I can now join your book club because I have finally finished reading Lauren Groff’s The Vaster Wilds. Now, what to say.

I am a fan of Groff since I read her book of shorts titled Florida. So, I knew The Vaster Wilds would be good, and it was. It was also torturous. I feel like culturally we have a Game of Thrones kind of obsession with torture right now, and that also makes sense culturally, and all of the anger, hate, and misogyny we see is reflected in our art, and so it does makes sense. However, that does not make it easy.

Still, the book is good and worth reading. This is especially true if you like popular books, but strive to read more literary works because this has some of the elements of popular fiction, while also feeding the nourishing steamed broccoli that is literary-quality writing. (Given the starvation of colonizers in early 1600s America, all food analogies probably fall flat.) Funnily enough, I was near the end before I realized the vaster in the title was not a reference to a proper noun. In years to come, I could see this piece taught in college courses because I think there is just so much here.