Into the Wild meets The Serpent King in this story about Annie and Pete, two best friends on a dangerous and emotional trek through the woods.

I went into reading this book thinking it was something completely …different. I didn't hate the story, but I didn't love it either. The story deals with grief, and left me feeling very meh.

CW: Death and bereavement, road traffic accident, suicide, sepsis.

The synopsis makes it sound like this is a book about friendship and love and hiking adventures. This is however a book that really deals primarily with death. So for starters it should have come with content/trigger warnings. The other massive issue is that the book deals really badly with all these issues. Stories don't have to be a morality trip but they do need to be approached responsibly. The book was one long series of appalling things happening but handled with a "oops well I guess that was too bad" as we move on to the next disaster. 

Who is the audience meant to be? Who is the book written for? Teenagers who have experienced bereavement? Because it certainly would not be a healing read for them. Teenagers who have a safe, comfortable life but who want to be entertained by the trauma of others? Not sure it even fulfils this because it was hard to see any purpose to the series of catastrophes depicted. There were no real learning points. There was no positive character growth. All I could see was the character's problems and trauma getting worse, and getting brushed aside as a coping strategy. Not the message to be imparted to teenagers about how to navigate trauma. 

I would not recommend the book to anybody unfortunately.

A beautiful, different read that moved me. New favorite, 5 stars.

This book hit me like a ton of bricks. I never expected to love it as much as I did. But I couldn't help it - Pete and Annie's story absolutely moved me.

This author writes beautifully. Her teenagers are actual teenagers who are still witty, wonderful, smart and in their minds, invincible.

I cried, I will admit, and I was really moved by this beautiful read. I can't wait for more from this refreshing voice.

Would I recommend this book? I would, but PLEASE be careful. There are so so many trigger warnings here. It's beautiful, but really only meant for a reader with a stronger stomach who wants something tragically stunning.

This book was definitely intense and strange. Not what I was expecting, I was a bit taken aback by this book. I still don't know if I liked it or not.

this was a really enjoyable read, the characters were great and I really enjoyed reading their journey. It had a lot of emotions and I throughly enjoyed reading this.

I went into this thinking that it would focus more on the main character and her unrequited love for her friend, but it took a different turn and ended up dealing with the loss of a loved one. I enjoyed this for the most part.

*I WAS PROVIDED A DIGITAL GALLEY VIA NETGALLEY IN RETURN FOR MY HONEST REVIEW. THIS DOES NOT AFFECT MY OPINION*

I'm currently listening to Take It All Away by Red because I'm still feeling so many emotions after reading this book and can't properly deal with them.

Carrie Mac is a fantastic writer. Her writing style was what initially drew me into this story, and it didn't let up throughout any of the book. She has a way of making the emotions of the story so realistic and true that you can't help but feel them yourself.

I will say now, that the characters were amazingly developed. I didn't see one character, main or side, slacking in any department. And that's really great, y'know? Because you don't see that too often. 

Wildfire is a book I can confidently say explores what it is to be a teenager in today's day and age. Now, I'm sure not all teenagers have permission to go camping and hiking on their own for a week, but in the circumstances that Annie and Pete were in, it was realistic and believable. Not to mention, everything that was brought about in this book was something I was able to understand or relate to.


After reading this book, I took a moment to explore the bad reviews on Goodreads to understand why people weren't liking this book. Something I commonly saw was that people were saying this book was written in a weird format and that the main character was supposed to represent a strong and abled woman. And to that, I have to say what is so bad about that? Isn't that what we want in YA books?

I wish I could be like Annie in that sense. She is someone who has lost and loved over and over and over. Yet she continues to go. She may not have done everything people expected of her, but can't we say that's exactly what it's like to be a teenager? You can't deal with everything all at once. You can't just go along with what everyone wants from you. You have to find and carve your own path, your own way, and that is exactly what I was able to gain from this book.

The only thing I didn't like about this book was that there were a few instances where Annie's jealousy for Preet extended into overbearing hate, but otherwise, it didn't get much past jealousy.

For that, I rate this book 4.75 stars. I loved this book, and I will be picking up the final copy as soon as I physically can. I look forward to reading more from Mac in the future and can't wait to see what beautiful tragedy she writes next.

This book was not everything I thought it would be. I enjoyed the outdoors hiking and other parts but still something set a bit wrong with me. The talk of losing a loved one and the process of healing from it was a bit part of this book and I did enjoy that. The love story wasn't a huge part of the book which I did find enjoyable since it didn't take over everything else happening in the book.

Thank you NetGalley for giving me an ARc copy.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for this early copy!

Did not finish - I did not connect with the plot or the writing and decided to put it down.

this book was way heavier than I was expecting. i thought it would be about unrequited love and it was but it also wasn't really. This book didn't capture me in the beginning but as time passed is lowly began to enjoy the book some more. This book mainly deals with grief and the loss of a loved one so if that is triggering I would advise proceeding with caution. I enjoyed this book but I have enjoyed other novels about grief mainly because of what i thought it was going to be vs. what it was. I was in the mood for a campy happy semi-predictable friends to lovers romance and... that's not this book at all.  This book was sad and thoughtful and overall a story I enjoyed. I will be keeping my eye out on what this author puts out in the future.

TW: death of a loved one, death of an animal, wildfires, infection + illness
(trigger warnings taken from Chelsea from Chelseadollingreads)

(from Goodreads) I cried through parts of this book, it was that emotional. The tagline that it's "'Into the Wild' meets 'The Serpent King'" really held true for me. I love books about close friendships and adventures, and this one did not disappoint. Although I was mad at the author about something, it was so well-written and impressive I've decided to read more by Carrie Mac.

3.5 stars.

After reading through this book, I can't help but feel like I've been lied to. I was expecting it to be fluff fluff but it turns out to be hard-hitting more than anything (at least to me since I rarely read that genre).

The book focuses a lot on the hiking adventure, the past and death rather than the romance. Though I enjoyed it, I wish it was actually focused on the romance.

Now I'm a fan of friends to lovers and that was my expectations, but the book decided to rip my heart to shreds! I don't mind what happened in that big event but I hate how it happened. It was more due to negligence rather than reason. Annie in the end managed to do what she needed to do after it was too late.

Overall, I was really shocked and I bawled my eyes out while reading the book. This was a good read despite it being the opposite of my expectations (though I still wished it went the predictable route of romance) and I understand the emotional journey Annie had to take to continue moving on her life after everything that happened.

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with the digital copy for an honest review.

This was not the book I was expecting, but I absolutely loved it! The friendship between Annie and Pete is perfection, and I loved the concept of the hike to help Annie find herself again. I'm not a big outdoorsy person, but this really drew me in. 

The ending literally ripped my heart out. I can't believe it...

Plus, the cover is GORGEOUS.

This book wasn't horrible but I found myself not likeing it very much. I feel as though the characters were only okay and I didn't really find myself connecting with them. I found myself struggling to finsh the book.

Wildfire is a bit of a coming of age contemporary. Definitely comparable to The Serpent King which I felt very similar toward. Well, for all the emotion packed into this book, it reads very peculiarly at times as well. I think the pacing and dramatization could have gone better at points (though at others it was magnificent) and at times I wanted to murder the characters. Through the first half, I was going to give it two stars, but I’m glad I did finish it because on an emotional level, it really evolves as the book progresses and if you are reading it and are also annoyed with the first bit of the book, give it a chance and finish.

The characters were all very well developed and they do evolve through the book each coming to understand that their way of thinking isn’t the best. And as an overview, every part of this book is quite amazing. Major plot points logically sequenced, triumph and despair appropriately mixed for the tone of this book, and characters well done. The problem I have is that when down at the sentence and paragraph level, the pacing becomes erratic, and the language loses its balance. There will be sentences of such vivid description followed by paragraphs of simple sentences describing character actions that I feel like I’m back in my very first computer programming class that it seems like those moments of beauty are being forced in for the sake of making the writing sound more sophisticated. It was frustrating seeing such a moving book lose itself in places to such disappointing writing.

Some little things that I appreciated, but was also annoyed at was the relatability of these characters

I finished this book several days ago, and have been struggling with how to rate it, because as a rule, I generally choose to not rate a book at all rather than give it only one star, but I found this story incredibly disturbing and problematic, so I'm going to break my own rule. 

First of all, I assumed from the cover and the blurb  this would be an adventurous story of survival, and love, and overall a positive, uplifting book. It is NOT. I mean there's adventure, and some survival, but this is much more of a story about loss and so much grief. And that's certainly an important topic, and that type of story can be beautiful, but in this case, a lot of it is caused by horrible decisions, and it could have been avoided, so it's just infuriating, not beautiful.

I did enjoy the writing style. It was well written and the voice was on point. If the story itself had been even okay, to me, I would have rated it much higher, but I just can't. 

This story glamorizes reckless behavior and stupid decisions, and while there are dire consequences for them, it still paints it all as something beautiful and poetic. And the MC does NOT learn from her experience, to make better choices in the future, but rather ends the story making the same horrible choice that she made as a kid, that nearly killed her then, and there's nothing preventing it from being just as dangerous now. I worry that someone reading this while in a vulnerable place and on the verge of making a rash decision to just throw themselves into something reckless and dangerous would feel inspired to actually do it by how this story  romanticises the events of the story. 

SPOILERS BELOW:
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To explain a bit of what I mean...here are a few of the problematic events in the story. To start with, because the MC, Annie, is distraught over her grandmother's death, her best friend, Pete, decides that the two of them should embark on an intense wilderness backpacking trip. They've spent enough time in the great outdoors that they know what sort of dangers they might encounter and the preparations they SHOULD take, but they neglect to make sure they are fully prepared, prioritizing rushing out to hurry on their way instead.  And they purposefully choose to put themselves in extra danger. They tell their dads that they are going to be on one specific well known trail, because they know having someone know where they will be is an important safety measure, and then they purposefully choose to use a different, essentially unknown trail. They actually laugh at the idea of "safety and preparedness" claiming that if they really tried to be safe and prepared they would end up not going anywhere.  (For the record, I absolutely believe it would be better to not go anywhere than to rush out somewhere dangerous while under-prepared.) 
There are also dangerous wildfires at the time of their hike, but they say they would rarely get to hike if they waited for there to not be wildfires. These types of reckless choices are a constant throughout their "adventure" and we see though anecdotes from their past that they've been making similar decisions for years, risking their lives unnecessarily again and again. And have almost died from them before, but never felt that they should begin to make wiser choices.They act like doing those things was fun, and exciting, rather than stupid and dangerous. Again and again the story glorifies children making rash decisions and putting themselves in extreme danger. As the teens begin their hike, that starts in a different spot than they planned, because Pete was driving recklessly and they crashed, and but they decide to go for it from there, rather than making a wiser choice to call for help at that point, get the truck taken care of, and get themselves to where they actually need to be. They also don't have enough bandages, they didn't check their supplies before leaving, so a number of their items are inadequate and/or expired, or not actually charged. They neglected to print out topographical maps of where they were going to actually be. They take detours. They get themselves completely lost. Pete gets injured and they don't have enough bandages or antibiotics to take care of him well enough. And (another spoiler warning in case you've been reading anyway) he frikkin dies. We spend 80% of the book learning what amazing soulmates he and Annie are, and then, despite the fact that the book literally has already been dealing with grief up until this point, because both characters have lost their moms, and as mentioned before, Annie's grandmother just died, apparently the book needs to be even more grief filled. And it would be one thing if it was a horrible, awful lesson to Annie that she absolutely needs to live the rest of her live still having adventures but with CAUTION and WISE PLANNING and choosing safety over recklessness. But she doesn't. The book ends with her planning to HITCHHIKE (which we'd just been told nearly killed her and Pete when the hitchhiked a few years before and were kidnapped) and try to hop on a train to just go live wherever and try to survive on her own. And this is portrayed as beautiful and meaningful and poetic, rather than addressing it as the highly dangerous choice that it actually is. I cannot recommend this book to anyone. At all. For any reason. If you want a tragic book to read, to make you cry, there are plenty of those that don't glorify choosing to put yourself in danger. 

(Thanks NetGalley and Random House Children's for the free ebook, all opinions are my own.)

***Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for giving me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review***
 I think the cover is a little misleading. I totally thought this was going to be more of a romance, but it was super angsty and rough and I'm not sure I was in the right mindset when I read this. Overall, though, decent writing.

I have mixed feelings about Wildfire. On the one hand, there’s a feeling of immediacy and on the other there’s a retrospective meandering. This makes for a rambling experience that will be relaxing for some and frustrating for others. I’m one of the latter. It took me most of the book to really embrace the style.

With themes of death, drug use and attempted suicide, Wildfire is an emotional read that is quite heavy at times. It can be a hard book to read, but I am glad I finished it.

While Wildfire isn’t for everyone, it has merit. Carrie Mac is a strong writer who knows how to draw the reader in.

(Link goes live 2/14/20)

I assumed I knew exactly where this book was headed. I mean, here's this grieving girl who's made a mess of her life headed out on a hike. In the standard grief pot she'll get in a tough spot and having her life threatened will force her to come to terms with her grief. That is certainly an element of this book. She's also trying to define her relationship with her best friend. THe hike forces her to confront a lot of things she's been avoiding. It just takes a turn I wasn't expecting, goes to a place novels typically avoid. I feel like in many ways it's more realistic than a typical novel.

I quite enjoyed this book but it was definitely different than what I expected. this is a survivalist story that is more of that than a hard-hitting contemporary although it is both. I didn't realize how much I cared for these characters and their stories until the end and I was CRYING. The central friendship was really strong and I loved how the book explored friendship and family being of equal importance. The only problem I had with this book is that I felt like everything was going wrong. It became sort of predictable in that way that I was annoyed that whatever the characters would try, they would not succeed. This may just be how the author created that high stakes, survivalist atmosphere but it just felt overdone to me and a little too dramatic. This book dealt with some important and dark themes that I did not expect like death of a loved one, grief and suicide. Other than that, this wasn't my perfect book but it was okay and I'd like to see what this author will put out next.