"Andrews’ debut, dotted with true stories of trailblazing women (such as those enrolled on Nasa’s first female astronaut fitness programme), contains razor-sharp insights and poetic passages, and will hook those interested in the whole idea of wilderness and self-discovery."
―Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff, The Guardian
"Refreshingly outward-looking in a literary culture that turns ever inward to the self, although it still has profound moments of introspection. Uplifting, with a thirsty curiosity, the writing is playful and exuberant. Riffing on feminist ideas but unlimited in scope, Andrews focuses our attention on our beautiful, doomed planet, and the astonishing things we have yet to discover."
―Ruth McKee, The Irish Times
"The Word for Woman Is Wilderness is unlike any published work I have read, in ways that are beguiling, audacious... rises to its own challenges in engaging intellectually as well as wholeheartedly with its questions about gender, genre and the concept of wilderness. The novel displays wide reading, clever writing and amusing dialogue."
―Sarah Moss, The Guardian
"Abi Andrews’ writing is sprawling and peripatetic, drawing many links between a variety of topics; a deliberate foil to the white Western male scientific method of separating and isolating things. It is a youthful and exuberant novel, funny and cool. But the subject matter is deadly serious. This is a philosophical rumination on what nature is in the Anthropocene, if indeed it ever existed at all. Moreover, it asks what women are in relation to not only a chauvinist globalised culture, but also a masculine interpretation of wilderness. Read this book. It is amazing."
―Michael McLoughlin, Readings
"It will make you feel as small as an ant and colossal as an ocean, will take you to the depths and heights of earth and beyond into the vastness of space. With humour, irony, wit, intellectual musing and the essential power of womanhood, it is impossible to see the world the same again after the final leaf is turned."
―Lauren Brown, Go With Me
"This gorgeously written debut will have you longing for adventure; it’s full of wonder at the natural world, as well as musings on everything from the moon landings, loneliness, nuclear war and the pill."
―Dusty Baxter-Wright, Cosmopolitan Middle East
"This is not reconciliatory prose. It doesn't seek to please. It's not asking for your acceptance or the benediction of this review. It is far stronger than that. It is a quiet, sardonic, funny, fluid text, a visionary book, that shows us the future is in fact already here."
―Caught by the River
"A gripping feminist reimagining of Into the Wild."
―Elle
"A thinking woman's adventure story... [Andrews' prose has] grace and reflection... beautiful, thoughtful, and often humorous."
―Lucy Scholes, The National
"The many-colored themes and ideas in the book are themselves painted on complex and overlapping canvases―of feminism, in an age of wilderness, but a wilderness that has been warped as it becomes embedded in the Anthropocene."
―The Ecologist
"A good book is one that makes you think about your own life. A great book is one that challenges your thinking. But it is a truly remarkable book that changes how you think, and The Word for Woman Is Wilderness had that effect on me. I can’t give it higher praise than that."
―Bookmunch
"[The Word for Woman Is Wilderness] provides a fresh take on the adventure novel genre as a whole."
―Amber Williams, Her Campus
"Make room, Jack London! Andrews’s debut novel... balances a feminist corrective to the wilderness mythology."
―Addie Hopes, Edge Effects (University of Wisconsin–Madison)
"[The Word for Woman Is Wilderness] is immersive, thought-provoking, and a unique reading experience."
―Jenny Colvin, Reading Envy
"Refreshing and funny and unlike anything else. I feel as if I've been waiting for this book for a long time."
―Daisy Johnson, author of Fen
"A thought-provoking read... A book that made me daydream and will stay with me for a long time."
―Lipsy Lost & Found blog
"Erin’s voice not only conveys her intelligence, but also the immense talent of the writer herself. Abi Andrews writes from her mid-twenties with the voice of someone far beyond of her years."
―Hannah M Smith, Department of Information Studies blog, University College London
"Clever, funny and thoughtful."
―Will Ashon, author of Strange Labyrinth
