This is such a beautiful book, my favorite thus far in 2023. Alexei and Ben and their journeys, both literally as they trek the Pacific Coast Trail, and figuratively, as they tackle their family traumas and insecurities. My heart hurt for Alexei, whose ultra-religious parents have disowned him for being gay. And, I could so relate to Ben's feelings of mediocrity, of never really measuring up. But, now that they've found each other, is there a way to make their disparate lives fit together? Life is like the trail, the path isn't always smooth - all you can do is put one foot in front of the other and hope to find your way.

This book is so beautifully written, and almost made this city girl want to experience the beauty of nature that Anita Kelly has captured. Almost. :)

Thank you, NetGalley and Forever/Grand Central Publishing for the digital ARC in return for an honest review.

ṡȏṃєṭһıṅɢ ẇıʟԀ & ẇȏṅԀєяғȗʟ ɞʏ ѧṅıṭѧ ҡєʟʟʏ

🥾🥾🥾🥾🥾
5/5

I received this from NetGally & Anita Kelly, in exchange for my honest opinion. I loved love & other disasters, so I was stocked to get this!

Alexei is hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, and it starts off with a snake 🐍 Lex is always prepared, but what he wasn’t expecting, was to keep bumping into Ben, along the 2,500 mile trail.

I absolutely adored both of these characters, and loved the setting too. I didn’t think I needed a romance set on a hiking trail, until I read this one. It’s such a fun, a different setting. I appreciate that Alexei is autistic, it gives even more light, and brings normalcy to those who are neurodiverse.

I cannot recommend this enough! It’s such a sweet, beautiful, and heartwarming story. It doesn’t shy away from heavy subjects such as homophobia, family rejection, and even emotional abuse.

Includes:
- meet cute on a hiking trail
- Neurodiverse characters
- Friends to lovers
- Queer love story
- Spicy
- Instant attraction


❗️There are some heavy topics, so check trigger warnings

Anita Kelly has done it again! This sophomore book treats the reader and the characters with such tenderness through the entire journey of the PCT. The story is raw and hard and beautiful. Truly something wild and wonderful.

OH MY GOSH DID THIS BOOK SURPRISE ME!!!!!!

Okay, so I adored Love & Other Disasters -- I am a simp for London & Dahlia. I am also an avid cooking competition show watcher so the setting was everything for me. This led me to feel kind of underwhelmed with the setting of this book (AT FIRST!!!! Let me finish!!!), which takes place on the Pacific Crest Trail for the most part, with interludes in Nashville, Tennessee & Portland, Oregon. I am *not* an outdoors hiking gworly so admittedly, I was not as enamored with the scenery as Alexei was. HOWEVER, THIS BECAME A BEAUTIFUL, MOVING SLOW BURN AND IT MADE ME WANT TO HIKE! WHO AM I?!??!!??!!?

I grew up as a Roman Catholic -- I attended private Catholic school from kindergarten to 8th grade, I went to church every Sunday with my family, & I grew up in a bubble, thinking everyone else was Catholic or believed in God/Jesus/Heaven too. I have since then redefined my spirituality and my relationship with the universe/a higher power. I am bisexual, which also took some time to proudly and wholly admit, so I deeply connected to Alexei's inner turmoil as he sifted through the dirt that was his parent's disowning of him, to find the diamonds in the reality of his new life, post-parents (I really tried with that metaphor lmao. I'm not a writer, just a passionate reader). I have been where Alexei has been, wanting to create Brittany 2.0 in the hopes that I could leave the pain and heartbreak of Brittany 1.0 behind. I cannot thank Anita enough for infusing such care, hope, nuance and love into Alexei's arc. Those letters at the end?! I am still crying.

Ben, on the other hand, oh my goodness. Major golden retriever energy and I could not get enough. The sunshine to Alexei's grumpy. I loved both of these characters' reasons for hiking this intimidating, infamous trail! Again, I am not a hiking bb but I loved the messaging behind this both literal and metaphorical journey that it took them on! Gosh, I am so emotional over this book and I really thought it would be a flop during the first 50 pages.

I wish Anita didn't use the phrasing of "Ben was always the one to spazz out," just because I know it can be interpreted as harmful/offensive. Besides that though, I adored this book. I adored Alexei's acceptance of not only himself, but of what his "new normal" could look like without the love or acceptance of his parents. I loved Ben's reflections on what he deserves, & that grand gesture?!?!?!!? I AM FERAL!!!! The steam was a solid 2/5 -- gimme more next time please hahaha.

Otherwise, I will continue to read everything Anita writes. They are amazing. Incredible. Spectacular. And their bio mentions they want you to adopt a dog -- OKAY ANITA I WILL!!!!!

Eat Pray love meets Wild but make it queer. A heartfelt fun book celebrating queer joy and love. Anita Kelly does it again. It took me a minute to get into the book but I fell in love with the complex characters of Alexei and Ben.

Tender, achingly beautiful, atmospheric- Anita Kelly can do NO wrong.

I had high expectations after LOVE AND OTHER DISASTERS and I'm thrilled to report Ben and Alexei surpassed them all. They have my whole heart. Kelly is someone to read if you love love, but also if you adore when "setting" in a book is its own character.

Such a treat!!! This book manage really deftly handled the trauma and joy of this queer coming out journey while also giving space for the love interest to also have shit to work through!!! This book was sweet and sexy and made me want to go on a long hike and also learn more about beers. It was also fun to see characters from Anita’s last book pop in while also having a book that is an incredibly strong standalone story in its own right.

Alexei's first encounter on the Pacific Crest Trail is with a rattlesnake, which can't be a good sign, right? But after the way his life has gone lately, he's determined to hike this trail, hoping it will give him the chance to sort his issues out and start his life over again. Alexei is a very quiet man, and the silence often hides the overwhelming noise of his thoughts. But then he meets Ben Caravalho, who rarely stops talking, singing, or generally making noise. When Alexei agrees to hike with Ben for a bit, he thinks he will immediately regret it. But instead, he finds himself enjoying Ben's company...much more than he thought he would. Strange things have happened on the Pacific Crest Trail, but who would have guessed falling in love could happen?

At first, I wasn't sure I was going to like this one. It took me a bit to get into, and it was the first third-person point of view that I have read in while. But once I got into it, I couldn't get enough of this one. Alexei and Ben were such incredible and complex characters that I grew to love very quickly. I'm not a hiker at all, but I enjoyed the setting and the hiking aspect of this book much more than I thought I would. The queer and mental health representation in this one is some of the best that I have seen in a long time, and I will never be able to recommend this one enough.

"Something Wild & Wonderful" is like a spicy "Eat, Pray, Love" for romantic queerdos.

In other words, I found this book highly relatable.

Using the Pacific Crest Trail as a backdrop, Anita Kelly mostly avoids the most cliche stereotypes about gays and "roughing it," and instead presents two flawed but entirely capable protagonists ready to put 2,650 miles between themselves and their respective pasts.

And while neither Alexei nor Ben was looking for love, we all know how that turns out.

"Something Wild & Wonderful" isn't necessarily full of surprises, but it is about as comforting as a book can get, like a sticky and sweet s'more for the soul.

This book made me want to go on a hike and fall in love with a stranger. I loved it that much.

Thank you NetGalley and Forever (Grand Central Publishing) for this arc in exchange for my honest review.

This book🥹 SW&W, follows Alexei who is hiking the PCT in order to hopefully heal and figure out where he belongs in the world. Alexei came out to his parents and it didn’t go as he had hoped. The vibe of this book was so melancholy and sad. The letters at the end really wounded me.

This book also follows Ben. Ben meets Alexei on the trail when Alexei saves him from a rattlesnake. Eventually Ben asks to walk the trail with Alexei. God, I loved Ben! He loved Alexei for exactly who he was. I thought it was so sweet how much he loved when Alexei identified bird calls🥹

Both Ben and Alexei deserved each other and balanced each other out perfectly!! This book is 5 easy, beautiful stars!

The way I kept finding myself slowing down my natural reading speed so this book would last longer. Is BOOK EDGING a thing?

SOMETHING WILD & WONDERFUL is just so damn good! I loved it.

I almost never cry while reading, but this book had me sobbing. The themes of queerness, parent rejection, and healing from spiritual abuse are all in my own past and SOMETHING WILD & WONDERFUL healed some parts of my heart, I think. These tough topics are handled with realness and honesty.

Lex and Ben are just the perfect love story. I was gut-wrenchingly invested in these two amazing and flawed, but lovable, characters.

SOMETHING WILD & WONDERFUL has heart and meaningful ideas and is also seriously steamy. It has fantastic neuro-diverse representation and positive professional therapy experiences.

I absolutely adored this book and demand that you read it and love it as much as I did.

𝗥𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗚: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
𝗦𝗧𝗘𝗔𝗠 𝗟𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗟: Rated R / 2-4 descriptive sex scenes, may have harsh language.
𝗧𝗥𝗜𝗚𝗚𝗘𝗥𝗦: homophobia (challenged), family member with Alzheimer's, parent estrangement
𝗙𝗘𝗘𝗟𝗦: 4/5 - Tackled some seriously tough topics.

Having enjoyed every book I've read from Kelly, I was so excited for Something Wild & Wonderful. But what I loved immediately was the ways in which we are able to so clearly see and get to know the characters. All the things we first notice about a person? Those careful details and considerations are one of the ways I love Something Wild & Wonderful. The characters are instantly clear and detailed to us. And Kelly is only getting started!

The characters Alexei and Ben hold their own as individuals. As Alexei is tackling his relationship with his family while Ben is trying to figure out his own future. Something Wild & Wonderful is a story about love and dreams. About why each of them find themselves on this path. From the beginning, their chemistry was so fantastic!

This was a surprisingly beautiful, emotional read. I absolutely adored both Alexei and Ben. The writing was so wonderfully descriptive that I felt like I was on the trail with them. The letters (sent and not) were some of the best parts of the story. The raw vulnerability, the pining, the personal growth - they were just perfection. Bottom line is, I LOVED this book.

Another wonderful book by Anita Kelly! I was a fan after Love & Other Disasters and this follow up did not disappoint. Highly recommend!

This book was an absolute delight! It has a nice balance between personal struggle and romance with a hiking backdrop to keep things interesting. I learned a lot about trail life and had so much fun on the journey with Lex and Ben. Anita Kelly is a queer romance master!

There’s something about stories, particularly romances, that involve people finding themselves out in the wilderness that speak to me. So when I heard that Anita Kelly’s Something Wild & Wonderful was like Wild by Cheryl Strayed except really, really queer, I was in, especially since I already enjoyed the first book in the series, Love & Other Disasters.

Something Wild & Wonderful follows Alexei Lebedev and Ben Caravahlo, whose meet-cute involves a deadly snake. Both Alexei and Ben are on the Pacific Coast Trail for deeply personal reasons, and when their paths become quite literally entangled, they end up deciding to travel the trail together for a time.

I’ve seen this book pitched as a grumpy/sunshine romance, but in this case, I think the trope doesn’t do the emotional complexity of this novel justice. Alexei struggles with being rejected by his deeply religious family because of homophobia, and Ben struggles with self-worth and finding meaningful and lasting intimacy. While the tone of this novel is ultimately uplifting and romantic, reducing it to such a trope blots out the elements I find most rewarding, such as the navigation of trauma and emotional intimacy during difficult moments.

This novel is also a love letter to the Pacific Coast Trail, the natural world, and the healing we can find there, which I deeply appreciated. As someone who finds solace in nature, the detail with which Ben and Alexei’s journey was rendered was profoundly satisfying.

All in all, I will definitely continue to read Anita Kelly’s work in the future. Something Wild & Wonderful evoked in me such a deep sense of satisfaction, catharsis, and hope as it took me on Ben and Alexei’s journeys and I highly recommend it.

Thank you to Forever and NetGalley for an advance review copy. All opinions are my own.

I absolutely fell in LOVE with this book. Ben and Lex have my whole entire heart.

I really enjoyed the entire journey of this book - i'd never actually heard of the Pacific Crest Trail and i loved getting to follow along on the whole hike, as well as the journey both of these boys took internally as well. Not only to find themselves, but to find each other. I laughed, I cried, I giggled and blushed from how adorable they were,

Alexei's self healing was so heartbreaking and beautiful all at once. My heart hurt for him in all of the moments of self doubt due to his sexuality - his religious trauma and horrible parents just tugged on my heartstrings for him even more than I thought it would! Ben's self healing was also really beautiful, but Lex's stands with me a little more heavily.

I could read 10 books about these two - and i love that Dahlia and London from Love & Other Disasters played a role in this book as well! 5 Stars for sure, will be recommending this book to everyone!

Thank you Netgalley and Forever Publishing for a free ARC in return for an honest review!

Thank you

4.5 ⭐️

Ok well, this was 👩‍🍳💋

I’m really not a nature gal, and seeing as 75% of this book happens in nature, I was a little bit unsure about whether I was gonna be able to get into it and/or like it, BUT turns I loved it and maybe I’m a nature gal after all? Huh

Ben & Alexei were simply adorable. Their personalities didn’t seem super compatible at first, but then again, don’t those dynamics make for the best romances sometimes ? 🥹 they both grew so vulnerable and comfortable around each other and I loved much they discovered about themselves.

While the ending came a bit quickly, I absolutely loved the overall vibes of this book. Incredible mental health rep, found family and coming of ages vibes and tons of nature/hiking commentary and observations! Highly recommend

Imgur links to Instagram image scheduled to go live March 30th
Blog Post scheduled to go live April 2nd


Something Wild and Wonderful by Anita Kelly might be in the running for my favorite romance of 2023, and it’s only March. This is the story of Alexei and Ben, both of whom are hiking the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail). They meet early on their solo adventures when Alexei stops Ben from accidentally stepping on a rattlesnake. From there they cross paths repeatedly till they begin to hike together - and they begin a relationship along the way.
For a short book I would call this a slow burn, and wow was it worth it and beautiful to watch. Alexei, who I felt was the most developed of the two main characters, reads very neuroatypical. He’s also struggling with the loss of his family. After coming out as gay his very conservative Russian parents cut him off. He meets Ben, who is a happy and lovingly wonderful person. Ben is attempting to put his life back together after a string of heartbreaks that lead to an abusive relationship and the fall out from that.
The little things are what truly made this for me. Alexei’s love of ornithology, and the inclusion of a Tamora Pierce book. Ben’s soft and constant humming and singing, all of it made the characters feel rich and real to me likely because those are all habits and loves of my own. The third act breakup as well was something that felt believable and warranted. Real life can get in the way of a dream romance, and this showed that well.
And have no fear! The story, while it takes place on a long hike up country does not feel so much like a hiking story. The setting is perfect, and we do get descriptions - when appropriate, of the hike but it is only the vehicle in which our characters are traveling. We are not swamped with details or focused on the trail.
Overall this is a powerful new romance. There are heavier moments and topics, and I’ll list those below, but for the most part it’s inspiring and uplifting. I’d recommend this to any fan of romance. Anita Kelly is quickly climbing my list of favorite authors - I expect more fantastic work from them!