Something Wild & Wonderful is the story of Alexei and Ben, two men who separately, and then together, hike the Pacific Crest Trail, a 2,600 mile trail that spans the west coast of the U.S. from Mexico to Canada. Both men are at starting points in their lives, and hope to find closure and clarity on the grueling trek.

Writing about a journey is one of the oldest forms of storytelling. When your characters are literally moving from one point to another, you need to make the emotional payoff of the metaphor especially poignant, and Alexei and Ben’s character growth is deep and compelling. They are very different characters, who come from very different backgrounds and are traveling the trail for very different reasons; yet the way their relationship grows as they respond to the challenges and discomforts is realistic and exciting.

It’s wonderful to see Ben, who you meet in Kelly’s first novel Love & Other Disasters, as a fully fleshed-out character. His personality, his joy, as well as his struggles with self-worth and a path forward. So much of Ben is told between the lines — you get his story, and his past, and the reasons he wants to hike the trail, but his true character is in between all those things. He is a slightly unreliable narrator, particularly about himself. There’s a difference between the story he tells himself about who he is, his strengths and flaws, and who he actually seems to be. Ben’s journey through the book is to start to see clearly that he doesn’t necessarily have the truest picture of himself, and bringing those images of himself closer together.

It’s kind of rare to read about a queer character who experiences religious trauma and still feels connected to God and to faith, and for that I’m so grateful for Alexei. His family’s rejection is so closely tied to their religious upbringing, and yet his ability to recognize that those are their choices and not the heart of faith is deeply profound, and I think relatable for more queer people than some may think. I ached for him so much throughout the story, his longing and his grief, and the way those things interacted with this desire for change and how he learns to love Ben. I can’t remember the last time I felt so moved by a character’s sheer and palpable desire to be loved and cared for, and how joyous I felt for him as he finds love and clarity on the PCT.

The structure and pacing of the book changes part-way through, and while at first it seemed like a way to quickly get through the back end of the story, I see now why the change happened, both for the reader and the characters, and it made me really appreciate how Kelly tells that part of the story.

I honestly can’t find much fault at all in the novel — it gives incredible emotional heft and handles extremely sensitive topics with such thoughtfulness and care while still being funny and joyful and utterly swoony. I feel lucky to have read it and I know I’ll be returning to it again.

My favorite romance ALL year, Ben and Alex are the stuff of queer love story dreams. Something Wild and Wonderful is emotionally raw, real, funny, and all set against the backdrop of hiking the PCT. As a backpacker with a longing to complete this thru-hike someday I freaking loved the setting down to my nature loving toes. @anitakellywrites blew me away with her debut earlier this year, and this my friends knocked it out of the park.

An adventurous romance I didn't know I needed, but so happy I got the chance to read!

After a tumultuous coming out and bad news after bad news, Alexei Lebedev has just started his more than 2,000 mile journey on the Pacific Crest Trail. He is ready for months of bird watching, blistering feet, and solitude, but then enters fellow hiker, Ben Caravalho, who seems to show up at the worst times along the trail...or the best?

When I read the synopsis, I expected a snoozefest. A romance along a hiking trail? Meh.

But what I got was a truly beautiful tale of two men trying to find themselves in nature but finding each other as a result. The realistic hikers they pass along the way. The many close calls to death. And just the pure randomness of it all was so fun. I loved the vulnerability, candor, and humor of these characters. This story bursts with heart, but also is grounded in a reality where characters face depression, homophobia, abusive relationships, alienation from religion, etc. I couldn't put this one down.

Similar to that of The Charm Offensive and Boyfriend Material, readers won't be able to put this swoon worthy and heartwarming book down!

Thank you Forever Publishing (Grand Central Publishing) for an advance reader's e-copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Queer MCs + hiking the PCT + dual POV + forced proximity! 🫶🏼

Alexei was prepared for snakes, blisters and solitude as he hiked the PCT. But he wasn’t prepared for Ben. A fellow thru-hiker he keeps running into.

Most of Ben’s bad decisions have involved beautiful men. Ben is incapable of walking away from quiet & nerdy Alexei.

They make a pact to survive the desert together.
But then their plans are turned upside down. And they have to decide if what they found on the trail is worth holding onto.

Read if you love…
- hiking (PCT)
- forced proximity
- queer MCs
- found family
🫶🏼- dual POV
- cameos from previous characters
- letters on page
- therapy positive
- birds

I will never stop screaming about this book! I also don’t know if I’ll ever have cohesive thoughts for it.

This book needs to be at the top of your TBR come March because this one is going to be relatable, emotional af, & healing for anyone who grew up in the church and/or experienced religious oppression due to be queer.

I cried, I laughed, I swooned! I fell in love with Alexei and Ben’s story. And I want to hike the PCT immediately.

I loved that this one is dual perspective because it gave insight to what both characters were feeling, their messy & hard pasts, and the growth both of them needed to be together. Also, watching them fall for each other and the things they thought about the other… just swooning.

Without any spoilers, my absolute favorite part of the book are the letters on page. They had me a complete mess of emotions and tears.

Thank you Forever / Grand Central Publishing & Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

PUB day: March 7, 2023!

Trigger warnings: homophobia; homophobic slurs on page (ch 16); family estrangement due to queer identity; religion & strict religious upbringing; reference to past toxic relationships

How did I get so lucky to get two five star reads in a row? Wow what a beautiful, captivating story. The author does a great job of really transporting you to the Wild West Coast and I could actually picture myself there. Ben and Alexei are truly phenomenal and I will miss reading about them like they are old friends. Be prepared to fall in love with this book and feel alllll the feels. Grab yours March 7th 2023 and thank me later!

Anita Kelly is such a talented writer. I loved their debut, Love and Other Disasters, and this book is loosely connected to that one. It’s a beautiful, lovely, and emotional story. I’ll admit I was a little skeptical going in because I have no desire to ever go hiking or camping (I’m an indoor person), but this story set on the Pacific Crest Trail really worked for me.

Ben and Alexei meet while hiking the trail and become hiking partners. They’re on the trail for different reasons, but they both hope this hike will help them heal from their pasts and move forward. Both characters felt like real people to me, which is something I also felt in Kelly’s debut about London and Dahlia. I loved reading about Ben and Alexei’s journey together and watching them fall in love. The setting and nature descriptions were fantastic, too. Even I, a noted non-nature lover, found myself appreciating nature because of this book!

And those letters… oh man. I love anything with an epistolary element, and the letters were beautiful and such a wonderful narrative choice on the part of the author.

This is a tender romance with a lot of heart. You’ll swoon and you’ll cry and then you’ll swoon again.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Thank you NetGalley and Forever (Grand Central Publishing) for this ARC.

There is not much more I can say that hasn’t been said about this book. The characters, imagery created, and story are wonderfully written. Ben and Alexei’s journey was poignant… but did not inspire me to want to go on a hike.

Anyone else keep thinking about David and Patrick from “Schitt’s Creek” while reading?

Once again, Kelly has done something truly special with this (very loose) follow-up to Love & Other Disasters. This book feels like a love letter to not only the wilderness and hiking, but also the pursuit of finding one's self in tandem with exploring something new, unfamiliar, and maybe a little terrifying with someone who's absolutely worth it. And the way Kelly WRITES, my gosh; there were sentences that I just wanted to roll around in for days at a time. The type of book that will break your heart open before tenderly, gently piecing it back together and leaving you better for the experience.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Anita Kelly's debut was one of my favorite reads of 2022 so I was so excited to get my hands on Something Wild & Wonderful and it did not disappoint. The care that was clearly taken in Ben and Alexei's journeys -- both on the trail itself and their personal journeys -- was clear and tangible. The setting was lush and as someone who never in a million years would willingly walk thousands of miles for months at a time, I did feel like I was there on the PCT with Ben and Alexei. This was such a soft, hopeful love story about two people learning to love themselves and each other set against a vivid backdrop with a delightful cast of side characters. Absolutely a must read.

9/10

Over the past year, Anita Kelly became one of my favorite romance authors. I have read everything they have published, and I can confidently say their writing gets better with every new work.

Something Wild & Wonderful revisits the world of Love & Other Disasters, following a new cast of characters.

Alexei is hiking the Pacific Coast Trail, trying to find meaning in his life after his coming out had unwarranted consequences. There, he meets the carefree and charismatic Ben, who is trying to escape a string of bad decisions and figure out what his next steps in life could be. The two men embark on an emotional journey and just happen to find love along the way.

This book hit so close to home in ways I can’t explain without spoiling it. It handled sensitive topics and bigotry queer people face every day (this is not a spoiler, it is in the author’s note at the beginning of the novel). Kelly consistently writes nuanced familial relationships and queer found family in the best possible ways. This book is so heartwarming and filled me with hope as I read it.

It is a fairly low-stakes romance (which is my favorite kind of romance), focusing more on the individual character’s journey of self-discovery. The romance is built around a message of self-love and that is something we need more of in the romance genre.

Thank you NetGalley for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Alexei and Ben are both hiking the PCT when they meet somewhere in the desert. Alexei is on a journey to find the new him--the person he wants to be now that his parents have disowned him for being gay. When he runs into Ben, who is also on a journey of self-discovery and empowerment, for the second time, they decide to hike together for a while. Ben, though much more extroverted than Alexei, is calming, and gentle, and one of the first people Alexei comes out to. Ben, meanwhile, is keeping his feelings for Alexei secret; he thinks the last thing Alexei needs, while coming to terms with everything that's happened to him recently, is a relationship, or a fling.

Both Alexei and Ben create safe spaces for the other to do some much needed self-exploration, and the result is a beautiful friendship that turns into something confusing and surprising and altogether right when they finally act on their feelings for each other.

I loved Love and Other Disasters, and Something Wild & Wonderful definitely lived up to the first book. Ben is London's twin's best friend, so there's a connection between the two books that does come up a bit, which is always fun. I loved everything about this book--the humor, the characters, how perfectly it dropped me into the setting and reminded me of my own backpacking days (though nothing nearly as ambitious as what Ben and Alexei do), and the fact that it didn't shy away from addressing the homophobia while allowing for so much joy to exist alongside and despite it.

There is an author's note with content warnings at the front that says this, but there is usage of a homophobic slur in one of the chapters, as well as Alexei's POV focusing a lot on the grief of having his parents disown him over his sexuality. Overall it is a very sweet and funny read, but these things are definitely present.

A friend of mine had read this book and told me I had to read it, so I requested it and I'm so glad I did.

This book is very well written. The author definitely knows how to paint a picture. I've lived in California my whole life, but if you've never been here, you'll definitely get a good visual of where they go. I'm not much of a hiker, but friends have done this trail and I've heard stories, and I knew bits and pieces of where the two MCs were going, so it was fun for place I've been to pop up.

The journey the MCs, Ben and Alexei, take is both physical and emotional. They're both dealing with things and are on this trail for different reasons, but it helps bring them together and understand each other. The pacing of their relationship growth from strangers to friends to lovers was perfect.

Most of the book is told in 3rd person, from both perspectives, but it turns into a epistolary for a section of it. Normally it would feel out of place, but it really works here. Much of what they write to each other is unsent, but it feels very poignant to the story.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. This was the first book I've read of Anita Kelly's and I'll gladly read more.

Thank you to Forever (Grand Central Publishing) and NetGalley. I voluntarily read an early copy of this book.

Anita Kelly’s books are so wonderful! I loved her first novel. It was so exciting to read another book by her. It was so well written and enjoyable.

I went into this expecting to love it after being blown away by Kelly's first book, Love and Other Disasters, and I was not disappointed. AT ALL. Alexei and Ben's love story was complex and beautifully written and funny and perfect and the whole thing made me weepy - especially the letters... I'm getting teary just thinking back on them. Their openness and honesty with each other and the way they talked about what they were comfortable with during the steamy bits was just lovely and aspirational. The entire concept of hiking the PCT is bananas -- hard pass on that whole business -- but the hiking and nature parts never got boring and felt magical enough that I could understand (kind of) why someone would want to put themselves through it. I loved both of these sweet boys and loved how sensitively Kelly portrayed their emotional states and what they were each dealing with. 500 stars. READ THIS BOOK.

Thanks to Forever Pub and NetGalley for the arc of this book!

I really loved this book! I’ve been searching for about six months for a romance centered around the Pacific Crest Trail and this one delivered precisely what I wanted - good characters and a story that encompasses what a personal journey hiking the PCT might be.

The journey for our two main characters isn’t seamless, but I think that is part of what makes this story special.

This is a heartwarming, lovely book by Anita Kelly. The emotions this brought up within me is unnatural, and I mean that in the best way. Such a beautiful, special book.

I picked up Anita Kelly’s other book earlier this year and was pleasantly surprised by it, so I was excited to give this one a chance - and wow, I really wasn’t disappointed! Maybe because I’m from the PNW and love the idea of making a long trek to just get away from it all, but a romance set on a hiking trail just really worked well! I loved both of the characters - both so incredibly different, but they managed to work well together - and their chemistry was off the charts! Alexei’s reasoning for hiking the trail was heartbreaking but all too realistic for many queer people, and it was interesting to see that represented in a book - I feel like lots of romances shy away from the hard bits of coming out, and this one definitely didn’t. I just couldn’t stop smiling at this book, and tore through it - I will most definitely be purchasing a copy when it is out, I can’t get enough of sweet romances with PNW vibes!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for a copy of “Something Wild & Wonderful” in exchange for an honest review. I really enjoyed the descriptions of the setting and how the PCT was tied into the plot. I liked the characters we got to meet along the way. I appreciated the complex backstories of the two main characters and I appreciated the acknowledgment of the tricky relationship many LGBTQ people have with religion. There are several difficult topics brought up but the author does it in a thoughtful and deliberate way. Ultimately, a solid read.

In their follow up book to Love and Other Disasters, Anita Kelly sends their characters on a hike through the Pacific Crest Trail. A romantic fiction version of Cheryl Strayed’s Wild.

Something Wild and Wonderful focuses on Ben and Alexei. Ben is openly gay and lives in a community that supports who he is and who he loves. He’s had problems getting going in life but has found his passion by becoming a nurse. Alexei on the other hand came out as gay to his parents and was disowned. He’s been trying to find his way in this new life away from his family and church.

I feel both characters journeys were handled realistically and felt the authenticity in the section of the book that was sent and unsent letters. It seemed to share the loneliness that both Alexei and Ben were feeling. Aside of the character development and story, I cannot leave out Kelly’s amazing descriptions of the PCT. So much so, I was googling hiking trips sponsored by REI and sending them to @val_readsbooks trying to convince her to go with me.

The only issue I really had with this book is how slow I felt the first half of the book was, and how fast it seemed to wrap up. If it kept going slow, I’m not sure my love for the characters would have kept me reading, but the end felt rushed, and I wanted more. Regardless…I still loved it!

4 Stars

Thank you to @readforeverpub @netgalley and @anitakellywrites for a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion. And thank you @val_readsbooks and @motley.bools.and.tea for the buddy read and discussions!

#books #bookishlife #booklover #readingisfun #iowabookstagrammers #iowabookstagram #netgalley #readforeverpub #readforever2022 #somethingwildandwonderful #anitakelly

Anita Kelly is going to be an auto-buy author for me.

I loved reading this book and getting to know Ben and Alexei. Something Wild & Wonderful takes us on a literal and figurative journey, and just like the Pacific Crest Trail, not all the terrain is easily navigable, but it’s worth it in the end.

There is so much to unpack in this story: coming out, coming out again and again and again, not just a one time thing, family dynamics, and romantic entanglements.

My small gripe, while read through the lens of someone LGBTQ, is that I felt the diagnosis in the epilogue could have either come earlier or been left out. It felt like an afterthought. Alexei could have had time to work through the diagnosis while on his journey… it didn’t have to come at the end, because it seemingly diminishes the work that he did on his own while working through Alexei 2.0.

Ultimately I am an AK fan and will devour anything they put out. Thank you for the advanced copy for honest review.