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Into the Jungle by Erica Ferencik is a novel taking place in the jungles of Bolivia, where an American woman finds herself with her Bolivian husband who went back to his village. Ms. Ferencik is a best selling author.

For more reviews and bookish posts please visit: http://www.ManOfLaBook.com

Into the Jungle by Erica Ferencik is a novel taking place in the jungles of Bolivia, where an American woman finds herself with her Bolivian husband who went back to his village. Ms. Ferencik is a best selling author.


Lily Bushwold, a young lady who has lived in foster homes most of her life, finds herself in Bolivia working odd jobs and teaching English. Lily falls in love with a Bolivian named Omar, who left his life in the remote jungle.

Omar finds out that his nephew has been killed by a jaguar and goes back to his village, Ayachero, because he is, of course, the best jaguar hunter the village has. Lily joins Omar, but life in a remote village, in the middle of the jungle, is not the paradise it sounds like.

I have been to Bolivia and to the Amazonian jungle so naturally I was curious about this book. Into the Jungle by Erica Ferencik is an action driven book, but the author takes the time to describe Bolivia (especially Cochabamba) and the jungle.

The jungle is a living, breathing, ecosystem with a huge amount of animals, from big predators to annoying bugs, many of them can kill you. Living in the jungle is no easy task, actually it’s often brutal, and the author captured that very well. Lily, the protagonist, has a difficult time adjusting, especially being a vegetarian (which I thought was hilarious).

The story itself isn’t very realistic, the ending even less so, but it’s a fun ride nonetheless. The narrative is action driven, where something is always happening, but the characters still come through and are not wooden.

I think the author stretched the boundaries of a fictional story that is supposed to be set in a realistic environment, in today’s world. I thought the beginning, a young woman who can’t find her way in life, going to a completely different environment was a good idea, but it dropped off there.

Lush and thrilling. I never really expect to learn much from a thriller, but I learned more than I ever knew I wanted to know about the Bolivian jungle. Into the Jungle is a perfect read for thriller lovers and those with wanderlust. It combines the lush, dangerous rain forest complete with spiders, big game, and tribal mysticism with a killer on a rampage.

Thank you so much to Gallery Books and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for my review.

This was a little harder for me to get into after devouring and loving The River at Night but once I made it father into the book I started enjoying it.

This story follows Lily as she transitions from a foster home to a job opportunity in Bolivia. There she meets a native Amazonian who takes her on a journey through the unforgiving and dangerous Bolivian jungle.

I myself would never venture into a jungle in a foreign country and I feel that’s what freaked me out the most about this book. All the creatures that lurk in the forest, human and animal, and diseases and the crazy weather sent shivers down my spine. Some of the situations that occurred in the book did seem a little far-fetched to me but overall it was a great read with lots of twists thrown in. The author wrote vivid, vibrant descriptions of the jungle which I really enjoyed as I felt like I was actually in the story with the characters.

Unputdownable! You'll want to put a Do Not Disturb sign on the door before you start reading this Heart-stopping, Powerful, Terrifying, 5★ thriller!
Love the cover, too!!

"Something silky slid across my ankles, followed by a heavy, heated weight over my toes. Solid warmth oozed under my calves. Still half-asleep, I got to my elbows and looked down my body at the wide, trapezoidal head of an anaconda, neon green with flecks of yellow around her cleft mouth. As if suspended by some mad puppet maker, she hovered at eye level, swaying hypnotically. My eyes followed hers back and forth, my head doing this little dip along with her. I didn’t scream because even as I watched, I wasn’t sure what I was seeing.
I couldn’t tell if she was real.
She encircled my ankles. Pellet eyes locked on mine, her head made its way up the length of my body as she languidly wreathed herself around my legs and oh dear God—why, I don’t know—but I didn’t feel like struggling. She had me. I could feel her eggs, solid lumps just under the satin of her white belly. The meat of her was soft and blood warm; I couldn’t take my eyes off the grace of her as she coiled her ever thicker body around my knees now, wrapped herself around my thighs, pelvis, groin. Head swinging, unsupported, she opened her mouth. Her vermilion tongue snapped out, forked end flickering. She blew her sultry breath on me and said aahhhhhhhhh."

******
Let me just start out but stating the obvious.... I am definitely not cut out for living in the jungle! No way. No how.
I don't suppose it helps to have a phobia of monkeys, either! Nevertheless, I had a strong sense of the heebie jeebies throughout the majority of this novel! This is nothing like anything I've ever read. And I loved it!

Into the Jungle by Erica Ferencik had me absolutely transfixed from the  very beginning all the way to the exciting conclusion! The scenery is depicted so vividly that I felt the jungle  bearing down on me in every direction! The dizzying sights, the overwhelming sounds, the oppressive heat and humidity glistening on my skin, thick and hot in my lungs.
The heebie jeebies became much more relative the closer and closer I got to the conclusion, transforming rapidly into pure, unadulterated terror! I'm fairly certain that my heart stopped on more than one occasion, never mind remembering to breathe!
Electric eels, giant tarantulas, enormous anacondas, foot-long bamboo rats, aggressive monkeys, poisonous everything...... Yikes!
One of the best books I've read this year!!

With thanks and appreciation to NetGalley, Gallery/Scout Press, and Erica Ferencik for this advanced digital copy for me to read and review.

A tense thriller that kept me reading late into the night. There was a lot of expository info about jungle creatures and plants that, while interesting, sometimes overwhelmed the plot. Still a wonderful, quick read though!

I loved The River at Night by Erica Ferencik, so I was excited to pick up her latest - Into the Jungle. I was not disappointed. Nineteen year old orphan Lily takes a teaching job in Bolivia, only the discover it’s a scam. She stays, however, and falls in love with Omar, a mechanic from a remote village. She follows him home. To survive in the jungle, courage and resilience are a must, but might not be enough in this vivid, terror-laced coming of age novel. Ferencik has written a novel that feels vivid, claustrophobic, and lush. The sights and sounds (and fear!) come to life in this page turner. If you like the sound of coming of age and survival in the Bolivian jungle, this one is for you. PS- I’d survive about five seconds after the first infestation of hand sized tarantulas fell on me. What about you?

Erica Ferencik does it again! In a much more subtle and nuanced way she gives us just as much anticipation, excitement and uncertainty as in her debut. This novel is much more complex in its research, dynamics and characters. While it may seem slow in some spots, you later realize that, much like the Amazon, it is just a brief, and later appreciated, respite from the almost constant anxiety and slow burn of trepidation and exaltation that the rest of the novel delivers. The end felt a bit rushed and, in my opinion, could have easily benefited from another fifty pages but, even so, it was a wonderful foray into a reality that most of us will never live and even fewer would survive. A definite must read!

I loved headstrong Lily Bushwald and I loved her romance with Omar from Ayachero even more. The story was incredibly immersive, and it was beautiful and heartbreaking all at once.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Scout Press, and Erica Ferencik for the opportunity to read and review this thriller - wow! Nothing I've read lately has made me feel quite so grateful for living in a civilized world!

Lily Bushwold spent most of her life in foster and group homes, never having anyone truly care for her. She jumped at the opportunity to teach English in Bolivia and scraped together the money to get there, only to find the job fell through. She gets a job working at a hostel where she also lives with two friends she met there. It was there that she met and fell in love with Omar, who grew up in a remote jungle village but left for the city life. When his brother comes to tell him that a jaguar killed his young nephew, Omar knows he must go back to avenge his death. He tells Lily she can come but that life will be extremely hard. Nothing prepared her for any part of the journey or the arrival in his home village. Lily must learn to take care of herself and survive in unbearable conditions.

Reading this reminds you of all the things we take for granted in our first-world lives - like running, clean water, medicine, food and washing machines. This is a thrill ride of a book that will have you on the edge of your seat - 4.5 stars!

I nearly gave up on this book. I wasn't sure I wanted to read the story of a young American woman's time with her husband in the jungles of Bolivia. Because of The River at Night, I was expecting more of a thriller.
But I stuck with it.
Fighting to fit in, fighting the stigma of being 'white' in a jungle where the white men have ruined their home, Lily must find her inner strength and learn to use her brain.
It was okay. The bit of mysticism was slightly far-fetched for me, and I didn't love Lily. She seemed lazy and unwilling, until suddenly she wasn't. I guess that's part of the story, of her finding her inner strength, but it didn't seem like she evolved into this person. It seemed unlikely.
But the story gripped me and held me, and I did cheer for Lily. I just wanted her evolution to be evident throughout the book.

I struggled with this book because it felt like it was totally driven by jungle life and not as much about the characters and their relationship with one another. I had high hopes of this being such a fun action packed adventure, I actually couldn't finish it.

This book was okay. It was very descriptive, which was great. I didn't love the characters. Lilly wasn't who she claimed to be. She was kind of annoying.

3.5

This was not really a mystery/thriller is the traditional sense. That’s not to say there was no action; there was plenty.

The writing is fantastic. The descriptions are so detailed that I could easily picture things and what a setting! This was the fascinating part of this story - something so completely different from my existence. Was the story and the action entirely plausible? Many reviewers think not but who am I to say??

Lily was an interesting character, she grew on me. Did I always like her? Not really, but who doesn’t feel that way about the majority of people? Really this story is all about the setting and that was mesmerizing, a much welcome change.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and Gallery, Pocket Books for a copy in exchange for a review.

Into the Jungle was an intense, heartbreaking, and fascinating look into a people who very little is known about. An enjoyable read.

i have no words to express the depth of emotion i have for this novel. it will make you laugh, cry, cheer, and think (and then some).

it's a love story on so many different levels yet a pulse pounding thriller at the same time.


the jungle is just as much a character in this novel as the people and every single one of my senses were on high alert/involved.

i could say more but trust me - YOU. NEED. THIS. BOOK. Discover it's spell on your own because in a nutshell, it's magic.

A woman - no, a girl - running from a hard life ends up stumbling headlong into an even harder one in the midst of a dangerous jungle. That's what I was expecting. Instead, I got a naive girl falling head-over-heels for an older, native man, following him into the wilderness to his village home under the looming threat of a dangerous beast. Lily Bushwold wasn't the scrappy foster kid she described herself to be; she was a privileged American girl who didn't listen to directions, tried to be braver than she was, and really just whined a lot. I felt absolutely no sympathy for her. But a lot of heroines start out as whiny and naive - I was willing to accept that in exchange for some thrilling and terrifying jungle happenings.

The jungle was amazing. It was rich and vivid and hostile, never being left out of even a single paragraph - because it was that important to both the characters and the story and even the prose itself. From the terrifying creatures (like spiders the size of puppies) to the constant noise and growth and reek: the jungle was a living being that permeated the page.

Which leaves the plot. I was expecting a thriller, as I mentioned above, and instead I got a portrait. When the thrills finally came in at about the 85% mark, I was already over it and skimming to finish the book. Our whiny heroine finally gets her act together, seeming to pull courage and resourcefulness from nowhere (where was all of this while she was crying at her inability to lift a laundry basket?) There are some really great scenes in this last 15%, but at the cost of the rest of the book, it wasn't worth it. If there had been more thrilling life-or-death sequences throughout (I mean, come on, the jungle was rich and dangerous and tempting from the very beginning) or if we had seen Lily get it together much sooner, I would have been more inclined to enjoy this one.

In summary: amazingly vivid setting, whiny protagonist, and limp plot didn't even out to me, but others might feel differently.

Unfortunately I dnf this book at about 50%. While I was super interested in the story there was an overwhelming amount of animal “torture”. It wasn’t the characters doing it but side characters, there was also a lot of talk of killing animals (they live in the jungle and are hunters, I mean duh) but I didn’t notice that before I started. There’s also graphic details of bugs, animals or prepping animals for meals and it was just a little too much for me. I also didn’t find this thrilling or mysterious at all, at about 50% in and I didn’t truly care for Lily. I really enjoyed Omar but 50% in and we still couldn’t really get a grasp for Lily’s personality... she was really bland.

3.5 Star Rating rounded up to 4 Stars!

I always read my NetGalley approvals in order of approval. Into the Jungle was next up on the list to read. Admittedly, I went into this story hesitant. I’ve recently finished a story that was very, very heavy on nature descriptions. Which resulted in a painful reading experience. And given the setting of this novel, I gearing up for a similar experience. I was pleasantly surprised by Ferencik’s ability to describe the jungle within reason and keep the story enticing.

Lily, our narrator, has been in and out of group homes. She finally meets someone who feels like home and she is willing to travel to the Amazon to keep him. Following Omar leads her into a part of the amazon that is secluded and basic. The Ayachero natives live off the land with no technology aside from what they can create with their own hands. From there, Lily deals with being inexperienced and out of her element. At times a deadly combination….

This story is exactly what I expected based on the synopsis. Since the secluded area of the jungle leaves little to the imagination, the events that took place weren’t too much of a surprise. But I found myself enjoying this novel all the same. Ferencik was able to create quite the thrill using mother nature. I appreciated her ability to use the elements to ramp up a scene while not over doing it. Hats off!

Overall, I found myself enjoying this novel. But at times, I also found myself a bit bored. However, I don’t think this was the writing as much as this book being out my norm. I would encourage other readers to check it out and get a feel for themselves.

Thank you NetGalley and Gallery, Threshold, Pocket Books for the read!

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This book is about love, loss, longing, and cultural differences. It is well written with many descriptors and characters from another "land". There is intrigue and adventure galore. Enjoy! 📚

The story itself was good, but I had a hard time connecting with the characters. Lily is so young at the start of the story, but she sure grows up by the end. Lily meets Omar and they fall in love. After living in foster homes most of her life, she has found a home with Omar. When he has to go back to his remote jungle home, she goes with him. She really wasn't prepared for the jungle. But Omar and others help her learn. When it comes time to step up and help out her new family, she is there.