Review: 5 Stars
All opinions are entirely my own. All of my reviews can also be found on Instagram @Tackling_TBR and on my blog at tacklingtbr.home.blog
I read The Simple Wild last summer, and it was one of my very favorite books of 2019. So naturally when the sequel came out I was equally ecstatic and terrified. What if it didn’t live up to the first one? Well, Wild at Heart was everything that I wanted it to be and more. It is a true sequel, following the story of the first and picking up right where the first left off, so I’ll try not to give too many spoilers. But know that you should definitely read the first book before diving into this one.
At the beginning of this story, we find Calla moving to Alaska to be with Jonah and to start their company (and their lives) together. So throughout the story Calla is dealing with having moved so far away from her family, and her friends (who always say they’re going to come and visit, but they very rarely do), and Jonah working long hours each day, and feeling like she is lonely and doesn’t know what her purpose in Alaska is yet. Sometimes not even being able to get out of the house becuse she doesn’t drive. I have to say, at times this book was almost difficult for me to read, because I have so recently been going through those same emotions in my own life. My husband is in the military, and I moved to be with him, and it has been the first time that I haven’t been living within about 25 minutes from my family. The friends don’t get to visit as often as they say they will, and when your husband is out working every day but you haven’t been able to get a job, your days spent in this new place and this new house can be very quiet and lonely. I was even relating to Calla on the part about not being able to leave the house, as there were a few months after the move when I didn’t even have a car to go out and explore.
This book did an amazing job portraying those emotions, that I was so familiar with in a way that was honest and at times truly heartbreaking. And while at times it was still feeling too fresh for me, and at times felt a little bit difficult for me to read, it was really amazing getting to read this story with these characters that I already knew and loved going through them, and seeing how they got through them together. It has been a big, ongoing discussion between my husband and I for this early part of our marriage, and it was really nice to feel like I was going through it with these characters too, and seeing Calla learn about herself through it and come out on the other side stronger for it.
This book absolutely, 200% lived up to my hopes and expectations for it that were set by The Simple Wild, and I can’t wait to get my hands on the next chapter in Calla and Jonah’s story. Honestly I think I would read about these two until Calla and I were both old and grey if K. A. Tucker kept writing about them. I would recommend this book to anybody at all, though as I said I would make them read The Simple Wild first. Although I keep reading them in the summer, the stories and wintery Alaskan settings of these books make them perfect to curl up with in front of a fire in the dead of winter, maybe with a mulled wine in hand, and your love close by.
Tackling TBR 