saying the right thing, but a foundation that can buoy us in the worst of times. The social commentary is present yet woven in so beautifully and heart wrenchingly. Well done. I laughed, got emo and paused to consider just where we are in the world right now and how to move forward

Haunting.

Having come of age in Los Angeles, where I moved after college in DC, these people, places, and things resonated profoundly with me. Angela Flournoy handles all of her characters with such care and precision -- they are real people, ones that you likely personally know.

I could have used a bit more plot, to be honest, but honestly this is more of a character study and you'll be disappointed if you don't appreciate that kind of novel. I adored the beginning with the grandfather; it was such a brilliant part of this story to enter on.

The thing I'll say summarily about this book is that it's been haunting me since I finished it. It is an extremely emotional ending, particularly in these times. It will be with me for a very long time. And when I find myself wishing so hard that it had ended differently, I realize how that mirrors the fact that I wish so many things in life had ended differently; and I believe that's the sentiment Flournoy intended to elicit in penning this story.