2025 Reading Challenge discussion

This thread is to discuss The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff.

Pages: 272 pages

Length: 1 month (May)

Participants:Jen, Rebecca

Everyone reads at their own pace during a Buddy Read. Because participants can be at different parts of the book at different times, it is extremely important to mark spoilers so that the book is not ruined for someone who is not as far along as others!!!

Mark spoilers by placing {spoiler} before the text and {/spoiler} after the text but use the < and > instead of the { and }.

I plan to start this one today or tomorrow, depending on when I finish A Gentleman in Moscow

I started this one today and read the first four chapters. At first (view spoiler)[ I didn’t think I was going to be able to get into this one because of the distant, almost fairytale or fable like narration. About midway through chapter three, however, it began to pick up for me.

I didn’t put together until the mentions of Powhatan that this story is actually centered on a slave or indentured servant at escaping Jamestown colony. (hide spoiler)]

Also (view spoiler)[ I was kind of liking the cat and mouse of the slave catcher chasing her, and I was disappointed that the Powhatans killed him so early in the book. (hide spoiler)]

There's really no need to mark spoilers. For me it hinders the discussion. I only got through the first chapter last night as I seem to have bitten off more than I can chew with buddy reads this month.

Have you read any other books by Lauren Groff?

I read Matrix a couple of years ago and loved it, so I was excited to read her next book. This kind of lyrical setting of people being behind a wall and either trying to get in or out is a theme of hers.

I have attempted Lauren Groff but not finished anything except for a few short stories. I think I checked Matrix out 3-4 times when it was a new release, but never actually read it.

I’m through chapter nine now.

I’m taking my buddy reads one at a time this month, so this is the second one I’ve gotten to. I also had enough that I put them all in a TBR jar and am drawing them out one by one to determine which book is next. I do that last month and felt really good about it. 🤣🤣🤣

Also, I guess I should have been clued in by the title, but this book seems to be a narrative that is completely taken with a journey from Jamestown to freedom. I read The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass in March, and I keep finding myself imagining him and then drifting back to the actual text of the book. He didn’t give any details in that autobiography of his actual journey because he didn’t want to ruin things for other slaves attempting to escape, so my mind just wants to give him an eventful journey like this one.


Right now, I feel like I’m playing a survival video game, and every time I think something is going well, a new problem or danger comes into focus. I will admit that, if I wasn’t just shy of halfway through the book, I would’ve thought that she might die from the concussion in the last chapter I read.

I feel like I barely read over the weekend, but I’m now at the end of chapter 15. Everything just feels so dreary. I really don’t think she’s make it out of the wilderness at this point. I just don’t see it between the concussion and the fever and the land populated by only indigenous people that don’t seem inclined to help her.

I think I admire the girl’s perseverance at this point. I don’t think I would have made it this far.

It is kind of like a video game, isn't it? Like Oregon Trail set 200 years earlier.

Matrix is a bit like this as well, though the setting is different. The main character spends a lot of the first part of the book trying to figure a way out of her situation.

I would say from the girl's tenacity that we're not headed for a tragic ending, but I don't know.

Finished. I don't know how I feel about it. I think Geoff was trying to accomplish something transcendent and didn't quite reach it. I look forward to seeing your thoughts about this one as you finish it and talking more about it then.