Lauren Groff's The Vaster Wilds (2023) tells the story of an unnamed "servant girl" who lives in an isolated colonial settlement that has been plagued by disease and famine in the middle of the 17th-century New England wilderness. For her—and for those around her—the new world they find themselves in is filled with danger and intrigue. Despite this, the girl dreams of nothing more than escaping the settlement, which she thinks is too oppressive for her. To that end, she hatches a plan to escape. Ultimately, she succeeds in escaping but has to contend with, as the title suggests, "the vaster wild" outside of the settlement. While there, she encounters wild animals, unsavory weather, and other difficult things—things that threaten her life on several occasions. Nevertheless, she perseveres.
Reviews for The Vaster Wilds were almost universally positive—something which Groff, who has been called the best author of her generation by several pundits, is used to. Although a number of reviewers cited the repetitive nature of Groff's novel as a negative, they were stunned by the adventure, prose, and energy of the novel. Vox called the novel "the best of the year so far" and "stark, vicious, and transcendent." The Telegraph felt similarly strongly about the novel, awarding it four stars out of five and writing that the novel "is a rivetingly tense 17th-century tale."
