Introspective and dark, this book has a smattering of humor and a main character who can’t seem to find the joy in living. This is a thought provoking, well written read that will leave you wanting to know more.

Hester has just been told that she has terminal cancer. She watched her mother die the same way. She doesn’t want to go out like that. She wants to fulfill a promise she made to herself…to kill her father. She sets off from New York, headed to California with a gun and a fatal exit strategy. Along the way she runs into pitfalls and picks up a hitch hiker/eco terrorist.

I really enjoyed this book. It was a bit perverse at times, and dark. The main character is damaged and lost but keeping her shit mostly together. I loved the juxtaposition of the promise she made her mother and the one she made herself. I think I will catch myself thinking back on this story often.

Thank you to McMillan Audio and Netgally for allowing me to listen to this wonderful audiobook for an honest review.

This book started out strong for me but the ending was a bit of a let down. It felt like a lot of build up for little reward if that makes sense. Hester finds out she has terminal cancer and decides she has nothing left to lose so she embarks on a journey to kill her father. It was a quick listen and I enjoyed the narrator. Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan audio for the opportunity to listen to this arc to give my honest review.

This book was really unexpected. I thought it’d be sadder, softer story, given she has cancer… but the protagonist was much darker and surprisingly funny. Really enjoyed this one.

Fueled more by anger than intelligence, feel more than plans, Hester is an angry woman looking for revenge or absolution, or maybe both.

On the way to kill her father, Hester’s car is stolen - along with the gun she planned to use - and she’s left in a small town with the clothes on her, back her purse, and residual anger.

Wait, let me back up.

Growing up in poverty with a single mother and absent father, Hester watched her beautiful, loving mother wither away, first by working multiple jobs to make ends meet, and then by the cancer that would take her life too soon.

Hester, sad, cold, driven, found a way through school, got a high paying job, and lived the life of a rich woman, a strange homage to her dead mother.

Then she got her own cancer diagnosis and 6 months to live. She names the tumor in her breast “Barrel” and decides against treatment.

And so she packed a bag and set off across the country.

In her rental car, on the road to California, she picks up hitchhiker John who turns out to be an environmental activist working his way through documenting superfund sites across the country.

And so the two begin a strange journey together.

It’s a wild ride for sure and it never goes where expected. It’s got Thelma and Louise vibes, it’s at once hilarious and sobering. Hester is one of the angriest characters I’ve read in a long time. She has bizarre, unnatural thoughts, which she often acts on. You can’t imagine rooting for her, but somewhere, there’s this kernel of her that you hope for.

Offbeat and darkly comedic, this is an unexpected joyride across the country.

Thanks to @netgalley and @macmillanaudio for the advance ALC to read and review. This one is available April 1, 2025.

Whoa! Hester's dad was a truly abusive jerk, but she often minimizes it, suggesting others have had it much worse than she did. After her parents divorced, things improved in her life, but she never was socially secure with others. She had one friend in high school, May. Her mom died when she was 18. Her dad was out of her life after the divorce and largely she had a death wish for him. Eventually Hester went to law school, landed a cushy job in a huge corporate law firm and made tons of money. She is very sex driven and sleeps with her building super. And then, on her 40th birthday, Hester is diagnosed with breast cancer.

And all she wants to do in this world is drive her Jaguar to California and kill her father. For real. So, she heads off from New Jersey, and along the way, she visits her long ago ex, Caleb in Pittsburgh. for a quick and weird reunion. She picks up a hitchhiker, John, who is an environmental activist visiting superfund sites across the country and photographing them. She agrees that as long as they generally head west, she will go along with him to his various sites. Thus, we begin the heart of the story. A road trip of two very different souls but two very odd people. Hester has no sense of what it means to feel things other than anger, perhaps. She has bizarre thoughts about doing very odd, sometimes self-destructive things and sometimes does them. The story is told completely from her perspective, so we watch her gain awareness of a self, of who she is, that she is more than the name she has given her breast cancer, "Beryl."

In sometimes hilarious points of the journey Hester and John get into unexpected pickles that involve a crazy array of strangers. A partly funny but also sobering aspect of John's personality is that he can tell you the environmental "cost" of everything we consume. He does not expect everyone to live as he does, with one backpack and bandanas filled with raw foods like nuts and fruit. For once, although she values him more and more, Hester does not try to seduce John, but instead finds value in him as... a friend? A decent person?

The novel takes us onward to California and Dad, but it is a great, great roadtrip and coming of age at 40 novel. I loved it. Highly recommend. The audio version was well narrated by Cia Court.

Thanks to NetGalley and the author for granting me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Loved this one. Nothing better than an ice queen on a kamikaze mission to kill her dad.

This was so weird and delicious. I love an angry female main character. Every interaction in this book was so clever and unique and random.

A "successful" loner gets a diagnosis of terminal cancer and decides to drive across the country to kill the father who abandoned her and her mother when she was young. What does she have to lose? She grew up in poverty and her long-simmering resentment and self-loathing appears to have kept her from trusting others. She is comfortable now, if not wealthy, and decides to spend her remaining time and money on this trip. She is also reckless, which leads to questionable behaviors described in disturbing detail. Then she picks up a hitchhiker.
It's a road trip of self-discovery in all its grittiness. I didn't love the characters, but I couldn't help but root for them. The writing is vivid and it is well narrated.
My thanks to #NetGalley, the author, publisher, and@MacmillanAudio for an advance copy of the audiobook of #BadNature for review purposes. Publication date: April 1, 2025.

Bad Nature by Ariel Courage follows Hester, a woman who, after receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis at 40, decides to fulfill her long-held dream: to kill her estranged father. Along the way, she picks up John, a young environmentalist, and they embark on a road trip filled with dark humor, adventure, and introspection. The book explores themes of mortality, anger, and forgiveness, balancing moments of absurdity with heartbreaking emotional depth. Hester's journey is one of confronting past trauma while grappling with her limited time. A quirky yet poignant story, it delves into complicated emotions and unexpected connections.

Offbeat and darkly funny. A recommended purchase for collections where quirky crime and thrillers are popular.

Thank you Netgalley for this advanced audio edition of Bad Nature by Ariel Courage.

I'm trying to think of a good parallel to this book and failing. It's essentially a dark, funny, road trip, full of adventure and introspection.

Hester is a woman who just turned 40 and doesn't have much more time left. Armed with a terminal cancer diagnosis and nothing to lose, she sets out on the road to do something she's always dreamed of doing, killing her father. By chance she picks up a young, environmental zealot, and together they experience the chaos of her aspirations.

I got a total kick out of the premise. It moved fairly slowly, and sometimes this turned into nice background noise, but it was an entertaining read. It definitely begs the question, what would you do if you had nothing to lose?

I love to imagine who I would be if I hadn't had a baby as a teen. Would I have grown into a successful lawyer with dark thoughts and a destructive nature? Probably.
I don't hate my father this much but I do hate him, so I was into that.
I found this interesting and hilarious. I love her relationship with her crust punk friend. I loved the protagonist completely actually.
The narration was perfection!

This book sounded darkly funny, and it was, some of the time. However, the rest of the time it felt oddly dark and hopeful at the same time. Hester gets a terminal diagnosis and decides that, at 40, she is going to choose to fulfill her dream of revenge instead of getting treatment to prolong her life.
Despite her prickly nature, Hester was surprisingly sympathetic to me. She has to drive to her father's home, so she can bring her gun, and ends up bringing along someone she meets on the road. I guess what I really liked was how unexpected this whole adventure was.I thought I would feel one way but with a whole different perspective. Those are the best kinds of stories for me, and I'll be thinking about Hester for a while.
The narrator did a great job with the audiobook, and I thought she brought out her personality.
Thanks to NetGalley for letting me listen to this.

I love a messy protagonist! It was quite an adventure following Hester, as well as John as they drove across the US. I would have loved to hear more about John and his environmental activist activities. However, exploring Hester's narrative was plenty between seeing old faces, dealing with her emotions, her sickness, and her mission to kill her dad.

This book started off decently strong then just got very boring and weird for me. Almost DNF but luckily I was listening at work and let it play.

This was a great book! I've been waiting for it and this was a great audio book I really enjoyed it and think the prose were well written and the characters really came out and showed their multiple layers and complexity.

Sooooo.... this is NOT AT ALL what I thought it was going to be.

I don't know why, but something about the book's description made me think it was going to be funny. I got a "with only 2 months to live, bada$$ beeyotch sets out to unalive her lousy dad and shenanigans ensue" vibes from the description.

But this book was NOT funny. It had some mildly humorous bits and lines of dialogue, but it wasn't funny. Instead, it was kind of heartbreaking. It's about loss, anger, loneliness, regret, neglect, abuse, acceptance, mortality, death, anger at death, and more.

It kind of broke my heart, but not in a bad way.

I went into it expecting one thing, but it became something else entirely, and in this instance, I'm okay with that. I actually liked what it was better than what I thought it was going to be, if that makes sense.

In short, it's a book about coming to terms with ones own mortality and realizing that maybe the things we always thought were important aren't that important after all.

A real quality read. I was very pleasantly surprised.

A forty year old lawyer with few friends or family connections due to a slew of emotional and interpersonal issues, finds out she is about to die. Instead of fighting the cancer she decides to drive across the country to exact revenge on her father. The premise is pretty strong and the narrative is fun. With a pretty unlikable protagonist who tries her best to not be redeemed this is not a novel for everyone. I, however, thoroughly enjoyed this book. I giggled constantly, thinking that if I let my own questionable ID out of the box, I would probably do the same type of fuckery.

I read and listened to this novel, and I really enjoyed the narrator. Cia Court’s delivery puts the humor and satire the focus. Allowing the more fantastical and hyperbolic elements to be what the author intended

I actually started to sympathize with what she was doing but I wanted more for her in the end. It felt so raw for her to push everyone away to complete her mission. In some ways it felt relatable but not too familiar.

I loved her journey to California. And I was glad that her and John relationship wasn’t a typical sexual mess. It was more meaningful for her that way. Definitely a good read. I recommend the audiobook. The narrator was perfect, her voice really fit the character, I think she helped find the compassion I had for Hester. The story was easy for follow.

I felt like this didn't quite know what it wanted to be: dark comedy, quest, modern relationship novel, something else? And, as a result, it didn't quite work as anything.



Review copy provided by publisher.