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Title details for Wake the Wild Creatures by Nova Ren Suma - Wait list

Wake the Wild Creatures

by Nova Ren Suma
Helen Laser
Audiobook
Pre-release: Expected May 6, 2025
0 of 1 copy available
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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.

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  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Kirkus

      March 1, 2025
      A teenage girl must come to terms with her haunting past and mundane future. The book opens "somewhere in the Catskill Mountains," as 13-year-old Talia is forcibly removed by the police from the mystical community of women where she was raised and sent to live with her estranged aunt and cousins. Adjusting to the outside world proves challenging for Talia, who has spent most of her life in the wilderness, growing up in an abandoned hotel called the Neves alongside a group of women who were scarred by unimaginable cruelty. At 16, Talia still yearns to contact her imprisoned mother despite their complicated relationship and struggles to connect with her family and classmates. Her ultimate goal is to return to the Neves and reunite with the women who raised her. Told in alternating timelines, the narrative weaves together Talia's childhood memories and her present-day struggles. Talia reflects on the systemic inhumanity women face, uncovering the events that drove her mother to flee society. These themes echo in the experiences of her cousin Lake, whose story parallels Talia's mother's. The prose is poetic and haunting, though the plot occasionally feels thin, relying heavily on Talia's introspection. However, her evolving relationship with Lake is particularly compelling, offering a nuanced exploration of what it means to believe women. Talia and her mother's family are Jewish; there's some racial diversity in secondary characters. Feminist and captivating.(Fiction. 14-18)

      COPYRIGHT(2025) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • Booklist

      March 1, 2025
      Grades 9-12 Acclaimed author Suma imagines a utopia, the Neves, where women and children live without fearing the presence of men. When she's 13, Talia, who has only known this world, gets taken from her sanctuary in the Neves and is sent to live with her aunt's family, where she develops culture shock. Feeling alienated by people who perceive her mom, Pola, who murdered her attackers, to be a cult leader, her only desire is to visit Pola in prison and return home. Now 16 and the night of the school's homecoming, she finds her disdainful cousin, Lake, walking back after being assaulted by her boyfriend. An unexpected bond forms between cousins, who set their differences aside and go on a journey that teaches them to trust each other in times of need. The novel puts readers in the shoes of Talia, her mother, and the women in the Neves who are criminalized for fending off male abusers. Readers will be wholly invested in the struggling mother-daughter relationship as Talia continuously aims to please her seemingly apathetic mother. A compelling story about survival.

      COPYRIGHT(2025) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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  • English

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