Very unusual story which takes place in Alaska. The protagonist, Tracy, is a 17-year-old girl who could best be described as "feral," having a bizarre habit passed on to her from her mother which I cannot describe here. She and her father are "mushers" who keep and train dogs to run in the Iditarod and other such races. Tracy spends most of her time out in the wilderness, and I found the story to be quite engrossing, suspenseful, and at times beautiful except for that weird habit I mentioned earlier. This is a debut novel and a really good one, I think. ( )

* : Confus. Tiré par les cheveux. Sans grand intérêt

3.5 Really unusual story with unexpected characters and outcomes. The story itself is a little bizarre, which is what's keeping it from a higher rating from me, but extremely well-written and great voice in the main character Tracy Petrikoff. She is on the cusp of 18, but in the middle of vast change in her family dynamics and her own trajectory. She has been expelled from school, with hints at a violent streak; her mother died 2 years ago; her father has lost his drive and his livelihood (sled dog racing) and two new people have entered the picture: Jessie, a hired hand who is about Tracy's age and Helen a nurse at the local clinic whom her father has just begun dating. Tracy needs routine and the outdoors and contact with the dogs to thrive and.... blood. She has learned to quell this animal drive by hunting and trapping and then drinking the animal's blood and her mother made her promise to never make a human bleed. She has mostly abided by this promise - she is not a vampire per se, but the blood she drinks in allows her to see through the eyes of that animal or rarely, person. "I learned in school that blood has a memory. It carries information that makes you who you are...sharing what's in the blood, that's as close as you can be to another person." (2) "There's two ways to really know another creature's mind, and neither of them involves talking, which is just a distraction. One way to know a person is to live and work with them side by side. You are quiet as you each go about your chores and get to know how the other one moves, how his body shifts and changes, how a thought flickers over his face and tell you more than words could....The other way of knowing is a kind of watching and listening that happens deep in your head. It's as close as you can be to another animal. You empty your own self out and there's room for something else, you drink it in, and then you know." (15) There are hints that her mother had this same affliction and that it could be tied to her unexpected death when she was hit by a truck on the side of the road in the middle of the night. Now Tracy is left with her father and her younger brother Scott, neither of whom understand her and her father has banned her from working with the dogs, running around in the woods, and racing the Iditarod in the coming Spring. She manages to sneak around behind his back, especially to get out in the woods to "drink" when she is overcome by weakness and orneriness, but when she encounters a stranger there, gets knocked unconscious and wakes up with blood on her knife, she reaches certain conclusions that take the rest of her life off the rails. Jessie is hiding secrets that relate to the stranger in the woods, Helen is too kind for her own good, Tracy is too stubborn and tough to bend her will to anyone else's and the whole remote Alaskan location casts a pall of tragedy over the story. For sheer survival and for the beautiful portrayal of dogs (moved to tears at one point!) fans of Edgar Sawtelle will like this. Fans of nature writing, particularly the beautiful cruelty of Alaska will appreciate the excellent prose. And yes, there is a little bit of Twilight/Discovery of Witches sprinkled in. ( )

The Wild Inside by Jamey Bradbury is an unusual paranormal novel about a young woman who lives in Alaskan wilderness.

Seventeen year old Tracy Petrikoff loves the outdoors. She is an avid hunter with an unusual... proclivity for the animals she kills. Her family is heavily involved with dog sledding but following her mother's death, they struggle financially after her father gives up mushing and sells the majority of their sled dogs. Tracy keeps hoping to change his mind about her competing in upcoming mushing events, but after she is suspended from school for fighting, her dad grounds her from taking care of the remainder of their dogs and roaming the woods surrounding their home. Headstrong and stubborn, Tracy defies him to check her traps but on one of her outings, she is suddenly attacked by a stranger in the forest. When the man, Tom Hatch, shows up at her home not long after their encounter bleeding from a knife wound, Tracy is afraid she is responsible but her memories of their first meeting are somewhat vague. After her father hires drifter Jesse Goodwin to work in exchange for board, Tracy befriends him and she soon discovers Jesse is hiding many secrets.

Tracy is the novel's sole narrator and she is not exactly a likable or sympathetic protagonist. She is rather selfish, very impulsive and extremely defiant. She greatly misses her mother who completely understood her daughter's need to hunt and freely roam the surrounding woods. Tracy inherited her mom's abnormal need for hunting and ability to psychically connect to animals and people in the aftermath of quenching her bizarre appetite.

The book summary is a little misleading since there is no mention of a paranormal element to the storyline. While this aspect is not overpowering, it does factor heavily into the plot. The hunting scenes are graphic but it is what Tracy does after the animals are dead that might make readers squirm.

While the novel is well-written, Tracy does speak have a bit of a backwoods dialect. A lack of quotations marks during conversations is rather irritating. The story's setting is quite rustic and isolated but Jamey Bradbury's descriptive prose makes it very easy to visualize the surrounding forest.

The Wild Inside is a slow-paced adventure that has unexpected supernatural/paranormal elements. The suspense aspect of the plot is quite interesting and Jesse is an intriguing addition to the cast of characters. However, Tracy makes such horrible decisions that she is unlikable and ultimately, irredeemable. A unique but very strange debut that is well researched and features a beautiful setting that is mish-mash of suspense, horror and paranormal genres. ( )

Tracy has little if no filters when the wild side takes hold in Alaska. Her behavior becomes more antisocial after her mother dies. Her father is not equipped to deal with the monster she is becoming. This is not a battle of Tracy again the elements of nature. It is a slow decline into a feral state. The book requires editing for past and present tense. ( )