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For most of the book, I was completely captivated by the savant main character and the few characters that immediately surround her. I found Wilson's character development to be very strong, with Penny (the savant), Travis (her friend), and, later on, Fia (who takes on a protective role) highly sympathetic. Although there are other characters in the book, I enjoyed the emphasis on getting to know these three and did not mind the somewhat more caricatured approach to subsidiary players.
The action moves at a blistering pace as, on her 21st birthday, Penny leaves the institute that has been housing, educating and studying her. She manages to get herself involved in a host of very dangerous situations, relying upon both her wits and her friends to survive "in the wild," her expression for the world outside of the institute. This pace continues throughout the book, making it hard to put down. The author makes use of short chapters to help fuel that pace and keep the reader reading. The book is over 400 pages but feels much shorter and is a quick read.
After a fall when she was a young child, Penny has had a form of synesthesia, seeing numbers as colors. She also can draw anything or anyone photo-realistically while also catching its underlying essence, having seen the subject of her drawing only once. She remembers everything from the moment she woke up in the hospital, down to the smallest detail, but nothing from before the fall. Her IQ is off the charts, putting her into the ranks of the top 75 smartest people in the world. But, as one of the characters points out to her, she has knowledge but not wisdom. At 21 and without any life-experience, she struggles to figure out how to deal with "the wild" as she attempts to cross the country to find the father who abandoned her when she was in a coma after her fall.
Along the way during her cross-country road trip, she encounters both the good and bad that exists in the wild: Travis and Fia, of course, but also others who are helpful, as well as gangsters, drug dealers, corrupt cops, and a covert organization. How she deals with all of this, as well as how she deals with issues surrounding her missing father, keep the reader guessing and engaged. The book alternates between plot-driven action scenes and time spent inside Penny's very neuro-divergent head.
Unfortunately, the book takes a nose dive at the end into predictability. After the reader has been with Penny in her struggles to make sense of the world and develop values of her own, the author puts her into a situation that provokes a mini-lecture about what is important in life. This took me out of the book just as it was coming to a conclusion and made the ending seem both trite and a convenience. Other than this ending, the book was highly engaging and well written. I would recommend it for the unusual main character and the fast-paced plot. Since Wilson has written a number of other psychological thrillers, I will be looking toward reading one of them to see if the preachy ending is a signature or unique to this book.
§ Sharon Mensing, retired educational leader, lives, reads, and enjoys the outdoors in Arizona.
Reviewed by Sharon Mensing, January 2025
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