Thank you Netgalley and Little, Brown Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Nova Ren Suma once again delivers a haunting and atmospheric novel with “Wake the Wild Creatures,” a story that blurs the line between reality and magic, past and present, sanctuary and captivity. At its heart, this is a book about survival, female empowerment, and the lingering grip of the past. Before going into this review, I want to provide a content warning for SA on a minor (not actually depicted in the story).

Talia grew up in the Neves, an abandoned hotel in the Catskill Mountains that served as a refuge for women seeking escape—from violence, the law, or the world itself. To her, it was a sanctuary for women, a safe space. To outsiders, it was a cult. But when she was thirteen, the outside world caught up with the Neves. Her mother, Pola, was arrested for murder, and Talia was taken from the only life she had ever known to live with her distant relatives. Now sixteen, she struggles to fit into a society that feels alien, one that dismisses everything the Neves stood for. Her only goal is to return—to the Neves, to her mother, to the place she still believes is protected by a mystical force. But as she waits for a sign from Pola, she begins to question the truths she’s always held. Who betrayed them? What role did she play in the fall of the Neves? And is the magic that once shielded them real, or just a story she told herself to survive?

The book’s structure alternates between past and present, slowly unraveling Talia’s history and the rise and fall of the Neves. Suma’s signature lyrical prose immerses you in Talia’s fractured world, capturing the isolation, longing, and fierce determination of a girl caught between two realities. The writing style, at times, may feel disorienting, but it reflects Talia’s own confusion and trauma, making her perspective all the more compelling.

A key strength of the book is its exploration of female solidarity and togetherness. Talia’s growing friendship with her cousin Lake, initially reluctant and strained, becomes a touching element of the story, as the two bond over their shared pain and complicated family dynamics. The themes of found family and belonging resonate deeply, as do the questions the novel raises about freedom, control, and whether the Neves was truly a place of safety or another form of imprisonment.

While the magical realism elements are intriguing, they can also be ambiguous, particularly as the book reaches its conclusion. Throughout the book, you will find yourself questioning whether the Neves was truly cloaked in magic or if the mist surrounding it was simply a metaphor for the illusions we create to protect ourselves from harsh truths. The book did have an open-ended approach, which I appreciated.

Ultimately, “Wake the Wild Creatures” is a powerful and timely novel about resilience and the blurred edges between reality and belief. It is both a story of loss and a story of hope—of a girl seeking to reclaim the only home she’s ever known, even as she begins to question whether it was ever truly hers to begin with. Fans of atmospheric, thought-provoking YA fiction will find themselves captivated by Suma’s latest masterpiece.