How to Love the World

by Ilka Tampke

Perhaps motherhood is always a promise that cannot be kept.

Rain or shine, Nellika Werner goes for long walks every day in the bush near her home. The cool silence of the forest helps soothe what is repeatedly torn apart by family life.

One morning, she decides to take a path she’s never walked before. Deep in this remote part of the forest, Nellika is struck by a falling manna gum branch, which pins her to the ground. Shockingly injured and unable to move, with no water or phone, her only hope is that someone will find her.

*

When her children are born, Nellika vows she will be the perfect mother. Motherhood is something sacred, it will remake everything that is broken in her. But as her children grow, the myth begins to crack, and she realises some breaks can never be healed.

*

As the window of hope for rescue gradually closes, and darkness falls on what might be her last day, Nellika makes a reckoning of herself and the place where she lies. Is this fallen branch an accident or a punishment? As death draws close, the forest asks why should you live? And in the dark heart of her memories, she discovers that there is an answer.

Both a meditation on nature and healing, and a map of how one generation’s struggle imprints on the next, How to Love the World is brilliant, immersive and ultimately hopeful.

Genres: Literary Fiction, Fiction, Parenting, Mental Health

312 pages, Paperback

Published March 26, 2026

About the author

Ilka Tampke teaches fiction at RMIT University. Her first novel, Skin, was published in eight countries and was nominated for the Voss Literary Prize and the Aurealis Awards in 2016. Ilka lives on five acres in the Macedon Ranges of Victoria.

Reviews

[Suz]

Oscillating wildly, I was floundering and disinterested at times, yet the deeply honest portrayal into motherhood was disturbing and fascinatingly refreshing in equal measure. The swings and roundabouts made for the perfect last turn.

The path of motherhood chosen by Nellika was fraught with failure as she had set her sights on near perfection. What we witness is a lifetime of introspection and reckoning that meanders yet remains highly astute. I know deep inside my soul the shiny outwardly motherhood trope of ‘it’s all beautifully shiny’ isn’t real, I’ve never run this way, so I LOVED the realness. It resonated deeply. Some quotes:

•Each time her body ignites with life, with purpose.
Each time, because she is in no position to be a mother, she has the baby taken out.
After the third time, alone and bleeding on her bedroom floor in outer London, she asks herself why she, who holds motherhood so sacred, has allowed her womb to become a theatre of its destruction.•

•She hoped her children would love the world a little more now that some part of it would be made of her.•

What culminates is a five star read ~ surprising and eye raising even for myself. Insightful and scary as Nellika spills her heart story. From 2 to 5 stars landing on 5 is a near impossibility for me. I loved it, the ending perfection. Thank you for choosing this path, Ilka 💗🍃

Thank you Simon & Shuster, where have I been not having read this author? Better late than never.

❓What book made you wildly change direction in your rating

[Bianca]

3.5
This was somewhat unsettling. A forty-seven-year-old mother goes for a solo hike in the forest. A huge branch falls on her, now she's pinned down and hurt badly. Will she be found or will she die there?

The novel swings between the present and the past, with the narrator remembering the fights with her pre-teen kids and her absolutely losing her cool. The present is urgent and painful. The past is gone but it also holds pain due to parenting fails, abandonment etc.

I liked the writing style and the premise, including the interrogation of female rage, even when it's only directed towards those we love.

[Madeline Mcfarlane]

this was a breathtakingly gorgeous novel that, at its core, centres the idea of creation. either as an artist, a mother, as human or nature — what do you you create? what part do you have in the birthing of something, in the life and the death of it?

with a stunning literary style, ilka tampke skilfully weaves timelines together so seamlessly that you feel perpetually in suspense, but also so grounded and awed by both the experiences of nellika’s life and the natural world around her.

while most of my draw to the novel was for its setting within nature, i found myself incredibly taken with the way it explores the abject experiences of womanhood and motherhood. this novel is a wonderful work of ecofeminism and its examination of motherhood and its connection to the the earth was so insightful that it had me questioning my own convictions.

i found myself unable to tear myself away from this novel. it’s no doubt that the world has been graced with another beautiful and meaningful piece of work.

[Renee | Cosa Book Club]

How to Love the World by Ilka Tempke | Book review | 5 stars! | This is storytelling. I have never been so moved by a novel.

If you take one book recommendation from me, please let it be this book. I'm writing this review a few days after finishing How to Love the World and I can safely say, this is my favourite book of 2026, possibly my favourite book of all time. It is poetic, it is meditative, it is a self-help book cleverly embedded in a beautiful, moving fiction story. I just about underlined every line of this book as sentence after sentence quotes were taking me aback.

Nellika, our main character, grapples with the challenges of motherhood, the discovery of what may be generational trauma, and seeking her home land - is it the land of our ancestors or the land on which we are born? Both? Neither? We read through past and present timelines, seeing Nellika's experience as a daughter and as a mother, as a student and as a teacher, as a single woman and as a wife. There are parts of her life that I have lived through, and so much that is still yet to come. An immediate learning I had from this novel is that we cannot act like we have time. Work through your regrets, say your apologies, tell those around you that you love them, go and hug a tree - connect with nature. You never know when the land will decide that it is your time.

This book is a call to not only discover our own histories, but to also discover the land around us. Appreciate its history, its beauty, its magnificence, its healing, its power.

Quotes I love:
"She clung to every detail, willing the tree to keep her awake. It comforted her: the gentleness of its colours, the off-kilter way it had grown. Something in its distorted beauty flooded her with hope."

"Free me, she begged to whomever had power to do so. Free me, and I will honour the miracle of this body for as long as I am alive."

"To all external observance, their family seems robust, even idyllic. They live in the country, grow vegetables, keep chickens, play sport, take holidays, go camping. But beneath this surface there beats a steady drum of crisis. A monster howls. That monster is her."

"Something happens to the human voice when someone shouts in anger. It flows too fast, too violently, like a flooding river breaching its banks. When you hear it, your body registers danger. That person has ruptured the boundaries of themselves. They are not safe ground."

"Things can be sad and beautiful."

I am always slightly biased when it comes to a novel that is set in forest/bush inspired by south-eastern, Australia. I enjoy reading descriptions of swallowing mountains, grandfather eucalyptus trees, native Australian wildlife. The setting is a plot device in this novel, and it is a setting that I have grown up in, that I have studied at university, that I love and that I miss every day from my inner city rental. I felt a link to this story through Nellika's exploration of her connection to land, her need to 'touch grass', as the internet would say, when she is overwhelmed, when the world is coming crashing down upon her. There is nothing quite like the centring nature of Australian nature. It is its superpower. It is healing.

I ended this book with such a deep appreciation for, and desire to be like Nellika, helping others to learn 'how to love the world' around them. If you are living in Australia, we are so lucky to have the parks, the forests, the wildlife that are at our fingertips. You can drive for less than an hour from Melbourne CBD and get lost in so many forests. Find your connection to land. Nurture it. Protect it.

My rating is 5 manna gums out of 5. Would I recommend this book? Yes, and yes again. I will be rereading this if I become a mother. I will be rereading this visiting my family in South Gippsland. I will be rereading this on a rainy day. Everyone needs to read this. Have your journal ready as you might have some thoughts to work through after this one.

Pick up this book if you are interested in: Literary fiction, motherhood, grief, life purpose, beauty in nature, generational trauma, mental health

How to Love the World was published in May 2026 by Summit Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. I was provided a physical ARC and eARC of this book. This review is my own, honest review as they will always be.

[Emily Rayers]

If you have a mother or you are a mother or you like trees then you should read this. I have no words to articulate how staggeringly emotive this novel was. So heavy that I was crushed over and over again, and even in the gentler aftermath I will be carrying the impact with me maybe forever. What a stunning depiction of big themes like intergenerational trauma, belonging, motherhood and the Motherhood of nature. It feels wrong to describe it as a joy to read but truly it was 300 pages of bittersweet poetry, an ode to the manna gum and every other atom of our world.

[Margot Kneebone]

I really enjoyed this book. The plot may seem slow at first, with the protagonist stuck under a fallen tree, but the book is so lovely. It explores many issues - motherhood, relationships, belonging, being kind to the natural world, the impact of western culture and colonialism, and the importance of being kind to yourself. It is an ode to nature and to embracing the imperfections of motherhood. It is beautifully written. And being Australian, I always love a good book set in Australia

[Nadia]

Family Book Club 2026: Book #4

Beautifully written and an interesting story, but a bit too long and repetitive for me

[Sarah]

3.5 stars. I really liked the writing and the story but it got a bit repetitive, in particular during the forest scenes. I could only read so much about trees. Having recently become a mother myself, it was heart achingly beautiful perception of motherhood.

[Monique]

This book blew me away. It’s incredibly written. The character development is top-notch. The story itself is riveting. But the complexity and beauty by which complex themes are explored is impressive.

Nellika, a forest enthusiast, finds herself trapped under a tree bow and grappling with the necessity of survival and the way she’s lived her life. She’s not quite the Mum she wants to be but can’t seem to change. In this story, we move between phases of her life as she collects it all together. We flow between the micro and macro view and explore what makes a person. It’s truly moving.

[Eliza]

The type of book that would be studied in an English class, I feel. I found the structure of the book very interesting in the way that the chapters alternated between various points in the main character’s life and only returned to the present sparingly.
It did confuse me that the daughter had a name, but not the son. I had thought there would be reason for that, perhaps that the son had died, but that didn’t appear to be the case.

[Tom Evans]

What a powerfully moving novel, one that made me cry several times. Ilka Tampke is an author brimming with emotion, for the natural world and the familial. The questioning of a mother in the face of great peril, of her place in the world as a parent, and also as a daughter, is so beautifully written. Added to this is a page-turning plot that begs the reader to not put this down. I’ll long be thinking of certain parts of this book, a gift.

[Marnie Nitschke]

I hadn’t read anything for a good few months, and this book has broken the drought in the most beautiful and heartwarming way. I devoured it! I cried a lot. It’s both challenging and a pleasure to read. How To Love The World is one of those rare stories that sticks with you and inspires you, well after it’s finished. My favourite book from Ilka 💚.

[Anne Freeman]

An unforgettable, achingly beautiful and heart-breaking reflection on motherhood, womanhood and what it means to be a small part of a vast ecosystem. Unlike anything else I've read, this tender narrative will stay with me forever.

[Chanel Chapters]

If you do not heal the wounds from your childhood, you will inflict them upon your children in motherhood.

4.75

[Rhi Zarzhavsky]

“Nothing new can be birthed without violence. Something must always be destroyed.”

Everyone with a mother should read this book.
Especially if she’s ever yelled at you, or you her.
So, everyone, basically.

[Marion Taffe]

A powerful story exploring the dark, hopeful, brutal, tender inner landscape of a woman.

On her morning walk in a remote Australian forest, Nellika is alone and critically injured. She is pinned to the earth, her body broken by a branch dropped from manna gum. Will she survive? (No spoilers here.) For Nellika, the question is: Why should she live? What drives the story is not so much the ticking clock, but the unravelling of Nellika’s tapestry of loves, hurts, regrets, hopes, wounds, and how these have shaped her relationships with people and places, with her family, her sense of self and her idea of home.

The story is told in three timelines. Time stamps tell us how long we’ve been on the ground with Nellika. We feel her pain, immobility, hope and helplessness. ‘Earlier’ takes us through the fraught morning leading up to the fateful walk. Interspersed are flashbacks to different times during Nellika’s life from childhood to being a mother of grown children. Sometimes a full scene, sometimes a snapshot.
It is all beautifully written and the depiction of maternal rage is masterful. We feel the searing hot release of the anger, the harm caused, the self-loathing that lingers and the attempts at another reset, always striving to be the mother she wants to be, the mother society expects her to be. It is raw and confronting, especially for anyone who’s seen that cycle in themselves or their own mother. But there is real power and humanity in this unflinching portrayal.

Is it less frightening to be the monster?

While reading, I found myself thinking on the complexities of the lost child trope in Australian literature, and how beautifully Tampke subverts it here. At times, Nellika is the lost child grown up. Other times, she is the child needing to be found and loved. We are lost and broken with her.

How To Love The World is a mother’s inner life in dirt, bites, blood, bark, sun, rain, darkness, love and fear. The novel is structured like a dappled forest floor with changing light. The prose is sometimes lyrical, often gripping, always compelling.

Nellika will stay with me for a long time.

[Taylor (areadingsailor)]

3.75⭐️

A love letter to motherhood and its deep challenges, we encounter Nellika who, trapped under a tree, is forced to face her flaws and imperfections as she lay there wondering if she’ll ever be found.

“Perhaps motherhood is always a promise that cannot be kept.”

I cried way too often in this book. It truly showcased the good, the bad, the epic, and the ugly of motherhood. The rage, the grief, the unbridled love and joy, the anxiety, the intense fight or flight, the generational and childhood traumas, the broken connection to one’s ancestors.

“Never in her life had she felt so exposed. The forest saw the truth of her: a woman too unformed to mother.”

Nellika is a harsh and deeply unsettled character, fuelled by a difficult childhood she becomes more and more untethered as she enters the realm of motherhood. Acting out in intense bouts of rage and anger, extreme highs and extreme lows, she shows just how much trauma can impact who you are and how difficult it can be to break generational abuse cycles and free yourself from childhood traumas. She was incredibly unlikeable at times, and very likeable at others. In total, Nellika encapsulates motherhood at a more extreme end of the scale, and is a character I feel most mothers will be able to identify in some way with.

“When she kisses them goodnight she can never quite believe that they are her children…she marvels that there are billions of bodies in the world. Billions of constellations of bone, muscle, nerve, bacteria and soft, tender skin. Only two are her children’s.”

Sad, poignant, harsh, honest, and beautiful. This was a very introspective story.

[Don Miller]

Maybe this novel is more for women than men. I read it following a good review. The premise is okay - a middle-aged woman is getting some precious time alone after dropping her fractious teenage kids at school. She is walking in an unnamed forest (somewhere in NSW or Victoria?), one of her favourite retreats, when a large tree limb breaks off and lands on her back. She is pinned to the ground, unable to move with only her dog with her. It is a little used track, so there will be few walkers to find her. She then reminisces about her life, present and past.
Sorry, but her past lives did not really enthrall me, despite them being what we all (mostly) go through, with regrets and triumphs etc. And, I am a little tired of the use of “Damn, forgot my phone ( or find myself in a place without phone coverage) and my water bottle.”

[Jessica]

Thank you to Simon & Schuster for this ARC.

The book follows Nellika across various sporadic timelines and her perspective on motherhood as both a mother and a daughter.

It heavily explores the themes of belonging and nature.

Whilst I enjoyed the ideas presented and it definitely allows you to understand her (and maybe your relationship with your own mother), there is something about the execution that didn’t exactly have me hooked.

[Amy Tucker]

I read this book in a day - I couldn’t put it down. There are parts of it that described ways that I feel so deeply, perfectly and beautifully, and have never been able to put into words, particularly about calling Australia my home. Painfully raw and real. One of my all time favourite books, and recommended reads for anyone who is a mother. This story will stay with me forever.

[Kaye505]

I listened to the audiobook and really enjoyed it. It’s a gentle, honest look at parenting and trauma — how your parents shape you, and how you try to do better with what you’ve learned. The forest parts were my favourite: grounding, healing, and full of quiet wisdom.

[Charlotte Martin]

Truthfully. Very boring. I can see the concept that the author was trying to convey but it came across as disjointed. The main character was very unlikable and no redeeming story throughout the whole book for any of the characters

[Amy Plant]

Not leaving a review until after bookclub

[Bethany D]

2.5 - BC

[Sam]

A profoundly beautiful book.

[Julia]

Not perfect but the sum of its parts is perfect

[Annemarie]

4.5 ⭐️