This book is a dream-like tale that skirts the edges of delusion. Nova's prose sings with wild poetry and feminist fury, painting a picture of community, escape, and the desperation it can take to get there, while exploring the very real world that puts women in a position of that same desperation, over and over again. This is a story worth teaching and studying, and reading over and over again to peel back new layers. I'll be recommending this to everyone I know.

I will read anything by Nova Ren Suma so of course I requested an ARC, thanks Netgalley. She is so good at writing mysterious worlds in which women (or teen girls) live. It feels magical and haunting all at once. Nothing like my life which is exactly the kind of novel I want to read.

I had a really hard time getting into this book. Perhaps I came with really high expectations. It just doesn't come together for me. Thalia is not an a dull character in dull situation, but I had to remind myself to return to this story. Perhaps it's a timing thing. The a bleak world, with a character stuck and confused and isolated is exhausting right now. Thalia is resistance, but not much in the way of action. Maybe I couldn't be in her head space and that of the world of the women around her.

First, I'd like to say a thank you to NetGalley for the ARC of Wake the Wild Creatures.

It's just after 4am here in Los Angeles. Body aches and the chills, compliments of flu season, are keeping me awake.
I figure this must be the universe's way of telling me I have time, right now, to start this book.
I'm one chapter in, and I'm really loving Nova's writing style. It's truncated. But also flowing. I love a writer who makes a style their very own!
She brings the reader into the wild woods with such glaring details, right before she dumps you into the nightmare of suburbia.

That was my initial thoughts on Wake the Wild Creatures. And I continued to be enthralled by the characters and their surroundings to the very end. The story jumps timelines often, which is my only true complaint. I hope that Nova does a follow up as I'd love to continue to follow Talia on her journey through life.

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.