mangosugar's reviews
171 reviews

I really wanted to love this book, or like it more than I do now. I love Christina Lauren’s books and I’m always down to give a writing duo a shot because I know how close you have to be with someone for your writing to click like theirs does.

Unfortunately, Something Wilder fell flat for me. It’s ironic since one of my favourite books of 2022 is a Midwestern adventure romance, so I got really hyped up for this one, but it just did not deliver. 

I dislike the female main character, Lily, for a multitude of reasons, the main one being her dynamic with her counterpart, Leo. I’m a sucker for drawn-out love stories that span across years and have the couple reuniting haphazardly to work things out, but I lost most of my sympathy for Lily right at the peak of their reunification, right when I’m supposed to like them most. I don’t want to spoil this review so I’ll keep it vague: I don’t like how she treated Leo.

The other big reason this book fell flat for me was the actual adventure. While I appreciate all the work, research, and effort the authors put into their description of the land and the logistics of the riddles, it took *so* long to get to the real adventure. And then it just dragged. A few scenes of the characters struggling and messing up could’ve been shucked and it wouldn’t change anything. 

And my God, could we have done with less smut. I’m all for sex scenes in romance, and I think Christina & Lauren generally do a good job writing them, so I don’t know if my dislike for Lily played a part in my getting fed up with the overabundance of sex or these characters really are just too damn horny. I wish we would have gotten to see Lily and Leo actually enjoy each other more outside of their sexual attraction, I feel it might’ve made all the unrestrained thirst more enjoyable 😭

Credit where credit’s due, though, I very much enjoyed Leo and the secondary characters. Walter is a gem and he needs a spin-off as much as I need to find a shit ton of money so my life doesn’t spiral into nothingness… which I need badly. And while certain parts of the adventure didn’t hit as hard as it should’ve, I do think the last twist was well executed. I had an inkling, but I was still surprised and I enjoyed the last 70-ish pages of the action much more than the rest of the book.

To conclude, is this a bad book? No. I find it mediocre, but not bad. In comparison to other Christina Lauren novels, do I think it’s bad when it’s up to those standards? Let’s just say I know these two writers could do and *have done* much better.

The first half of this book is interesting, especially the chapters on Ramirez’s childhood and family. I wish the author had spent more time on developing those aspects and reporting on the reasons behind Ramirez’s actions so as to actually offer new insight. The second half of the book, which focuses on the trial, was incredibly slow, boring, and felt more fetishistic than anything else. It gave me a distinct impression that the author was trying to rationalise and defend, for lack of a better word, Ramirez rather than simply lay out the facts.

I’ve never cried so much while reading a book before in my life 😭😭 

I’m not on the autism spectrum, but I do have OCD and many of the symptoms presented by Anna in this book, so I felt incredibly touched. Seeing my own struggles and feelings written in such a fantastic novel, especially seeing Anna’s struggles with masking and people pleasing—it hit me so hard. This is the most enjoyment I’ve felt reading about a character’s development, I’m overwhelmed with luck at having reading this.

Moreover, I *love* Quan. He’s such an endearing, lovable character, with all his insecurities and flaws. Reading about him on his own, his struggles with self-acceptance now that he’s in remissions and with believing he deserves as much success and joy as his loved ones—it was a pleasure. I can sit here and wax poetic about his and Anna’s love for the next decade.

I’m so, so happy to have found Helen Hoang’s work when I did. She’s an incredible author and person, and I’m excited to read the second book of this trilogy that I’ve somehow skipped 😭

I enjoyed this so much 🥺 I followed the updates on this book back when it was a Wattpad story many, many years ago, and I had such a good time reading the published version. These characters were already dear to me before, and it was overall relaxing, funny, youthful read.