I was really excited about reading this book but was really disappointed. The story itself is great but the diatribe of feminism is exhausting. 'A woman has to claim the right to enter a cafe on her own' - what a lot of twaddle - if I want a coffee, I go into a cafe and don't think about it. It's a load of feminist nonsense - don't waste your time reading it!

I love stories that take me on an adventure, and The Word for Woman is Wilderness certainly did that. Exploring what it means to be a woman, and how that relates to travel and adventure, the language had me gripped.

This is a really odd book. I'm not sure I liked it.

The excerpt says "As Erin's journey takes her through the Arctic Circle, across the entire breadth of the American continent and finally to a lonely cabin in the wilds of Denali, she explores subjects as diverse as the moon landings, the Gaia hypothesis, loneliness, nuclear war, shamanism and the pill."

Buy she doesn't. She pontificates in her own mind. Explore means looking at information, so having discussions with people for their opinions and views, looking at evidence. Erin has an ongoing monologue in her mind, so it doesn't explore anything. Exploring gives a sense of going into the unknown and learning. She learns nothing about these topics. She lectures the people she does meet.

I ended up skipping over pages of boring mind monologue - I quickly found there was nothing new or contentious there - but that meant the actual storyline of Erin's solo adventure was pretty scant. A shame, as I would have liked more of that - woken exploring the world - and less of the femanist, self righteous stream of personal opinion vented at me, and showing that she has learned nothing.

I loved this it's a combination of coming of age, travel memoir, adventure and philosophical sharing, it ambitious for a debut novel and at times i struggled to remember it was fiction. It refers throughout to other 'wild' mountain men publications and the notion of when are you truly alone, While it is very thought provoking and talks a lot about feminism in a 'man's world' its a really enjoyable read and creates much envy - the ideal of being in the wilderness with pile of books with time to truly think about life and our impact. Really enjoyable and thought provoking.
Will definitely be looking for more from Abi Andrews.

I'm afraid I found this book hard to get into, I loved the premise but found it hard to love. I may be that the genre isn't my usual read.

I didn't finish this book so please bear that in mind while reading this review. I went into this with the expectations of finding something similar to 'Wild' or 'Into the Wild' but with a feminist lens and this idea left me slightly disappointed by what the book actually was which was mostly quite dull. I enjoyed the writing however I couldn't engage with the main character and felt that rather than exploring the world and reflecting on society it was more just a travel log of an 18 year old who has never had to worry about anything in her life before and still continues to get things handed to her. Might work for some but unfortunately was not my cup of tea.

I enjoyed this very much. It was really refreshing to read a young woman writing about feminism, about freedom, and about travelling. I worried about her at times, rooted for her, recognised her. It's a long time since I was that young woman out on my own, but I recognised those misunderstandings with men, those dodgy situations.

I liked the insanity of the whole journey - and, of course, any physical journey is also an internal journey, and it was interesting to see how her thinking developed, and her understanding of herself.

It was good to hear about the practicalities of being in the wilderness. Menstruation is tricky in bear country. I'm left wondering how our ancestors coped on the savannah? They obviously did, I guess. Good to see a moon cup in action, too.

I'm not sure where I would shelve this book. Probably in the travel section, rather than the women's writing section. It was great to read a hardcore journey made by a young woman.

This story of a teenage feminist explorer is unlike any fiction I have previously read. It reminded me of Cheryl Strayed's Wild in that the journey is more important than the destination. It's a book I will recommend to friends.

The first part was more engaging than the second half as it involved interactions with other characters. The novel is told in first person but in many ways doesn't read like fiction because of the interspersing of factual information that at first feels fresh but becomes rambling and distracting.

3.5 stars

The Word for Woman is Wilderness, the debut novel by Abi Andrews, introduces us to a teenage feminist explorer who ventures through the Arctic Circle, across the continent of America and on to Alaska, all in the name of woman.

19-year-old Erin leaves her home in England and embarks on a journey that challenges both herself and the male dominated world of exploration. Drawing on the experiences of Bear Grylls and Christopher McCandless, Erin writes her own feminist narrative on nature and the wilderness. In one of the most ambitious musings I have read in a long time, our protagonist tackles topics from space travel, climate change and physics to gender theory and ecological science. Her knowledge on literature and nature is vast, and her ponderings on feminist writing, technology and patriarchy prove quite interesting.

Erin is making a video documentary of her travels, logging her experiences on cargo and research ships across the Atlantic, her stints in Iceland and Greenland, her hitchhiking adventures across Canada and her eventual habitation of a cabin in Alaska’s Denali national park. There are some scenes that will amuse you and some that will worry you, particularly those that involve her hitchhiking at night (or maybe that’s the mother in me talking!). While I found Erin to be engaging, well read and witty, I felt that her intelligence and knowledge was often called into question by her use of teen-speak, swearing and, in parts, poor grammar and choice of vocabulary. Her opinions are often ageist, with Erin believing it is the adults in the world who are responsible for ruining anything good about it. At times like this, I found myself becoming irritated by her. I am a millennial myself (just about) but I found Erin’s arguments, musings and opinions to be particularly...well...millennial.

An all-encompassing, ambitious and impressive read, ultimately, with thought provoking discussions of feminism, gender, nature and the wilderness. Recommended to fans of women’s writing, feminist theory or nature writing, or anyone who would like a teenage, millennial revision of the work of Jack London.

This was not my type of book. I found it disjointed and hard to keep reading. Some of it was interesting but I found it really hard to stay interested in. DNF sorry.

I tried hard with this book, I really wanted to like it but it was not for me I’m afraid. There were some very interesting facts and describing if the scenery, but hey maybe I missed something.

Sometimes it can be so difficult to separate my emotional response to a book compared to my critical response. I don't think I necessarily have to which is one of the great things about a book blog! But reading Abi Andrews' debut novel “The Word for Woman is Wilderness” I was even more aware of this dilemma because it's inspired by and about subjects I'm really interested in and sympathetic towards. It's narrated from the perspective of nineteen year old Erin who has a passionate interest in the writing of Thoreau and the life of Christopher McCandless whose tragic journey led to his accidental death in the Alaskan wilderness. This was chronicled in Jon Krakauer's nonfiction book “Into the Wild” and a film with the same name directed by Sean Penn. Erin observes how the famous instances of individuals pioneering into the wilderness to establish a distance from the society whose values they question have all been directed through a men's perspectives. Certainly the experience and perspective of a woman who sets out on such a journey would be very different. So (against her parents' wishes) she ventures out from her home in England to the Alaskan wilderness and chronicles her journey on video with the plan to edit it into a documentary. She states: “if running into the wild is so often a wounded retreat from societal constraints and oppressions, then shouldn’t anyone but straight white men be doing it more?” Erin charts the mental and physical struggles she faces on her way while also contemplating both the dynamic distinctions and commonalities between the journey of mankind vs womankind.

The novel is evenly broken up into two sections: Erin's journey through the Arctic circle and hitchhiking across Canada to arrive in Alaska and her time inhabiting a remote cabin in the unpopulated wilderness. But throughout she makes references and draws in concepts from an enormous amount of sources: everything from quantum mechanics to Cartesian philosophy to the history of the Cold War space race to David Attenborough documentaries to the novels of Jack London. Such a dizzying array of topics is impressive and fascinating. It leads her to propose enticing new connections and pose deeply-thoughtful questions. But it has the effect of feeling like you've sat up all night with a fellow university student who is excitedly talking through everything they've been reading about. It can get a bit overwhelming at points and detract from the through line of the narrator's journey. Along the way Erin encounters several fascinating characters from an Icelandic woman she meets on a ship to a Native American who aides her after meeting a nasty trucker to a misogynistic interloper in Alaska. It felt like if Andrews had spent longer developing scenes with these characters and rounding out their personalities the novel would have felt more like a story than a collection of interesting concepts.

Erin's determined will to enter the wilderness leads the story. There are some beautifully poetic observations about our subjective experience of landscapes and the environment. When viewing the barren icy terrain of Greenland she states “It feels like trespassing to be alive in a place that is not dead but is inexistence, negation of potentiality. Anything alive is only ever passing through.” Then, at another point she remarks how “The tundra is always in soliloquy. Mostly it whistles and sings, but now and then the wind will die down suddenly and in the utter silence and still it feels like you are on stage. As though you did not know there were curtains until they just suddenly opened. Then the cacophony of noise again like applause.” There are also some great comic moments where she makes wry observations about the nature of travel like trying to understand the native language of a country you've entered through travel books: “I enjoy the narratives of phrase books. They always seem to follow a haphazard protagonist who is forever getting lost and bothering the emergency services.”

Of course, it's Erin's inner journey which is the real focus on this novel. She comments how “An esoteric landscape does not help a person to find their way if they are lost; you could walk from the centre of here and never find your way again.” It's necessary for her to physically travel in order to arrive at a new place of understanding and radically reform her sense of self. It's also necessary that it's a journey she makes alone: “It is not a casting out with purpose but a getting lost. It is the difference between solitude and loneliness.” It's touching how her time in Alaska leads her to reflect much more strongly about her own upbringing and the machinations of her psychology. She's aware of how much she's internalized stories of explorers as being strictly male enterprises because almost all the literature about it is written by men. She catches herself “Positioning myself as male again; my masculine counterpart who lives in my brain, appending a fraud penis so I can traverse Scott’s Antarctica in my imagination.” The fact of her journey makes a powerful statement that women also enter (both the spatial and inner) Wilderness. So, while I think it's sometimes too erratic, this novel was a great pleasure for me to read and it's also a flag that needed to be planted because Abi Andrews is marking new terrain.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher of this book for allowing me to read a copy for free in exchange for an honest review. The title and concept caught my eye and imagination immediately and I wasn't at all disappointed once reading. I was slightly sceptical as to the choice of novel/fictional travel journal as a vehicle for the authors thoughts on this subject, she could easily have produced a book of essay/a concise and interesting work of non-fiction - but it works well presented as a young woman's journey of discovery and growth,...and as such I think provides a more enjoyable and interesting for a younger readership particularly. I will certainly be recommending this book to teens and young adults. There is much to learn here and many jumping off points for discussion and further research,. The tale includes various aspects of feminist theory, history, science, literature, and geography, encapsulated in a well written novel of complex subject but also depth of emotional involvement which pulled me in and held my interest throughout.

Incredibly fresh, The Word for Woman is Wilderness is a road trip book, with Erin starting from England to trace the paths of Kerouac, Jack London and, bizarrely, the Unibomber Ted Kaczynski to Alaska. Reflecting the intellectual excitement, moral aspirations and occasional emotional obtuseness of a brilliant young adult, the novel is humorous and occasionally harrowing. Written as a diary and notes for a documentary film project, the art of the author is to allow Erin to go so deeply into her thoughts, when holed up alone in a cabin in Alaskan wilderness, that it seems she may never escape. I am thrilled to have read this book and most impressed by Abi Andrews' abilities.

One word review: Mantra

Rambling review: This is my favourite book. I have never related to a character more. It blew me away.

The Word For Woman Is Wilderness is a delightful journey of adventure and gender, filled with glorious philosophical tangents. I don’t even know how to begin with reviewing this book… I wrote down so many quotes which made me squeal out loud with happiness and cry with empathy.

I love that wild women are “unsettling”.  I love her vendetta against Mountain Men. I love that she has her period and that is just a thing – it’s not a plot point, it doesn’t drive the scenes forward, it just is what it is. I love how she shows the importance of representation, how Erin imagines how films would be different if the protagonist were a girl. I love that she talks about travel being less elitist now – we are, I am, the easyJet generation.

I love how her mind develops – on the one hand she is an extremely mature 19 year old, on the other hand she makes statements that sound right out of a GCSE Ethics course (maybe Iceland is feminist as it’s so cold and warm clothes disguise our bodies?!) I love how she articulates that environmentalism has feminine connotations. I love that her rucksack is the antidote to the handbag, without critiquing the feminine connotations of the handbag. Wildness doesn’t mean autonomy and freedom for women, you are right Erin!

I love how deftly she explores intersectionality: “some girls go missing but not usually white girls”. I love how much she discusses exploration and imperialism, how the two are inexplicably linked. She wants to “explore without imprinting. Porous, not contaminating”. I love how strong her views on the pill are – it does make you numb and it does make you homesick for your body. But hey, we should just be content, right? This is progress. This was the end goal.

I love how she moulds her identity, shedding and then redressing her twinned roles (such as daughter). “Every girl you know has a troll to remind her that her body is not her own”. Yes, yes, 100 times yes. I love that she is conflicted between feeling vulnerable and feeling independent. And I can’t even begin to summarise how well she speaks about native cultures, colonisation's impact on them, their legacies and their status.

These are just the points I wrote down as I read and doesn’t even include the quotes I highlighted on my Kindle copy.

#BeMoreErin

P.S. Thank you NetGalley for this advance proof! It was so wonderful that I will be (obviously) buying the hardback. It is just so, so good.

Star rating: ******

Year published: 2018

Publishing house: Serpents Tail

Amazon Summary: Erin is 19. She's never really left England, but she has watched Bear Grylls and wonders why it's always men who get to go on all the cool wilderness adventures. So Erin sets off on a voyage into the Alaskan wilderness, a one-woman challenge to the archetype of the rugged male explorer.

As Erin's journey takes her through the Arctic Circle, across the entire breadth of the American continent and finally to a lonely cabin in the wilds of Denali, she explores subjects as diverse as the moon landings, the Gaia hypothesis, loneliness, nuclear war, shamanism and the pill.

Filled with a sense of wonder for the natural world and a fierce love for preserving it, The Word for Woman is Wilderness is a funny, frank and tender account of a young woman in uncharted territory.

Erin is a young woman with a calling. She’s barely ventured from her home in England, but she has watched Bear Grylls’s survival programmes on TV. She wonders why it is that men, but never women, get to be intrepid adventurers, and decides to prove that it is possible for a lone female to voyage through the Arctic Circle, travel across the American continent, and survive in the Alaskan wilderness on basic rations.

She takes with her a video camera to record the journey, using it to interview people along the way, with the intention of creating a feminist documentary. But her evolving objectives regarding this film become an integral part of her odyssey – one that is sometimes fraught with danger and would certainly scare her parochial mum and dad witless should she choose to be completely open with them. She is, however, a strong-willed, resourceful character, and develops coping mechanisms such as chiding herself for growing overly attached to temporary travelling companions.

As she travels, she ruminates on the solar system, nuclear weapons, Inuit culture, cetaceans, the pill, dreams, history, nothingness and a profusion of diverse subjects. She contemplates the works of writers, travellers, scientists and philosophers like Henry David Thoreau, Jack London and James Lovelock – looking to Rachel Carson for feminal inspiration – and puzzles over what impelled men like Chris McCandless to seek enlightenment through solitude and immersion in the natural world.

Erin may be a deep thinker, but she is also great company – her perceptive humour often coming through when she is at her lowest ebb. There are amusing sub-headings strewn throughout the narrative, with titles like: MANNED SPAcE FLIgHT IS THE TROPHY WIFE OF THE SuPER-PHALLUS, and I found myself chuckling at some of her throwaway remarks.

When eventually she reaches her isolated cabin in Denali, her experiences thereafter sometimes remind me of those recounted by Sara Maitland in her 2009 memoir, A Book Of Silence, in which the author spent long periods of time living alone in remote places. Like Erin, she was occasionally perplexed by unsettling, if not downright creepy mental images. There were times when she was unsure if she was awake or asleep, and if the things she saw were real or merely brought about by lack of human contact. So it proves for Erin.

So authentic is the protagonist’s voice that in many ways The Word for Woman is Wilderness seems more non-fiction travelogue than novel. Moreover, if I hadn’t been informed otherwise, I might have assumed Erin was American. Her first-person interior-monologue doesn’t have a particularly British feel to it – in fact, it could be described as mid Atlantic – but I have no doubt this is a generational thing. These days young people use a globalized form of English, and Erin is a mere 19 years-old. The author herself is in her late twenties, while I’m in my early fifties, so our use of language will inevitably differ.

There is much to admire in Abi Andrews’ debut novel. She has created an inspiring character in Erin, one you will think of long after reading the final page. This book appealed to me at first because I am fascinated by countries like Iceland and Greenland, and I was also intrigued by the description of a young woman challenging the archetype of the rugged male explorer. By the time it ended, an abundance of anomalous thoughts were coursing through my brain. I could ask for no more.

I took a little time to get into this novel as Erin who is planning an adventure to travel to Alaska seems to throw a lot of different topics into the beginning parts and the feminist angle may lead some readers to believe the book has a definite agenda.
However it is certainly - like Erin - worth persevering with this tale, as she does by writing and filming her travels across Iceland America Canada and then to her wilderness destination - Alaska.
This is a story of personal growth and overcoming challenges as the 19 year old faces all forms of transport, many different people and the potential hazards of nature and animals across some of the remotest lands.
"Even in the best place in the world in which to be a woman it is still better to be a man", states Erin's friend in Iceland, yet interestingly it is the male characters she meets on her travels who remain in my mind. Those who take Erin under their wing or show her astounding sights or even through their tragedy allow Erin to face her own personal demons.
In some ways it is Jack London's 'Call of the Wild' meets 'Moby Dick' with a definite nod towards the writing of Jack Kerouac, but Erin has much to say about the world in which we now inhabit.
Sometimes she swerves off into random topics such as the Pill, astronauts and the Gaia hypothesis but often these passages melt into the natural world and reach Erin's immediate surroundings in which she needs to survive. She does mention Bear Grylls quite a lot but I've actually got more of a liking for Erin's approach to the natural world than our Chief Scout adventurer who's made a career about all things wild. Erin really cares about the destruction of the planet (fracking and population growth are discussed amongst many other threats).
Sometimes those she meets are threatening and do not conform at all to how Erin believes the people of wild environments might usually behave. Her parents although terrified of her adventure could be proud of her whole approach and we as readers can learn a lot.
This is a debut novel and is certainly different from many other books. There are also photographs and drawings to add to the text which are interesting. Nature and the part of humans surviving in wilderness is a growing market amongst books and this novel is a valuable addition to the genre - and not just for women readers!

A remarkable book, part coming of age, part travelogue, part meditation, part feminist philosophy. It is rare that a book feels so fresh and unusual. In essence it is the story of 19 year old Erin, who, inspired by the story of Chris McCandless, travels to Alaska. So this is the travelogue. But along the way she muses on space travel, nature (with drawings and pictures) and in particular the place of women in the world and their contact with the natural world.
Throughout she retains her own unique voice - very much that of a 19 year old girl, but with a lot of mature thought and philosophy.
I wasn't wholly convinced by all her arguments, but am very pleased to have been introduced to such a special novel.