Stacy wants to read The Vaster Wilds

"I received this book through a Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ giveaway and am providing an honest review. 3 Stars I want to start by saying this book is well written and worth reading. But, that being said, if you are looking for a book to introduce you to a number of women who, through their experiences in nature, developed a strength of character to break barriers this isn’t it. Women have been excluded and still are limited in wild spaces. We have been taught to fear the trails - they are better suited to men. I honestly hoped for a book about Wild Girls who would go on to challenge our nation. I didn’t get that here.

This book would be better titled, “How White Men Systematically Suppressed Women 1820-1920+� There is literally more discussion about men and what they did than there is about the strengths of these beautiful women who lived during this time. It’s confusing to me that a book titled as such would give half a paragraph to Anna Julia Cooper who established outdoor women’s clubs and the M Street YMCA chapter of the Campfire Girls (62) - not to mention all of her later accomplishments.

The challenges that women faced during these years - especially women who defied the “norms�- were immeasurable and difficult to overcome. Conjecture on these struggles is not needed - the sheer number of “may have� and “perhaps� statements this book contains really frustrated me. It was as though the history being shared wasn’t bad enough. For example, pg. 73, when writing of Genevieve Healy the author states “and perhaps secret sources of pain that she did not share with her granddaughter.� What is the author alluding to? Is it based off of other history of the time? If so, share it.

There were also several instances where the author tried to connect history through similar means. As on Pg. 91 where Mary Fields and Josephine Langley had/may have had a connection due to a possible overlap in years of employment. This just seemed forced and not necessary. I also wondered why we were treated to a 1900 pic of basketball playing Jeannette Rankin (100), an extremely notable Montana woman who was the first female elected to congress in 1916 but had absolutely no reference to her in the book other than the caption. Why?

Again, this book is honestly well worth a read - it’s just, in my opinion, Wild Girls missed the mark of connecting the great outdoors as an influencing factor to some really exceptional women.


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