🅶🅴🅽🆁🅴—𝒞𝑜𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓂𝓅𝑜𝓇𝒶𝓇𝓎 𝑅𝑜𝓂𝒶𝓃𝒸𝑒 / 𝐿𝒢𝐵𝒬𝒯
🗓ℙ𝕦𝕓 𝔻𝕒𝕥𝕖—𝕄𝕒𝕣𝕔𝕙 𝟟, 𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟛

✂️ P L O T L I N E
Insta love queer romance meets processing emotional trauma in this adventurous story of finding yourself along the hiking paths of the Pacific Coast Trail. Aleksei and Ben can’t seem to stop their paths from crossing and maybe there is a reason for that. They have both suffered pasts that have led them to this point in time of finding love in one of the most beautiful yet dangerous places. Will the wonderful bond that they form in the wild be strong enough to keep them going beyond the next mile of the PCT?

💭 ⓂⓎ ⓉⒽⓄⓊⒼⒽⓉⓈ
Swoon worthy, emotional, gut wrenching, heartfelt, tender,
funny, hopeful…basically this book gives you ALL the feels. Seriously a beautiful story that leaves you wanting more of Ben and Lex and their love story. A story that praises finding your own identity and owning the crap out of it despite what other people might think. A story of faith in god, in yourself, and in humanity. The world isn’t perfect but this book celebrates finding and holding on to what makes you happy because everyone deserves love.

Side note—It was really fun to have a little crossover with some of the characters from Anita Kelly’s book, “Love & Other Disasters”❤️

📚Read if you like:
💫Queer Romance🌈
💫Ethnically Diverse Characters 🧍🏽
💫 Grumpy Sunshine/ Insta Love sad ☀️
💫PCT Descriptive Hiking Scenes 🦅
💫 Spice 🌶🌶🌶
💫Emotional Reads Involving Finding Yourself 😢

⚠️Trigger warnings: Family estrangement due to queer identity, homophobic language⚠️

🥾𝕄𝕐 ℝ𝔸𝕋𝕀ℕ𝔾🥾
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

💕Q U O T E: “ But you taught me I can find people. That there will be other people I meet in my life you will understand me. Who will love me. Who will show me how wonderful and surprising the world can be.


🙏Thank you NetGalley, Forever (Grand Central Publishing), and Anita Kelly for this ARC in exchange for my honest thoughts 💕

Rep: russian-american MC, portuguese-american MC, gay MCs, autistic rep, queer and diverse cast of SCs

TW: religious parents, homophobia, being cut-off from family

This was absolutely beautiful.
For me it was a total cover and well-loved-author purchase, I didn’t know much about the plot.
It’s about Alexei, who recently came out to his family, and now has to rebuilt his whole life and future after being cut-off by them. He decides to hike the PCT, taking time away from everything to grief ans think about his future plans.
But then he meets Ben, who’s also a single hiker. And he’s nice and lets him be quiet. He’s also extremely cute. Not that anything would ever happen between them, right? Right. Right?!

I loved them from the first second.
Ben grew up in a completely different environment than Alexei did.
They’re both kind of opposites, considering their personality, their upbringing and experiences.
But they both complimented each other so perfectly. They were so cute together.
This is not a coming out story, Alexei is already well into his journey to living his best queer life without shame. I loved to read about that, about the questions that still come up and about the grief and conclusions he comes to during the time on the PCT.
He still has to figure a lot of things out, and so does Ben.
Ben had some very horrible relationships and he wants to change his patterns and rethinks sone decisions he made in the past.
Alexei supports him so much and makes him realise how much he is worth.
They both made the other realise a lot of things about themselves, raised a lot of questions. Sometimes it’s just destiny meeting another person, because it will bring you so much further into your journey of life. And I loved to read about both their journeys.

I loved the whole setting of this, throughout the chapters I googled so much and looked up so many pictures of their surroundings. I love leading about new places I’ve never been to through books. It makes me feel like I’ve hiked the PCT myself, while I only sat with my ass on my couch. 😂
I also loved how many themes were raised about issues that appear while hiking for different people (queer, Black, fat).

The style of writing and humour of this was amazing and so gripping.
This book was an absolute highlight and I stayed up until 4am reading more than once (which is not good for my own sanity, but it was well worth it).




SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER:

Do I hate the miscommunication trope? Yes. Do I also hate the braking-up in the last third trope? Also yes.
But did it make absolutely perfect sense here? Big yes.
Alexei doesn’t know how to handle romantic and sexual feelings at all, because he never grew up being able to fully show them and experience them freely.
He has left his complete old life, lost his support system, his family. He doesn’t know up from down.
He has to rethink everything he grew up to believe and hope for his future.
It made perfect sense to me that he needs a little time on his own to find answers to all the questions he has, to grieve and to heal. Jumping right into another persons life and skipping all these steps would have only led to total disaster I think.
Should they have talked more and communicated better? Absolutely! But did they both have their own problems in life and (past) relationships? It made sense for them to be absolute idiots.
I think it was perfect that they met, because the other person made them rethink their future and raised a lot of questions for their future. I’m very glad they both took time alone to think everything through without having to make the decision keeping another person in mind though. I’m so so glad they both ended up doing therapy!
I loved the ending, I hope they will maybe appear in another book so we’ll know how their life together turned out.

Alexei and Ben set out to hike the Pacific Crest trail - a grueling journey from Mexico to Canada traversing both deserts and snowy mountains. Alexei is hiking the trail to say goodbye to the Pacific Northwest after living his whole life there, and to heal from the grief he feels after coming out to his parents and them disowning and abandoning him. Ben is hiking the trail as a last hurrah before he starts his career as a nurse and to grieve the death of his beloved aunt who he helped care for. After Alexei reflexively safes Ben from stepping on a rattlesnake, they decide to take this journey together. They get to know more about each other and their relationship develops as they become more open and honest with each other and learn about each others struggles.

I devoured this book in one evening! I loved watching Alexei and Ben's relationship and communication with each other - it felt like a really realistic relationship development over the course of the months they spent hiking this trail. My complaint in a lot of contemporary romances is that the relationship development tends to occur over a very short period of time so this was much more successful for me!

I also loved the romantic gesture at the end and it was the rare 3rd act breakup that didn't bother me because I think both characters needed to grow and figure themselves out in order to come together. Also I need more spicy scenes in epilogues because I really loved it in this book!

Thank you to Netgalley and Forever (Grand Central Publishing) for the eARC in exchange for a review. Something Wild & Wonderful comes out March 7th

A beautiful journey of grief and love found on the Pacific Crest Trail. I love Ben and Lex and this book.

This is the best love story I’ve read so far this year! After finishing this book, I had to do an emotional inventory - the ups and downs, love and heartbreak they experience was throughly felt!

I know there’s a lot of you still waiting to read this, so I’ll keep the summary simple:
Alexei and Ben (both 29) meet while hiking on the Pacific Crest Trail - each for their own reasons. Alexei to bury his old life after being disowned by his parents. Ben to start his new, no bad decision adult life. A rattlesnake meet-cute starts this slow burn strangers to friends to lovers. Seriously - the story/relationship arch is so perfectly executed!

Congrats and thank you to Anita Kelly for creating this beautiful story for us.

Thanks to NetGalley and Grand Central Processing for a chance to early review this wonderful story in exchange for an honest review.

This was super cute! Ben and Alexei are adorable and I had such a fun time with this book. It is a bit heavier than I expected though. Alexei is dealing with a decent amount of religious trauma from his parents and I fully understand. He is learning how to truly be himself and I love that.

I received an arc through netgalley.

A huge thank you to Anita Kelly, Forever (Grand Central Publishing), and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for my honest review. Something Wild & Wonderful comes out March 7, 2023.

Alexei and Ben are both hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, but they are both doing it for different reasons. Alexie is grieving the loss of relationship with his parents after coming out to them as well as taking time to make a decision on what he is doing with his future. Ben is grieving the end of a toxic relationship; the death of an aunt and he is also about to step into his new career as a nurse. The two end up meeting after a chance encounter with a rattlesnake that Alexei saves Ben from stepping on. After that the two decide to hike together, and while doing that they start to forge a friendship that honestly is starting to feel like a lot more. Will the two be able to have a bright future after working through their own insecurities about themselves, the grief that both are working through and the fact that they live on different coast.

I absolutely loved Anita Kelly's previous book Love & Other Disasters, so I was extremely excited when I got approved for this book and it did not disappoint. Honestly this book was just packed full or humor, romance and found family that I know I will hold this book close to my heart for years to come. Both Ben and Alexei were such lovable characters that had their own struggles and griefs they were working through. I though they went through so much personal and emotion growth together and separate that by the end you were rooting for both of them and their HEA. The writing was quick paced and just so well done. I loved that is the moment that the book could have dragged Kelly changed the way we were receiving the story and it was perfect. It was also really cool to have the cameo of her previous character, although it is still a standalone. I would honestly recommend this book to anyone, but keep in mind that it does cover heavy topics including coming out. If you are looking for a book full or love and adventure Something Wild & Wonderful is for you.

Anita Kelly has very quickly become one of my favorite writers. They are on my very short auto-buy list. If you haven’t picked up Kelly’s Moonlighter’s series, you should do that. They are short, sweet, and very queer.

Something Wild & Wonderful is in the world of Love & Other Disasters, London and Delilah even make an appearance, but it is a stand alone in terms of plot. After being disowned by his parents and laid off from his job, Alexei is hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (which runs from Mexico to Canada) to give himself a way to figure out who he will be going forward. Ben is on the trail to celebrate passing his nursing exams and as a last adventure before being more “adult”. He has promised himself that he will make good choices on the trail, like not hitting on the very handsome man who saves him from being bit by a rattlesnake.

I found the desire to use a big challenge to make a big change in your life so relatable. It’s like making a grand romantic gesture to yourself. And like a big romantic gesture, it isn’t the challenge itself that creates the change. Also relatable – they start out with the wrong goals. The joy of the book is watching them wrestle with themselves as they fall in love with each other.

One of the reasons I like Anita Kelly’s writing so much is that they write their characters with so much tenderness and respect. They give their characters, even characters we don’t meet on the page, believable complexity. Even Alexei’s parents, who have been monstrous to him, are not monsters. As Alexei comes to terms with his alienation from his parents, he writes a line in his journal that made me sob.

"Does it count if the person they miss isn’t actually me?"

Humans are social creatures and part of our identity will always be tied to our relationships and community. Having been rejected for who he is by his parents and their religious community, Alexei thinks he has to figure out his new identity in isolation. The revelations that Alexei and Ben have about their own lives and each other are less epiphanies and more understandings that build over time.

When I initially finished Something Wild & Wonderful, I thought it was lovely, but less ambitious than Love & Other Disasters. On reflection, I think its not less ambitious, just quieter.

CW: family alienation, childhood in a homophobic community, homophobia (challenged)

I received this as an advance reader copy from Forever (Grand Central Publishing) and NetGalley. My opinions are my own, freely and honestly given.

Anita Kelly became one of my all time favorite authors after I read and LOVED Love & Other Disasters, and I know I would absolutely adore Something Wild & Wonderful. Alexei and Ben are absolutely everything, and I loved both of their characters so much!

I absolutely adored this book. The characters, the plot, the setting, everything about it was amazing. I started to love Anita Kelly right after i read Love and Other Disasters and this lived up to that and more. I could not put this down, I read it in the span of 24 hours and I strongly encourage everyone to read it!

I adored Something Wild & Wonderful! Anita Kelly writes the most lovable characters—I loved Alexei and Ben so much. They were both so sweet and relatable and I loved how their relationship was written so naturally.

The story follows Alexei and Ben as they both set out to find themselves while hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. When they meet up along the trail, they immediately connect and decide to hike together—at least for awhile. But it’s hard for them to deny their attraction, even though they both try. Can they work through their own personal issues while also developing their relationship?

I loved the story and how Anita Kelly writes such genuine characters. What Ben and Alexei are working through seems so honest and real. She seems to know how to really tell stories as though the characters are real. 100% recommend if you want an adorable romance!

Anita Kelly writes amazing queer love stories. I've read Love & Other Disasters and now Something Wild and Wonderful, and she's two for two--five stars, both times.

Something Wild and Wonderful takes place mostly along the Pacific Crest Trail, where Alexie and Ben have a random encounter that leads to a trail friendship and eventually so much more. Alexie is hiking the trail to process some seriously heavy emotions centering around his religious family's rejection of him after he came out to them. Ben is hiking the trail as one last hurrah before growing up and getting an adult job as a nurse.

Their attraction is immediate. I loved watching them build each other up and take care of one another on the trail and off. I loved watching them fall in love.

Alexie's family situation broke my heart. My parents are very religious, and I couldn't' help comparing and wondering how they would have taken the news of a gay child. Alexie actually reminded me so much of my college best friend and his journey. Anita Kelly handles those incredibly difficult emotions with a deft and tender hand. The hurt was real and raw but there was hope woven in, as well. Ben's family acted as a foil to Alexie's, showing what a loving and accepting family can be like.

The narrator, Mark Sanderlin, delivered a wonderful performance. His portrayal of the characters was engaging and kept me listening straight through to the end.

Thank you so much to Forever Publishing for my physical ARC, and to Hachette Audio for my ALC.

This book left me with a giant smile on my face that didn't fade for hours.

Something Wild & Wonderful by Anita Kelly was such a fun book to read! Thank you Forever!

I've always loved backpacking and while hiking the PCT hasn't been on my list. I loved reading about Lex and Ben's hike and I could visualize them hiking and experiencing the PCT together. The way Anita Kelly writes, you can't help but root for these two to find happiness together!

If you've ever backpacked, you'll appreciate this book. The longest I've done is 5 nights, but she definitely hits the nail on what it's like to backpack and carry everything you need in a backpack!

Check this one out when it publishes on March 7th!

Ben and Aelxei are thru-hiking the Pacific Coast Trail, which may sound like garbled nonsense to you if you’re also an Indoor Person like me! But the gist is this: they’re walking from the Mexican border to the Canadian border, give or take a few hundred miles. Alexei is hiking to clear his head and come to terms with his new reality after coming out to his super religious family. Ben is hiking to prove to himself that he can do grown up things and make good choices before starting a new career. So of course these two giant cinnamon rolls meet by chance and decide to hike together for a while! Their dynamic filled me with such utter and profound joy that I don’t think I have the words to fully describe it. Are there hardships and misunderstandings and bad choices? Yes. But there are also two dopey idiots falling in love with each other and learning to accept themselves just as they are. A recurring theme is that The Trail Provides: companionship when you’re lonely, water when you’re thirsty, dinosaurs when you’re in need of a campy distraction. Personally, the trail provided me with Ben and Alexei at a time when reading was starting to feel like more of a chore than something I do for fun. I truly wish every book could make me as incandescently happy as Something Wild and Wonderful.

In Something Wild & Wonderful, we meet Alexei and Ben at the same time they meet each other, hiking the Pacific Crest Trail and facing down a rattlesnake. Initially intent on hiking alone, Alexei turns down Ben's offer to join the group he's assimilated himself with. But when the two run into each other again at a rest stop, Alexei relents and the two begin the hundreds of miles journey to Canada together. The two each have their own reasons for hiking the long trail, including Ben's self-doubts about his intelligence and bad choices with men, and Alexei's parents disownment of him after he came out. What starts as hiking buddies turns into a train family which, perhaps, turns into a relationship.

Wow, oh wow! While I highly enjoyed Love & Other Disasters, Something Wild & Wonderful blew away! Total 10/10! Ben and Alexei are two likable, interesting heroes, and the Pacific Crest Trail is a truly unique and unfamiliar (to me) setting that I really enjoyed learning about and viewing along with our characters. I love how the two were constantly meeting new people and learning new things about nature, themselves, and each other. I really have nothing but positive things to say about this book and can't recommend it enough. While I think everyone would love it, I certainly recommend if you have a soft spot for (1) hiking (duh), (2) man buns, (3) epistolary romance (section two of three!), and (4) neurodivergent rep.

Thanks to Forever for my eARC! All thoughts and opinions are my own.

5 stars - 10/10

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley and am voluntarily posting a review. All opinions are my own.
Something Wild & Wonderful is a wonderful follow-up to last year’s Love & Other Disasters. It’s set in the same world, although it follows new characters and works as a standalone, with London and Dahlia from the prior book appearing briefly in supporting roles. While it’s somewhat of a different book, with a nature/wilderness focus, the heart of the story around queer joy largely remains the same.
Alexei is definitely the standout character here. He’s the product of a home environment that is unaccepting of his queer identity, due to religious reasons. A large theme of his arc of the book is him disentangling his trauma and dealing with the rejection from his parents for simply being himself. In spite of the homophobia he’s faced from those closest to him, I love how he never once feels pressured to conform to their expectations or to “pray away the gay.” He’s content in his identity, even if he has to reckon with the loss of his family and others who may not accept him.
And Ben…he’s very much the opposite, being carefree and chaotic where Alexei is more guarded. But that’s what makes them work. Ben is an openhearted source of support for Alexei, and his friends (which include London and Dahlia) and family are more than prepared to accept Alexei as well.
The trajectory of their relationship is an interesting one, because while there’s pretty much instant attraction, maybe even love, there’s still a slow burn to their romance too. They have some lovely moments together initially, but Alexei’s baggage means that they still have hurdles to navigate. I liked the choice to have the story switch to epistolary format for a while in order to accomplish this, with the letters, both sent and unsent, conveying all their complex emotions.
I had mixed feelings about the pacing choices. There were some occasions in the middle where the pacing plodded, a side effect of the somewhat remote nature setting. The letters, despite being such a stylistic shift, were the turning point for me from “this book is just fine” to “I really like this,” because that’s when I felt the emotional impact.
Even with my issues, I still enjoyed this book a lot. If you enjoy queer contemporary romances, I recommend checking this one out, especially if you’re looking for one with a nature theme!

I LOVED this book. From the moment I started reading, I was hooked and instantly in love with both of our main characters. One would not think reading about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail would be so cozy and comforting, but it really was. This was such a beautiful, heartwarming, and sweet book about learning to love yourself while accepting all the parts of yourself. The journey to self love was a big theme in this book, but I also liked how our characters were able to find love along the way while staying true to their own journeys (even if they lost sight of being able to have both for a little bit). I laughed with these cuties but my heart also broke at the grief and difficulties they were going through. It all felt so real; I often found myself thinking about Alexei and Ben throughout the day and I could not wait to keep reading. Also, the fact that these two were able to find each other on this 2,000+ mile trail was incredible and magical; it was the perfect setting for this book.

Something Wild & Wonderful was, quite frankly, wonderful. I really loved the relationship development between Ben and Alexei. Their relationship is honest, genuine, and so, so lovely. Overall, this book was an incredibly comforting read. Between this and Love and Other Disasters, Anita Kelly is quickly becoming an auto-buy author for me.

Read For:
- Wholesome romance
- Hiking
- Strong family and found family dynamics with one of the MCs)
- Found family on the trail
- Characters who aren't afraid to work on themselves
- Cameos of our favorite characters from LaOD

Watch Out for:
- Estrangement from family due to homophobia (One of the MCs)
- Snakes (scene on page one)



----- 4.25/5

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Don't be fooled by the cute blurb - this deals with some pretty heavy stuff.

I had originally rated this as 3⭐ but think it deserves to be rounded up to 4⭐ because as I've had some time to collect my thoughts, I have to say, it's been niggling at me for a couple of weeks now. Something Wild & Wonderful is the loveliest of slow burns as you journey with Alexei as he trek along the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT). For Alexei, this is "a chance to say good-bye to his old life...to find a bit of peace before he started over." Unfortunately (or not), a chance encounter with the enigmatic Ben throws his plans off the cliff and Alexei finds much more than peace during his months-long journey on the PCT.

While the narrative shifts POVs between the two male leads, this is very much Alexei's story, and it is a story fraught with homophobia, abandonment, grief, & insecurities. I found the trauma of his religious upbringing was handled exceedingly well and it was heartbreaking.

"You raised me to believe that family and faith were everything. How can you take that away from me and not expect me to crumble?

[Y]ou might have been the one to bring me to church, Dad. But I got to know faith on my own. And your interpretation of God is a tragedy."

Each mile gained along the PCT expands Alexei's character and it was lovely to journey alongside him as he developed a tender, sweet relationship with Ben. "Alexei was a butterfly, just emerging from his chrysalis, and he was showing Ben his wings. Ben couldn't turn away from that." That's not to say that Ben is overlooked - he's also on the PCT for personal reasons as he closes in on 30 and is looking to become a more grounded, responsible person.

The setting itself is like another character and I loved the details about the PCT, the hiking community, and birding - things I'm completely unaware of but found really interesting based on the level of detail and care as they were presented with. It was a perfect backdrop to the tumultuous lived experiences & growth that both Alexei & Ben go through.

The last 20% was really unique for a romance novel. It's not a typical third-act conflict, but I don't want to get too spoilery in my review, so I'll just say that it's a heartbreaking and realistic turn of events and adding the epistolary choice of narrative was a deft touch.

All in all, if you love a slow-burn, feelings-filled romance with found family elements - this is the book for you.

Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Oof, this book made me feel things.

Lex (who is Russian) and Ben (who is Portuguese) are each independently hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. They meet and then end up hiking together, sharing stories of their lives and an (unknown to them) mutual attraction. They eventually cross that boundary into more which brings up quite a bit of unresolved trauma for each of them. While it also begins the foundation for a tottery beginning with the potential for an auspicious future.

There were some choices made by one of them that had me feeling personally slighted and angry to the point of wanting to lower the star rating, however, the epilogue is what really tied things together and redeemed them for me. It gave me the additional context I needed (and should have seen) to empathize with those choices and what they were a result of.

This read has a lovely slow burn/buildup, found family, re-connection and finding oneself (plus a bit of spice sprinkled in) while also touching on some really heavy topics such as religion and religious trauma, homophobia, internalized homophobia, parental abandonment, anxiety/mental health issues, cultural identity and self-acceptance.

5 incandescent stars

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley and Forever for the E-ARC in exchange for an honest review.