Review: "Wandering Wild" by Lynette Noni

Wandering Wild by Lynette Noni
Published May 2025 via Blackstone Publishing
★★★

It's the trip of a lifetime, even if Charlie doesn't want it: a multi-day adventure trip with a Hollywood star (plus an adventure-television star). The catch: Zander is using her to salvage his reputation. The other catch: The reason his reputation needs salvaging is also the reason she can no longer stand him.

Initially, I loved this. Give me a wandering-in-the-woods book any day of the week, but more than that, I loved that Rykon (the adventure-television star) isn't out to make the characters look dumb. Charlie isn't out to be humiliated—she's encouraged to learn new skills and push her limits. Rykon and his husband-slash-cameraman Bentley are thoughtful, supportive (supporting) characters.

But then things take a turn. Major spoilers below.

There was a long enough pause between me seeing the book and reading it that I'd forgotten the details of the summary—which is just how I like it—but I retained a vague sense that Charlie and Zander would eventually be separated from Rykon and Bentley and need to survive on their own. I liked R&B enough to be genuinely worried that something would happen to take them out for good (death, life-changing accident, etc.). Instead, it's simpler: Rykon breaks his ankle.

"Someone has to stay with Rykon," Bentley answers for him. I'm about to point out that perhaps it shouldn't be the only other person who has any real survival experience, but he continues before I can, "And I'm not leaving my husband behind." (171)

My suspicions shot up at this point, because if this were genuine, it would be wildly irresponsible. (Well, it's wildly irresponsible regardless, but...) Leaving two untested teenagers with minimal skills to traverse the Australian wilderness by themselves...? Rykon talks them into "going for help" rather than staying put and, like, lighting a signal fire. Their planned route involves rappelling down a 300-foot waterfall without harnesses and with only a 100-foot rope, traversing a slot canyon prone to flash floods, and crossing a bridge that they already know is unsafe. And that's the version of things that has things going to plan.

Nothing goes to plan.

As it happens, the teens later learn that the only thing about this that was to plan was Rykon's "injury"—they were always meant to be stranded alone in the wilderness (better for Zander's reputation!), and because they didn't read their contracts properly, they don't know that they're actually being streamed live rather than 1) having a normal one-off show or 2) the cameras not being around at all, which is what they think when they set off on their two-person misadventure.

The irresponsibility of it all is breathtaking. Naturally the already dangerous obstacles (that Rykon thinks they should be able to handle, no problem!) become immediately life-threatening: they fall into the waterfall; the canyon is flooded; the bridge collapses while they're on it; etc. etc. To add to this, Charlie and Zander are on an artificial deadline: they've been told that if they're not at the designated meeting point before the extraction helicopter lands, the helicopter will leave, and a search party will be sent out, and it could take days for anyone to reach them. (It does not occur to them, at any point, that the people searching would likely start with their route, so, say, staying on the far side of a falling-apart bridge that is on their route would likely only delay their escape by a matter of hours, and they'd have a much lower chance of dying by falling into a canyon.)

How Rykon and Bentley are supposed to come out of this as good guys is beyond me. How Zander does not immediately fire his agent (who tricked him into this) is also beyond me.

Separate from this, incidentally, is the true story of Zander's fall from grace. Said fall came about because he was caught driving under the influence. Now...he's a YA hero, so I figured that there was probably more story there, some circumstances that would make him look better. And indeed: It transpires that not only did Zander 1) drive to save a suicidal friend, but he 2) didn't even know he was under the influence, because someone spiked his drink. He's still beating himself up for driving when he didn't feel 100%, of course, so he still takes responsibility, and he hasn't publicly shared that he was roofied because it might make the friend whose party he was at feel bad.

In other words: He's supposed to be, still, a squeaky-clean good guy who is not at fault for anything. And...it's YA. I get it. But I think he'd have been a lot more interesting if he weren't able to explain it all away, and he was horrified by how out of control he'd gotten and determined to make real changes.

So that's...where we are, I guess. Whiplash! I wanted to love this, but I just couldn't get past the part where a bunch of adults tricked a couple of teenagers into doing <i>wildly</i> dangerous things while unknowingly being streamed live, and it doesn't matter in the end because romance. Three stars and a whole lot of side-eye.