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    Into the Forest
    Into the Forest
    Into the Forest
    Audiobook10 hours

    Into the Forest

    Written by Jean Hegland

    Narrated by Alyssa Bresnahan

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    At first, Into the Forest was a word-of-mouth favorite of booksellers. Soon, larger publishing houses were noticing Jean Hegland's debut novel and giving it rave reviews. Powerful and disturbing, Into the Forest offers images of an all-too-believable future. As America collapses in the chaos of war, pollution, and bankruptcy, two sisters pool their resources to survive alone in the hills above San Francisco. Although dwindling food and increasing isolation threaten them, they soon find a more immediate danger standing at their door. When a young man arrives, his friendship offers tantalizing fulfillment, but his love threatens to divide the sisters. Hegland's provocative work is reminiscent of George Orwell's 1984 and Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. It infuses a tale of survival with startling insights into a young woman's quest for strength.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateApr 10, 2015
    ISBN9781490691459
    Into the Forest
    Author

    Jean Hegland

    Jean Hegland lives in northern California with her husband and three children. Windfalls is her second novel.

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    Reviews for Into the Forest

    4/5

    38 ratings15 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      Meh...Z is for Zachariah for the grown up crowd. I liked the atmosphere, but felt that the ballerina sister was a selfish prima donna. Of course, the tale is told through the eyes of the other sister, so maybe with better perspective, I would understand her. It was okay, I enjoyed it, but I wasn't amazed nor did I really sit and think too long about it afterwards.
    • 1/5
      I really disliked this book. I was hoping for "Plucky sisters survive after the collapse of society!" and instead it's something more like "Passive sisters you don't like very much mope around; nothing much happens."
    • 5/5
      This became one of my favorite books as soon as I read it; I was totally immersed while reading and continue to dwell on this book. I almost gave it 4 vs. 5 stars though, because I “didn’t like” the end. But, I realize, it’s not that I thought the end was poorly done; it was just difficult for me to agree with aspects of the decisions made. The fact that certain happenings were so painful for me, shows how powerful this book seemed to me. This is a beautifully told story about 2 sisters who must fend for themselves in a world where civilization has broken down. Suspenseful and heartwarming. Does make one think about relationships, what’s important in life, and how much courage one would have if faced with similar circumstances.
    • 3/5
      The lessons and experiences are educational and interesting. The landscape is vivid enough to see clearly as you read this book and I was thoroughly engrossed until the totally unecessary "love-making" scene between the two sisters. GAG, why? I so would have loved to give this book a fantastic review but for that totally revolting part.
    • 4/5
      I read this on Gary's rec. (and loan). Very interesting story!
    • 5/5
      Hegland portrays the lives of two sisters following the collapse of civilization. Such a collapse pares existence down to its most basic elements, leaving writers free to examine humanness in its most basic core forms, without the irrelevancies that make up so much of the commercialized world. The story has stays with you vividly. The ending at first seemed odd but, after it sunk in, uplifting and perfect.
    • 5/5
      You know what I love in a book? When an author can take you so deeply emotionally into a story that you get that..this could happen,what if that was me...feeling. This is one of those books. Definitely a WOW book.
    • 3/5
      Good solid apocalypse novel read. I enjoyed it. I liked the accurate depiction of the infant, the emo-body way an infant impacted the main characters. So often male authors miss that deep emotional physical impact. The ending, charging off into the wild, struck me as odd. The slight mysticism, as in the bear part and the ending, was not quite feeling incorporated. The book was enjoyable to read, and emotionally comprehensive, so you didn't need to put it down for stale imitative realism. Yet... only three star. Not as deeply gripping as it might have been. Certainly worth while to read, and better than I could write, yet...(sometimes I feel like an a** critiqueing casually the works authors have spent years over).
    • 5/5
      This book revealed itself slowly, and it took me quite a while to really understand what it was all about. Once it did, everything clicked into place for me. Events that before seemed quite unbelievable became meaningful and even beautiful. The ending left with me with a sense of rightness, as well as melancholy, a tone that completely suited this story.The story is about two teenage daughters who become stranded in their rural California home at the edge of a large, wild forest after the unexplained collapse of society and the accidental death of their father. Gradually, the girls accept the reality of their situation and learn how to survive off the forest, which is the only resource they have in abundance.What I did not understand at first is how much of a feminist text this is. The story is not about the apocalypse so much as it is about women returning to their natural mother, the Earth, and relearning how to live in harmony with nature. The bear is an important symbol who teaches the narrator, Nell, that the forest is not threatening but can be nurturing, life-sustaining and protective. The strong feminism of this book may turn off some readers. The three male characters all come across as inadequate, and finally the girls realize that they only need one another to survive. I was worried that there would be too much violence against women, but the novel avoids the needless wallowing in violence that most apocalyptic books depict, and the one violent incident that does occur is critical for the story.The ending of the novel was the most beautiful section for me, as it expresses both a sense of loss and optimism. Nell's elegy for books as she decides which ones she absolutely needs moved me. I'm not sure I completely agree with the underlying premise that returning to a pre-industrial way of life is the best path, which seems a bit simplistic. We have spent thousands of years constructing a civilization that offers our species a lot of advantages, and I don't think we will turn our backs on it so easily. I also think that the root of our modern problems also offers our hope for salvation -- that is, our ability to understand the world with science and develop new technologies to meet our needs. Perhaps the true answer is an amalgam of the two: looking back to nature for inspiration for technologies that will sustain us as a civilization but won't eventually destroy us or get used up.This novel reminded me a lot of another post-apocalyptic novel set in California: Always Coming Home by Ursula K. Le Guin. The two books share the a feminist context and the theme of remembering how to live harmoniously with nature. Indeed, the people of Always Coming Home could be the far-future descendants of Eva and Nell.
    • 3/5
      I don’t claim to be a real fan of dystopias, but I can enjoy them when they’re well executed. I was probably spoiled forever when someone introduced me to Octavia Butler. I can appreciate Margaret Atwood’s, though even in my deep respect for "The Handmaid’s Tale" lies a niggle around such total social change occurring in the course of only three years. Jean Hegland doesn’t say much in her novel about society at large, just that the electricity has gone off and there’s no gas, so everything else has collapsed. I might be able to fill in those blanks from 1996 worries (pre-War on Terror, no cell phones mentioned) if I knew why this family that has chosen to live in a clearing in the forest for all of the heroine/narrator Nell’s life has continued to live as if on a suburban cul de sac. That continues to bother me through the novel, until the last five pages, when the figurative light bulb finally comes on and Nell and her sister Eva (get it?) apparently give up on the material ones ever coming on again. This is in large part a damsel-in-distress story, which I cannot appreciate. The men in it range from slavish to venal. I suppose it should be some consolation that the damsels eventually effect their own rescue, to whatever extent they are rescued. I shudder to think what the world will be for their child. I started this book in a place almost fully unexplained and was dragged through a world where, because of the characters’ choices, I learned nothing.
    • 1/5
      ***Spoiler alert. But, I would have wanted to know prior to wasting my time , and as a trauma warning.***

      There is a random incest scene that occurs out of the blue and I found really disturbing and disgusting. This is after an already very disturbing rape scene.

      I found the characters to be hard-headed, immature, and ignorant. In life, individuals who undergo trauma tend to age quickly-while often still grappling with their inner child. This did not seem to be the case in this book. They remained ignorant by choice and lacked a real sense of growth and development. (Though I quit listening/reading after the incest scene a little more than halfway through the book).

      Honestly….disgusting.
    • 3/5
      Into the Forest is a surreal look at a future that we can only hope will never be. That being said, it is a fascinating tale of two sisters and their life as the world around them crumbles. The relationship between the sisters, how it evolves with ever-changing circumstances, and how they cope with dwindling resources is a tale that you won’t soon forget. Well written with believable characters, you will be engrossed to the very end.
    • 4/5
      This haunting and exquisite dystopian story grabbed me by the throat and took over my day. I was powerless to do anything but read until I ran out of pages. The writing is excellent. I've got a soft spot for dystopian fiction, and there is very little in the genre that feels sweet, save this. Two sisters, alone in the middle of nowhere, figuring out how to survive on nothing after the collapse of civilization- yeah, yeah, you think, I've read THIS before. But it's so raw, and so real, and so... sweet that it's fresh. Highly recommended for fans of dystopian fiction.
    • 5/5
      recommended for: everyone who enjoys fictionrecommended by: MicheleThis became one of my favorite books as soon as I read it; I was totally immersed while reading and continue to dwell on this book. I almost gave it 4 vs. 5 stars though, because I “didn’t like” the end. But, I realize, it’s not that I thought the end was poorly done; it was just difficult for me to agree with aspects of the decisions made. The fact that certain happenings were so painful for me, shows how powerful this book seemed to me. This is a beautifully told story about 2 sisters who must fend for themselves in a world where civilization has broken down. Suspenseful and heartwarming. Does make one think about relationships, what’s important in life, and how much courage one would have if faced with similar circumstances.
    • 4/5
      I really really enjoyed reading this book and am very thankful to the bookcrosser who sent it to me. It was on my wish list.
      From the start it captivated me. I loved the father in this book and some of the things he said really made me think or laugh ;)

      The only thing I knew about this book before reading that it was a post apocalypse book but that was all so it was really an adventure to read and find out what was happening. This author managed to captivate me from the beginning to the end. I thought she did a good job writing how people would cope with losing all the stuff they used to think were normal like electricity, music, light buttons. The way they had to change and take care of themselves. How they started to love and hate each other and very interesting to see how they learned which things were important. I recommend this book and give it 4.5 stars.