The Wild Other: A Memoir

A powerful book exploring relationships and loss, and Clover’s journey as she tries to reconcile the different aspects of her life. Moving and thought provoking.

This is a really honest memoir - The relationship with her mother is beautifully detailed - the love they shared is what moved me most about the book.
I would recommend this book to others.

Powerfully written memoir about mothers, relationships and horses

Clover Stroud grew up in the South West of England where she had an idyllic childhood as part of a very close family unit. When she was 16 her mother was permanently brain-damaged in a horrific riding accident and the family struggled to come to terms with their loss. Needless to say, nothing would ever be the same again and Clover embarks on a period of soul searching as she tries to recreate the wonder of her earlier years. Horses were always a major part of her life and this theme continues as Clover’s journey progresses. She embraces a number of different experiences and lives life to the full as she searches for the peace which she craves. This is a memoir, written by Clover about the whole grieving process and her pursuit of happiness and some sort of resolution.

I was really looking forward to reading this book but unfortunately I didn’t feel that it lived up to expectations. I felt that it started off on the wrong foot as the first few pages were a gloomy description of her life now, which did not seem entirely relevant in terms of the book that I was hoping to read. On the whole I found it dull, boring and repetitive, yet it could/should have been so good. Somehow it just lacked vibrancy and passion and, instead of coming across as redemptive it was largely just depressing. Clover had so many wonderful experiences but they somehow didn’t come alive on the written page. She also had a lot of pent-up grief, sadness, fear and frustration to discharge and I wanted this to make me cry. What I was actually given felt like a fairly pedestrian narrative which failed to stir up any emotion in me whatsoever.

However, it wasn’t all bad. Clover did have some amazing experiences and a lot of interesting stories to tell about those experiences. Whilst I did not feel that the writing style necessarily did them justice, they were still interesting.

Unfortunately the only word I can really think of to describe this book is disappointing, especially as I was expecting such great things. I would probably not seek out other books by this author.