Wake the Wild Creatures
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A Washington Post Best Book of the Year!
A Chicago Public Library Best Book of the Year!
This extraordinary, timely, and must-read novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Nova Ren Suma explores freedom and rage as a young woman plots her way back to her hidden mountaintop home after her mother's arrest for murder.
Three years ago, Talia lived happily in the ruins of the Neves, a once-grand hotel in the wilds of the Catskill Mountains, with her mother Pola and their community of like-minded women. Some came to the Neves to escape cruel men, others to hide from the law, but all found safety and connection in their haven high above civilization, cloaked by a mysterious mist that kept intruders away. But as their numbers grew, complications followed, and everything came crashing down the night electric lights pierced the forest. Uniformed men arrested Pola, calling her a murderer and a fugitive, and Talia was taken away.
Now sixteen, Talia has been forced to live with family she barely knows and fit into a world scarred by misogyny, capitalism, disconnection from nature . . . everything the women of the Neves stood against. She has one goal: to return to the Neves. But as Talia awaits a signal from her mother, questions arise. Who betrayed her community, and what is she avoiding about her own role in its collapse? Is it truly magic that keeps the hotel so hidden? And what does it mean to embrace being her mother’s daughter? With the help of an unexpected ally, Talia must find her way to answers, face a mother who’s often kept her at arm’s length, and try to reach the refuge she lost—if the mist hasn’t swallowed her path home.
Fierce and lyrical, unsettling and tender, Wake the Wild Creatures marks the long-awaited return of one of the most distinctive voices in young adult literature.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A teen recovered from an off-grid Catskills commune of female fugitives struggles to adapt to society in this evocative and empowering novel from Suma (A Room Away from the Wolves). After committing murder and arson to avenge her own rape, Pola Lasker takes her infant Talia and decamps to the Neves, an abandoned mountaintop hotel that she transforms into a secret haven for those seeking to escape cruel men. There, Talia thrives in the care of found family, believing the forested refuge offers mystical protection from outside harm. When Talia turns 13, authorities apprehend Pola and send Talia to live in the Hudson Valley with Pola's estranged sister. Having received instructions from a Neves resident to stay put until further notice, a forlorn Talia spends three years awaiting a signal. But when it finally comes, the road home isn't what she expected. Suma's fiercely feminist offering unfolds from Talia's somewhat alien-feeling perspective, her first-person narrative snaking along a nonlinear timeline to add context and resonance. Intersec-tionally diverse, insightfully rendered characters and their complex, continuously evolving relationships ground the tale, while a surreal setting and sensate prose impart an otherworldly air. Ages 14–up.
