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Yellow Pine
In the latest novel from “our most significant rising writer of the American West” (Vulture), an unfettered heroine searches for a new way to love, and live, in a deeply uncertain world
The first time Rose fell for Miles, she was a college kid, all too eager to be swept into his sexy orbit; little wonder the relationship crashed and burned. When Miles comes back into her life two decades later, he finds a different Rose. Not only has she moved back to her beloved desert, on a homestead she’s dubbed Nothingness Flats, but she’s chosen to live “on the other side of the portal,” with an intentionality that’s brought her hard-won peace and freedom. She’s navigating single parenthood, and she’s found a community out at Yellow Pine, where a group of spirited misfits have mounted a stand against the corporatization of solar power. Is it worth jeopardizing all this for another chance with Miles? And yet the universe seems to be beckoning her, not only back to him but possibly toward another child. What shape might her future take, on this side of the portal?
As furious, funny, searching, and searingly original as ever, in Yellow Pine Watkins blazes a trail toward a radically reimagined vision of a good life in a precarious age.
The first time Rose fell for Miles, she was a college kid, all too eager to be swept into his sexy orbit; little wonder the relationship crashed and burned. When Miles comes back into her life two decades later, he finds a different Rose. Not only has she moved back to her beloved desert, on a homestead she’s dubbed Nothingness Flats, but she’s chosen to live “on the other side of the portal,” with an intentionality that’s brought her hard-won peace and freedom. She’s navigating single parenthood, and she’s found a community out at Yellow Pine, where a group of spirited misfits have mounted a stand against the corporatization of solar power. Is it worth jeopardizing all this for another chance with Miles? And yet the universe seems to be beckoning her, not only back to him but possibly toward another child. What shape might her future take, on this side of the portal?
As furious, funny, searching, and searingly original as ever, in Yellow Pine Watkins blazes a trail toward a radically reimagined vision of a good life in a precarious age.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published July 21, 2026
About the author
Claire Vaye Watkins
21 books721 followersClaire Vaye Watkins was born in Bishop, California in 1984. She was raised in the Mojave Desert, first in Tecopa, California and then across the state line in Pahrump, Nevada. A graduate of the University of Nevada Reno, Claire earned her MFA from the Ohio State University, where she was a Presidential Fellow. Her stories and essays have appeared in Granta, One Story, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, Best of the West 2011, New Stories from the Southwest 2013, the New York Times and elsewhere. Claire has received fellowships from the Writers’ Conferences at Sewanee and Bread Loaf.
Her collection of short stories, Battleborn (Riverhead Books), won the Story Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a Silver Pen Award from the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame. A finalist for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, Battleborn was named a best book of 2012 by the San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe, Time Out New York, Flavorwire, and NPR.org. In 2012, Claire was selected as one of the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35.”
Currently a visiting assistant professor at Princeton University, Claire is also the co-director, with Derek Palacio, of the Mojave School, a free creative writing workshop for teenagers in rural Nevada.
Her collection of short stories, Battleborn (Riverhead Books), won the Story Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a Silver Pen Award from the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame. A finalist for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, Battleborn was named a best book of 2012 by the San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe, Time Out New York, Flavorwire, and NPR.org. In 2012, Claire was selected as one of the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35.”
Currently a visiting assistant professor at Princeton University, Claire is also the co-director, with Derek Palacio, of the Mojave School, a free creative writing workshop for teenagers in rural Nevada.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 81 reviews
July 26, 2026
3.5 stars - I've read the author before & I do like how she characterizes the American Southwest and the struggle to live in the desert - both past (Jackrabbit homesteads & Atomic test sites), present (solar arrays & fires) and future (data centers & no water), so for me that shared life experience carries this book. Sadly, I didn't care for her main character, Rose, so very, very unlikeable, who can't parent the child she does have and yet wants another desperately along with her very toxic relationship with the on-again/off-again Miles. And while there were things about this story that kept me reading, I would not really recommend it to a pleasure reader who lacked that connection.
July 28, 2026
Among the swelling collection of books confronting our imperiled planet, Claire Vaye Watkins’s fiction remains defiantly alive. Her stories and novels are rooted in the American West, that awesome expanse of dunes and deserts that uninformed observers would call empty. Where life has adapted to the damning conditions of heat and drought, Watkins finds characters burned away to their elemental anxieties and desires.
Her new novel, Yellow Pine, is so clearly evolved from her earlier work that any fan could recognize it on a moonless night in Death Valley. But Watkins has never written more confidently or staked so much on her unmistakable voice, which winds through environmental catastrophe, goofy comedy, and sexual obsession. The desert isn’t the only thing that’s hot here — think Miranda July with cacti.
At the center of it all is Rose, a woman sliding toward 40 and growing disillusioned with her work for the Sierra Club. “She felt like a flunky for the nonprofit-corporate-industrial complex,” Watkins writes, “a whipper of frenzy, a vulture, an opportunistic bottler of rage, a hack alchemist attempting with shrieky, automated, and largely ignored emails to transform grief into cash.”
The isolation of the covid pandemic suited her just fine, she thinks, and now she lives in a cinderblock cabin appropriately called Nothingness Flats in Tecopa, Calif. Her thoughts are laced with quotations from Joan Didion, John McPhee, and Lydia Davis. She’d like to imagine she’s “Thoreau in the Mojave.”
“How freeing, how illuminating (in a deeply sad way) to watch pointless obligations slough off like so much dead skin,” she thinks. But her spirit is not really so reclusive, and her desert is more imperiled than Walden Pond. The ancient ground around her is....
Read the rest of this review for free on Substack:
https://roncharles.substack.com/p/hot...
Her new novel, Yellow Pine, is so clearly evolved from her earlier work that any fan could recognize it on a moonless night in Death Valley. But Watkins has never written more confidently or staked so much on her unmistakable voice, which winds through environmental catastrophe, goofy comedy, and sexual obsession. The desert isn’t the only thing that’s hot here — think Miranda July with cacti.
At the center of it all is Rose, a woman sliding toward 40 and growing disillusioned with her work for the Sierra Club. “She felt like a flunky for the nonprofit-corporate-industrial complex,” Watkins writes, “a whipper of frenzy, a vulture, an opportunistic bottler of rage, a hack alchemist attempting with shrieky, automated, and largely ignored emails to transform grief into cash.”
The isolation of the covid pandemic suited her just fine, she thinks, and now she lives in a cinderblock cabin appropriately called Nothingness Flats in Tecopa, Calif. Her thoughts are laced with quotations from Joan Didion, John McPhee, and Lydia Davis. She’d like to imagine she’s “Thoreau in the Mojave.”
“How freeing, how illuminating (in a deeply sad way) to watch pointless obligations slough off like so much dead skin,” she thinks. But her spirit is not really so reclusive, and her desert is more imperiled than Walden Pond. The ancient ground around her is....
Read the rest of this review for free on Substack:
https://roncharles.substack.com/p/hot...
July 27, 2026
A philosophical brain dump on the environmental destruction of the southwest desert area where the main characters reside. If you are already upset about the state of our environment, this book will have you running for prescription meds. After trying to stick with it, I gave up after the halfway point. Listening to the characters constantly rant was becoming dull and repetitive. I’ll do my part for the environment, but this was mind-numbing.
March 24, 2026
Thank you god for making me an Arizonan 🤸🤸🤸🤸🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈
Did Not Finish
June 17, 2026I stopped reading this one around page 30. I could not get into it. All the talk about portals and what side of them people are on just wasn’t for me.
August 7, 2026
I just didn't get into this as much as I thought I would. Rather than being deep characters, everyone seemed like caricatures.
September 15, 2026
Something about the environmental theme and the cover art (I have a soft spot for Joshua Trees) appealed to me about this book, but after the first couple chapters it grew tiresome. The message, relayed over long dialogues, was preachy, and I feel preaching to the choir. The relationship at the heart of the novel dragged on in a way to make it seem contrived. The prose was nice though.
August 31, 2026
I had hoped for so much more than a desire to have a baby with a toxic ex boyfriend. Maybe the next book will bring us to the portal we were all waiting for.
July 25, 2026
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy of this ebook.
I really appreciated some of the clever and nuanced argument in this novel, in parts a commentary on climate change, modern technology, ecology and the human impact on the planet, but ultimately this just wasn’t for me.
Rose and Miles’ relationship was so jarring for me - the “I’ll tell you when I’m ready for this” dynamic from Miles while Rose pined for most of her life really bothered me. But I really enjoyed the community that Yellow Pine produced and the idea that family can be made up of whoever you choose. I also sincerely hope Bilal got his happy ending too.
I really appreciated some of the clever and nuanced argument in this novel, in parts a commentary on climate change, modern technology, ecology and the human impact on the planet, but ultimately this just wasn’t for me.
Rose and Miles’ relationship was so jarring for me - the “I’ll tell you when I’m ready for this” dynamic from Miles while Rose pined for most of her life really bothered me. But I really enjoyed the community that Yellow Pine produced and the idea that family can be made up of whoever you choose. I also sincerely hope Bilal got his happy ending too.
August 13, 2026
🏜️ Y E L L O W P I N E
Rose is an almost forty-year-old woman living in “Nothingness Flats,” a sort of compound within the Mojave Desert. Her young daughter, Juniper, lives on the East Coast and only visits on holidays and breaks. On what Rose calls the “other side of the portal,” she’s found her people—other environmentalists and climate activists who reject consumerism, corporate greed, and the rise of AI data centers.
This arrangement leaves Rose in solitude most of the time, yet when we meet her at the beginning of the novel, she reunites with an old flame from college named Miles. They reignite their tumultuous relationship, and as we learn about Rose’s past—she is still mourning the death of her own parents and seeking direction in her life—Rose decides she wants to have another baby.
Here, the plot wanders a bit, as we follow Rose along with her motley crew of neighbors and their long-winded conversations about climate issues and the unjust nature of almost everything in society. Lots of dialogue here, and I was grateful I was reading and listening on audio because one could really get in the weeds with these diatribes.
Still, some parts of the book were actually really funny, and Rose was an intriguing character. One moment I admired her strength and independence. Then, I felt disillusioned by what seemed like a futile quest to define herself through motherhood, all at the whims of men (basically who she could find to sleep with her).
This was a really unusual book, but I weirdly enjoyed reading it most of the time. I wouldn’t say it’s quite on par with Miranda July’s All Fours in terms of a “what the heck did I just read” reaction, but Claire Vaye Watkins is a sharp and commanding writer and her descriptions of the landscape were just gorgeous. It made me want to read some of her earlier work!
🔎 what to read next, book recommendations, character-driven novels, climate fiction, literary fiction, unconventional narrators
Rose is an almost forty-year-old woman living in “Nothingness Flats,” a sort of compound within the Mojave Desert. Her young daughter, Juniper, lives on the East Coast and only visits on holidays and breaks. On what Rose calls the “other side of the portal,” she’s found her people—other environmentalists and climate activists who reject consumerism, corporate greed, and the rise of AI data centers.
This arrangement leaves Rose in solitude most of the time, yet when we meet her at the beginning of the novel, she reunites with an old flame from college named Miles. They reignite their tumultuous relationship, and as we learn about Rose’s past—she is still mourning the death of her own parents and seeking direction in her life—Rose decides she wants to have another baby.
Here, the plot wanders a bit, as we follow Rose along with her motley crew of neighbors and their long-winded conversations about climate issues and the unjust nature of almost everything in society. Lots of dialogue here, and I was grateful I was reading and listening on audio because one could really get in the weeds with these diatribes.
Still, some parts of the book were actually really funny, and Rose was an intriguing character. One moment I admired her strength and independence. Then, I felt disillusioned by what seemed like a futile quest to define herself through motherhood, all at the whims of men (basically who she could find to sleep with her).
This was a really unusual book, but I weirdly enjoyed reading it most of the time. I wouldn’t say it’s quite on par with Miranda July’s All Fours in terms of a “what the heck did I just read” reaction, but Claire Vaye Watkins is a sharp and commanding writer and her descriptions of the landscape were just gorgeous. It made me want to read some of her earlier work!
🔎 what to read next, book recommendations, character-driven novels, climate fiction, literary fiction, unconventional narrators
August 4, 2026
4.5
“She’d never told anyone about the voice of the horizon, but she told Miles now. ‘Everyone is here now,’ she finished.
‘The dead too,’ Miles said.
‘Especially the dead.’
The dead were the cement of her floors and the sand of her glass windows so often rattled by bombs. The dead were the bombs, and all the bombs were rocks pulled from the earth and hammered by industry into an evil shape. Even against this evil, inside it, despite it, her dead were here now with her. They were at Yellow Pine. They were Yellow Pine.”
“She’d never told anyone about the voice of the horizon, but she told Miles now. ‘Everyone is here now,’ she finished.
‘The dead too,’ Miles said.
‘Especially the dead.’
The dead were the cement of her floors and the sand of her glass windows so often rattled by bombs. The dead were the bombs, and all the bombs were rocks pulled from the earth and hammered by industry into an evil shape. Even against this evil, inside it, despite it, her dead were here now with her. They were at Yellow Pine. They were Yellow Pine.”
August 4, 2026
Not the most engaging plot but Watkins writing style makes up for it
Read
August 28, 2026Well,
I’m glad women can now also write rambling, self-indulgent books the way men have done for so long. Here’s to equality.
I had to skip a lot of the sermonizing; I suspect a lot of her audience knows the climate science stuff already.and I was bewildered by her narc moment, which I don’t think is ever fully developed. Miles was as interesting and valuable as a peso in your change at the laundry mat.
There’s a spirit in this book but there’s so much other junk on top. This one wasn’t for me.
I’m glad women can now also write rambling, self-indulgent books the way men have done for so long. Here’s to equality.
I had to skip a lot of the sermonizing; I suspect a lot of her audience knows the climate science stuff already.and I was bewildered by her narc moment, which I don’t think is ever fully developed. Miles was as interesting and valuable as a peso in your change at the laundry mat.
There’s a spirit in this book but there’s so much other junk on top. This one wasn’t for me.
July 28, 2026
Most of me like, YESS me too!!!
Some of me like, wow crazy hippies lol
Some of me like, wow crazy hippies lol
July 30, 2026
This is a tough one. A lot of beautiful writing about nature, the desert, existence, but the prose can get overly didactic at times. That bogs down the story here and there, which is interesting but maybe not fully working for me. I was a big fan of 'Battleborn,' but this novel lacks of the sharp, hard edges of the stories in that collection.
August 20, 2026
Too self-reflective/pretentious and a writing style that was not for me
September 13, 2026
1½⭐️
The plot roves around constantly without ever making a solid landing, leaving a story that feels bizarre and aimless. The biggest disconnect lies in the characters. It felt as though the author wanted us to find them sympathetic, yet their actions were so outlandish and contradictory that it was impossible to connect with them or understand who they were supposed to be.
Rose is a prime example. She walks away from her environmental job to live in a cinder block cabin in the Nevada desert, securing paid leave by threatening to support a staff union drive—purely so she can go sit in the desert and do nothing. For someone positioned as an activist, her choices are deeply selfish and hypocritical. When she worries that local cannabis growers might contaminate her water supply with fertilizer, she turns them in, which results in the deportation of undocumented farmworkers. She never shows a shred of remorse or even acknowledges the human cost of her actions. On top of that, she leaves her daughter Juniper behind with the girl's father in Pennsylvania. She spends endless pages lamenting how agonizing the separation is, yet she never makes a genuine effort to live near her daughter or bring her to the desert permanently.
Instead, she abruptly pivots to an obsessive, convoluted mission to have another baby. Her on-and-off lover, Miles, agrees to the plan and gets fully on board with fathering a child, only to pull a complete 180 a couple of chapters later, deciding he wants no part of it before vanishing and drifting randomly in and out of the narrative. Rose’s fixation becomes so extreme that she starts propositioning other men to help her conceive.
There are sharp, valid observations about climate change, environmental destruction, and corporate greed, but those meaningful themes get completely overshadowed by Rose and Miles's erratic behavior. Compounding the strange tone, the characters frequently launch into unsolicited philosophical and biblical lectures that feel entirely detached from the scene at hand. Easily one of the oddest reading experiences I have had in a long time
The plot roves around constantly without ever making a solid landing, leaving a story that feels bizarre and aimless. The biggest disconnect lies in the characters. It felt as though the author wanted us to find them sympathetic, yet their actions were so outlandish and contradictory that it was impossible to connect with them or understand who they were supposed to be.
Rose is a prime example. She walks away from her environmental job to live in a cinder block cabin in the Nevada desert, securing paid leave by threatening to support a staff union drive—purely so she can go sit in the desert and do nothing. For someone positioned as an activist, her choices are deeply selfish and hypocritical. When she worries that local cannabis growers might contaminate her water supply with fertilizer, she turns them in, which results in the deportation of undocumented farmworkers. She never shows a shred of remorse or even acknowledges the human cost of her actions. On top of that, she leaves her daughter Juniper behind with the girl's father in Pennsylvania. She spends endless pages lamenting how agonizing the separation is, yet she never makes a genuine effort to live near her daughter or bring her to the desert permanently.
Instead, she abruptly pivots to an obsessive, convoluted mission to have another baby. Her on-and-off lover, Miles, agrees to the plan and gets fully on board with fathering a child, only to pull a complete 180 a couple of chapters later, deciding he wants no part of it before vanishing and drifting randomly in and out of the narrative. Rose’s fixation becomes so extreme that she starts propositioning other men to help her conceive.
There are sharp, valid observations about climate change, environmental destruction, and corporate greed, but those meaningful themes get completely overshadowed by Rose and Miles's erratic behavior. Compounding the strange tone, the characters frequently launch into unsolicited philosophical and biblical lectures that feel entirely detached from the scene at hand. Easily one of the oddest reading experiences I have had in a long time
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Here is the synopsis of Yellow Pine in a nutshell. Rose is a mess. But don't feel sorry for Rose, because Rose looooves being a mess. She fetishizes it. Well, this is not exactly true, as Rose doesn't love anything. Or anyone. It would be fair to say that Rose doesn't even *like* anything or anyone either. Rose has a lot of rage and hatred, and even though she doesn't technically ever experience joy, if she did, it would be derived solely from making others miserable. To say Rose is "evil" would not only be derivative, it would be an understatement. Presumably there are evil people in the world who don't realize how debauched they are and are deserving of some compassion. But not so our Rose. Rose delights in being unkind, mean, and critical. She revels in destroying the tiniest bit of mirth in a room. When finding out that her father would have nothing to do with her, my first thought was "lucky bastard". When I found out that she did not get primary custody of her daughter, my first thought was, "Thank heavens. Maybe now Juniper will have a fighting chance in this (fictional) world." Even Miles, Rose's on again, off again, lover seems to regard her as "any ol' port in the storm". I kept shouting at Miles, "Stop being a masochist!! There are other ports! There are other storms! She is an open, festering wound! Steer clear!" The few people who reluctantly tolerate Rose in small doses, seem to do so out of fear. After all, no one wants to poke the rabid dog. My final thought, as I read the last page, was, "I am so glad that this is fiction, because heaven help us if there are real people like this in the world." The only readers to whom I would recommend this book would be people with serious, unresolved anger issues. Because ultimately you'd come away with, "Hey, I'm not that bad after all." **I received this ARC for free but all opinions are my own.
September 19, 2026
Not good, almost DNF at 50%. A book where it's obvious where the author is trying to project herself onto the main character, so I feel kinda bad for being disparaging, but the characters are so unlikeable and useless. Rose just rants about the environment but doesn't do anything meaningful. All she does in this book is complain and raw dog her toxic ex boyfriend, trying to get pregnant even though she lost custody of her first child already. Also the book perpetuates the conspiracy theory that some environmentalists believe about how the elite are trying to push population control--but how can this author advocate for the Earth when having a child in Western society is literally one of the worst things you can do for the environment? This whole book is just spewing the fallacy that environmental degradation is all the fault of the elite and corporations, and that individual responsibility is just a lie pushed by the elites and corporations to not take any responsibility. I agree these groups try to shirk any environmental obligations, but I think we all need to be individually environmentally conscious and responsible if we want any real change. Because all this book says is "It's not my fault the world is dying," but if that's the truth, then none of the actions we can do matter for the planet. Which is just false. Being vegan, not driving a car/having a highly fuel efficient vehicle, not engaging in over consumption culture, not bringing a bunch of humans into existence, and political advocacy are all individual choices that add up when we all contribute. I picked up this book because I am passionate about environmental advocacy, but I would have skipped this book if I knew better.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
3.5
I want to start by saying that I adore Claire Vaye Watkins, and Yellow Pine was one of my most anticipated reads of 2026.
I love the way Watkins wrangles language; she lassos words from the desert lexicon and the language of the heart and marries them in a completely unique and idiosyncratic way. Yellow Pine shines when Vaye Watkins writes about the California/Nevada desert setting and the intense codependency and love of her main character, Rose.
Yellow Pine is a novel in which Rose, a single mother who has returned to the desert of her youth, grapples with both the reemergence of a lover from her past and the destruction of nature and the nature of destruction and rebirth. She is surrounded by a motley cast of characters, and a large chunk of the book is told in quippy, loose cannon dialogue. I realized I was skipping over whole swaths of these frantic rants as I found them to be both uninteresting and mildly esoteric.
I finished Yellow Pine feeling that the balance in the novel was way out of whack, and maybe that's the point... That the balance between love and friendship set in stark contrast against the destruction of the natural world and an uncertain future is bound to be uneven and forever unsettled. Which I get on a cerebral level, but was left feeling that the novel, as it careens between messy character development and a discourse of agitated chaos, just didn't land emotionally.
I want to start by saying that I adore Claire Vaye Watkins, and Yellow Pine was one of my most anticipated reads of 2026.
I love the way Watkins wrangles language; she lassos words from the desert lexicon and the language of the heart and marries them in a completely unique and idiosyncratic way. Yellow Pine shines when Vaye Watkins writes about the California/Nevada desert setting and the intense codependency and love of her main character, Rose.
Yellow Pine is a novel in which Rose, a single mother who has returned to the desert of her youth, grapples with both the reemergence of a lover from her past and the destruction of nature and the nature of destruction and rebirth. She is surrounded by a motley cast of characters, and a large chunk of the book is told in quippy, loose cannon dialogue. I realized I was skipping over whole swaths of these frantic rants as I found them to be both uninteresting and mildly esoteric.
I finished Yellow Pine feeling that the balance in the novel was way out of whack, and maybe that's the point... That the balance between love and friendship set in stark contrast against the destruction of the natural world and an uncertain future is bound to be uneven and forever unsettled. Which I get on a cerebral level, but was left feeling that the novel, as it careens between messy character development and a discourse of agitated chaos, just didn't land emotionally.
Read
August 8, 2026I liked a lot of the writing of this book but felt like my expectations didn't exactly match what it ended up being about. Perhaps I should have expected after Chosen Darkness that there would be significant focus on romantic relations and family trauma--and I am fine with those themes--but I was expecting something a little bit different. Here, unlike Mice 1961 by Stacey Levine, I think I would have enjoyed the book more without any forewarning.
Specifically: I was expecting to see some action around environmentalism and active resistance. And what I got was more like an artist's symbolic resistance to and exploration of her own feelings related to environment and modernity. There's one scene where the characters are all gassing each other up about their opinions on tech and energy and the way the world should work, and that makes sense since they have all been joined by those same opinions in the story, but it's just so supportive that it feels hollow to me.
So, while that is an organizing principle of the novel, the main action in the narrative centers around the narrator's internality and feelings about being a partner, a child, a mother in this world at this moment. Which is great and what many people want to read, but not me, not this week anyway.
I should also mention that the writing, of course, sparkles and is insightful and clever, as Watkins always delivers.
Specifically: I was expecting to see some action around environmentalism and active resistance. And what I got was more like an artist's symbolic resistance to and exploration of her own feelings related to environment and modernity. There's one scene where the characters are all gassing each other up about their opinions on tech and energy and the way the world should work, and that makes sense since they have all been joined by those same opinions in the story, but it's just so supportive that it feels hollow to me.
So, while that is an organizing principle of the novel, the main action in the narrative centers around the narrator's internality and feelings about being a partner, a child, a mother in this world at this moment. Which is great and what many people want to read, but not me, not this week anyway.
I should also mention that the writing, of course, sparkles and is insightful and clever, as Watkins always delivers.
September 20, 2026
I adore Watkins' prose and her vivid evocation of the desert west. Gold Citrus Fame was an amazing novel that fully captured me and keeps me coming back for more. This novel still has that great evocation of the desert west, but suffers from the same issues as her last novel. Watkins is engaging in what appears to be autofiction, as significant portions of the narrator's life seem taken from her own life. This does not put her in a good light. In this book, Rose is divorced, has ceded primary custody of her daughter and moved away to the west. She then decides to fill the emptiness in side her by having another child (to essentially replace the one she has walked away from), and engages in a strange, passionless quest to find a father that will not want any emotional or parental commitments to the child.
There is a lot of philosophical and ecological monologuing in the book as characters brain dump the message Watkins wishes to convey. There is a lot of emotional detachment and directionlessness that is not really examined.
I could not tell if Watkins was parodying the characters in the novel (radical ecologist protestors) or if she was trying to celebrate them. They came off terribly weird and self-centered, but there was this lurking feeling that Watkins views them as heroes, refusing to compromise in the face of ecological destruction. There was a better path to send the message, but Watkins did not want to take that path.
There is a lot of philosophical and ecological monologuing in the book as characters brain dump the message Watkins wishes to convey. There is a lot of emotional detachment and directionlessness that is not really examined.
I could not tell if Watkins was parodying the characters in the novel (radical ecologist protestors) or if she was trying to celebrate them. They came off terribly weird and self-centered, but there was this lurking feeling that Watkins views them as heroes, refusing to compromise in the face of ecological destruction. There was a better path to send the message, but Watkins did not want to take that path.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Dammmnnn this book hit me like a ton of bricks. I have been a fan of all of Claire Vaye Watkins' books, but she is at her best with her latest YELLOW PINE. What starts out as a seemingly straightforward book about the climate apocalypse and people living off the grid in CA/NV, it slowly turns into a treatise on being a parent in these times and what it means to spark the light of life in a world that is continuously trying to extinguish it.
Rose is a single mother and activist, living in a homestead in the Mojave Desert and desperately missing her daughter June who lives on the east coast, only visiting during school breaks. While at her loneliest, she reconnects with Miles after two decades apart, her college boyfriend who she has never stopped thinking about. He is a free spirit, hard to pin down but still means the world to Rose, who wants to have him to herself.
This book is a love story, a warning, and a prayer to the earth and to the children who will soon inherit it. Plus, it takes place and gives an incredible history of the town of Truckee and the surrounding Lake Tahoe area, a place I have spent a lot of time in and love dearly. I will hold this book close to my heart for a long, long time.
Rose is a single mother and activist, living in a homestead in the Mojave Desert and desperately missing her daughter June who lives on the east coast, only visiting during school breaks. While at her loneliest, she reconnects with Miles after two decades apart, her college boyfriend who she has never stopped thinking about. He is a free spirit, hard to pin down but still means the world to Rose, who wants to have him to herself.
This book is a love story, a warning, and a prayer to the earth and to the children who will soon inherit it. Plus, it takes place and gives an incredible history of the town of Truckee and the surrounding Lake Tahoe area, a place I have spent a lot of time in and love dearly. I will hold this book close to my heart for a long, long time.
July 26, 2026
What an interesting read! In meandering and reflective style it explores the trappings of the modern age, the impact of climate change, and the capitalistic approaches to renewable options including the ethical impacts. Watkins opens with a foreword which gave helpful context to their motivations and journey with this book.
Rose grew on me, she seemed equal measure nihilistic and hopeful. I loved how the story narrowed from a meditation on the environment to an exploration of parenthood, grief and loss, acceptance and new life. Watkins writing style had me captivated. I loved their generosity of prose, the way they played with words. I found myself going back time again to mull over satisfying phrasing like ‘her uterus phasing unfazedly, like the moon it was’.
The environment itself was a major character in this story, beautifully captured in lyrical descriptions. Being completely unfamiliar with the area, the rich descriptions gave real insights into the plight of this community and the way of life they were trying to protect.
Thank you to the publisher for an advance copy of this book via NetGalley. Opinions expressed are my own.
Rose grew on me, she seemed equal measure nihilistic and hopeful. I loved how the story narrowed from a meditation on the environment to an exploration of parenthood, grief and loss, acceptance and new life. Watkins writing style had me captivated. I loved their generosity of prose, the way they played with words. I found myself going back time again to mull over satisfying phrasing like ‘her uterus phasing unfazedly, like the moon it was’.
The environment itself was a major character in this story, beautifully captured in lyrical descriptions. Being completely unfamiliar with the area, the rich descriptions gave real insights into the plight of this community and the way of life they were trying to protect.
Thank you to the publisher for an advance copy of this book via NetGalley. Opinions expressed are my own.
August 19, 2026
I'm addicted to reading climate novels and I love every weird thing Claire Vaye Watkins writes, so this couldn't be anything but a 5++ star read for me. This isn't so much a novel as it is a book to carry around in your backpack, along with all of your favorite climate novels (there's a whole chapter about Rose and the climate books she carries with her in her backpack ) so you can pull it out and read your favorite quotes to strangers in a bar.
Besides the wonderfully developed and quirky characters, my favorite thing about Yellow Pine is the tribute to so many American West and climate novelists throughout the book. After listening to this, I bought a copy and re-read it writing down every author and book mentioned throughout. Joan Didion, Wallace Stegner, Edward Abbey, Joy Williams, Mary Austin, and many more.
side note: I'm not going to read anymore reviews of this novel because they just make me sad. If you read and love it, I want to hear about it. If you hate it, please just don't tell me.
Besides the wonderfully developed and quirky characters, my favorite thing about Yellow Pine is the tribute to so many American West and climate novelists throughout the book. After listening to this, I bought a copy and re-read it writing down every author and book mentioned throughout. Joan Didion, Wallace Stegner, Edward Abbey, Joy Williams, Mary Austin, and many more.
side note: I'm not going to read anymore reviews of this novel because they just make me sad. If you read and love it, I want to hear about it. If you hate it, please just don't tell me.
August 15, 2026
On theme for Watkins, but amplified, as her love of the desert west immerses her in community activism and provides a vessel for sharing her essential reading on the region and decarbonization, citing Mary Hunter Austin to Jenny Offill. This one is direct and doomy but never without hope.
"She thought about how newcomers called this place empty, an effort (she chose to believe) to grasp its vastness, to get their heads around their own cosmic smallness."
"One could, if willing, if possessing the courage, the spiritual mettle, easily identify this civilization’s legacy. It was written into the land, and all the easier to read with no trees in the way. See us there in the fossil record? We are not pigment on stone wall or ink on papyrus. Certainly not pixel or code. What we will leave behind after all the rest crumbles is a glowing band of radioactivity and forever chemicals, a toxic swath of highlighter yellow on the map of time, reading, whether we like it or not, You Were Here."
"She thought about how newcomers called this place empty, an effort (she chose to believe) to grasp its vastness, to get their heads around their own cosmic smallness."
"One could, if willing, if possessing the courage, the spiritual mettle, easily identify this civilization’s legacy. It was written into the land, and all the easier to read with no trees in the way. See us there in the fossil record? We are not pigment on stone wall or ink on papyrus. Certainly not pixel or code. What we will leave behind after all the rest crumbles is a glowing band of radioactivity and forever chemicals, a toxic swath of highlighter yellow on the map of time, reading, whether we like it or not, You Were Here."
August 13, 2026
Semi-autographical novel by an environmental activist so attached to the bleakest of Nevada deserts that she gave up primary custody of her six-year-old daughter to her East-coast ex-husband since the ancient wasteland can't provide a suitable environment for raising her. Nevertheless, the 40-year-old main character, Rose, suddenly succumbs to an overwhelming need for a second child. But her boyfriend Miles suffers painful doubts about starting a family. This could be the basis of a comedy, but no one in the radical camp, Yellow Pine, seems in the mood to let it go that way. The book takes you into a troubled woman's head. The experience is sometimes grueling. Her fellow activists, some of them spoiling for a little lawbreaking, add to the tension.
August 15, 2026
Claire Vaye Watkins keeps getting better.
Yes, I've read some of those 3 star reviews here, and yes, she may not be to everyone's taste.
But this is a mature, honest book about love and pain and the terrible mess we have made of the land where we live (and often our lives too) and how it is perfectly natural to feel hopeless about the world. This world that has largely been built by others without our consent, and seems hell-bent on turning all the free living land that is left into dead profit.
Especially concerning the Mojave desert.
I grew up in southern California, and I've been to some of those places like Pahrump and Searchlight and Baker, and I can tell you that the deep, alive feeling that people get in the desert is a real thing, and Claire Vaye Watkins is telling the truth.
Yes, I've read some of those 3 star reviews here, and yes, she may not be to everyone's taste.
But this is a mature, honest book about love and pain and the terrible mess we have made of the land where we live (and often our lives too) and how it is perfectly natural to feel hopeless about the world. This world that has largely been built by others without our consent, and seems hell-bent on turning all the free living land that is left into dead profit.
Especially concerning the Mojave desert.
I grew up in southern California, and I've been to some of those places like Pahrump and Searchlight and Baker, and I can tell you that the deep, alive feeling that people get in the desert is a real thing, and Claire Vaye Watkins is telling the truth.
September 10, 2026
Equal parts raging against the broken nation and world we find ourselves in mixed with love of the natural world and hope for truth in human relationships.
I was totally on board with all the “no punches pulled” anger against capitalism and government and all the ways our planet and society has been terrorized by the rich. I was worried I would stay angry with the characters the entire time but it morphed into a search for connection with people and the universe in ways I really connected to.
Watkins won’t be for everyone, I get that. But those who are open to her ideas and messages can find a lot to love in this book. If you’re not willing to go outside of the normal views on the world and politics, that’s ok, just leave this book for the rest of us dreamers out here.
I was totally on board with all the “no punches pulled” anger against capitalism and government and all the ways our planet and society has been terrorized by the rich. I was worried I would stay angry with the characters the entire time but it morphed into a search for connection with people and the universe in ways I really connected to.
Watkins won’t be for everyone, I get that. But those who are open to her ideas and messages can find a lot to love in this book. If you’re not willing to go outside of the normal views on the world and politics, that’s ok, just leave this book for the rest of us dreamers out here.
September 15, 2026
DNF.
I really struggled to get into this book, I finally gave up a third of the way in. This novel definitely is not pilot driven, by page 84 all that’s happened is that Rose has moved to the desert, shacked up with her ex and sometimes visits a protest group. Basically what it says in the blurb.
Rose’s inner monologue takes up at least 80% of the pages, she seems either very mentally ill and/or drug affected. It’s really difficult to enjoy reading her ramblings.
The blurb states this book touches on a lot of complex topics, like consumerism, misanthropy, and industrialisation. And whilst these themes are vaguely a backdrop or alluded to in passing, I did not see any genuine attempts to delve more deeply into these topics.
I really struggled to get into this book, I finally gave up a third of the way in. This novel definitely is not pilot driven, by page 84 all that’s happened is that Rose has moved to the desert, shacked up with her ex and sometimes visits a protest group. Basically what it says in the blurb.
Rose’s inner monologue takes up at least 80% of the pages, she seems either very mentally ill and/or drug affected. It’s really difficult to enjoy reading her ramblings.
The blurb states this book touches on a lot of complex topics, like consumerism, misanthropy, and industrialisation. And whilst these themes are vaguely a backdrop or alluded to in passing, I did not see any genuine attempts to delve more deeply into these topics.
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