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Summary: What If...?
Review: This was one of those books that I began reading and then did not put down again until some necessary evil (like going to work) interrupted - after which I promptly dove into it again. What a fascinating, eerie story - and with Y2K right around the corner, realistic enough to make me lie awake wondering "what if?" An excellent book. Recommended!
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Summary: Thought Provoking
Review: I read this story after taking a class in people and the environment and having one of the presenter's suggest that we read it. I saw that it could be prophetic of the way we will end our time on this planet. Like Dr. Blackwood said, "We will go out with a whimper and not a bang." The references to the epidemics are frightning but possible with today's mutating bacteria and viruses. The loss of control is predictable with our increasing addiction to petro based fuels. People need to read this and think about what they would do if faced with theses situations. The incest also wasn't really needed but thoughtfully written.
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Summary: Sensual, tactile, thought-provoking, relevant
Review: Loved this book, have read it twice. Highly recommend it if you care about the woods, music, and preserving what's beautiful in the world. Wonderful descriptions.
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Summary: A future bestseller?
Review: I enjoyed reading the previous reviews and was excited to learn that others had the same reaction that I did. Basically: Wow! I've read thousands of books and I can honestly say this is one of the few short works of fiction that caused me to close the back cover and just sit there for half an hour. I was haunted by it for days. Why? For me, it's because this is about two ordinary women, young and not skilled in survival techniques, who are Surviving, who have opted to leave HOME and hearth (Based on the stereotype, isn't it THE Women who want a nice homey place to live? Yet the two women leave it in the end. Plus they are Doing It (surviving) without men. I think for a number of women of a certain age (40+), there are many mixed feelings about so-called feminism and the book pulls these into the open. Consciously or subconsciously, we proto-feminists of the baby boomer generation may have come to learn or come to accept some personal limitations, perhaps coming to the belief ( or "realization" depending on your mental grab on this that--(eg...I will give examples: I will never study car repair and find myself fixing my Corolla...Let hubby do it. Or, guys make better hunters and anyway there's no need for me to learn to shoot a gun). But what IF you HAD to do these things...or die? Could you? Would you? Have you ever shot a rifle? Do you know how to plant seeds? Could you carve up a pig? It made me think of all the areas of survivalist skill and knowledge that many of us modern day women are inexpert in...and Men, too, of course. I don't know how to light a fire with flint, but perhaps if I spent all day trying with nothing else to do and I really needed to cook that hog, I could do it. Here's my point in a nutshell. The book speaks to the subconscious or conscious understanding we have that on some things involving "do it or die" there is a stereotype/myth that men will continue to try whereas women will give up sooner. For these two women, this is NOT the case. And that's intriguing. Thinking about the theme of women-survival-without men-and women-trying-to-do-things/failing/and trying again in this novel (PS it's mislabled when it's called sci fi), I think where this novel made its biggest impact on me was in its statement on Survival without Men. As for the creaks in the plot mentioned by others, I felt that they added to the "surprise" twists in the plot. Please hurry that movie! This is a future bestseller and a potential classic.
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Summary: extremely profound and thought provoking
Review: This book completely blew me away. I felt as if the aouthor has been in my head in sneaking a peek at my fantasies. I too, you see, have two daughters and am unschooling them as Eva and Nell have been. I can tell the aouthor has probably read some the same books I have and has many of the same gut feelings about life and the world as I have encountered. This book really shook me up and blew me away. I have told all my home/unschooling friends about this book and strongly recommended it. Our homeschool moms book club is reading it. It will be fun to see what all my "hippie-wanna-be" friends will think of it.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book with a wonderful preview of life after an end
Review: Into the Forest provides a touching and capturing look at a world in the end. This reflection of life when all electricity and phones cease to work is incredibally described. The two sisters share the times with memories and tragedies, and their struggles are the ones which bring out the most in a person and their decisions and character. For the adventurer, the feminist, the lively, and the determined, this book is a life-giving seed of wonder. Appropriate for ages 12 and over.
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Summary: America should re-instate solar tax credits!
Review: My husband and I own a home on 20 acres of forest butted up against hundreds of acres of national forest in Northern California. We also live at the end of a dirt road that is far from the nearest small town (although we only live 10 miles away not 30). Needless to say the similarities between us and this family are many. However, we have one thing they did not - solar power. We spent $30,000 in 1988 on our solar equipment and got $15,000 back from the government from solar tax credits. That program was disbanded in 1989 and the solar energy industry in this country has sadly diminished. Currently, the sun provides about 75% of our electrical needs (and we have stereos, satelite t.v., microwave oven, computer, etc.). We could easily expand this to 85-90% with some conservation if needed - AND we don't get a monthly electric bill! As I read this book I constantly thought of how WE would survive in a similar situation. I realized we would fare much better because of our solar power. Why, we could still listen to music and even watch videos! But I couldn't help despairing about why the world is not embracing this amazing technology more. As a nation we are pitiably reliant on fossil fuels and power companies. Solar power is a clean and renewable source of energy that cannot be owned or controlled by any government or country. I realized in reading this book that by adding a few items that we don't currently have (guns and amunition, a solar water pump for our well, some canning jars, a good book on native plants to eat and use medicinally, etc.) my husband and I could live in relative comfort here for many years if our government collapsed. It's a shame that more people can't make that claim. Being self reliant IS a little more work but oh, the rewards! This book gets people thinking about survival and self reliance - how can that be ANYTHING but good?
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Summary: Best Book I've Ever Read
Review: A haunting tale full of powerful emotion; a frightening look at a possible future we may be forced into one day. The author may have set out just to write a story, a good story. But she ended up doing so much more. She forces us to look at our world and realize how fragile it really is. Without grocery stores and fast food chains, how would we get food? Without the power companies, how would we stay warm and find light? Build a fire for warmth and light, hunt or grow food...it's easy to say, but could we really do it? Eva and Nell are faced with that reality, and we see ourselves in them. I would put this book in anyone's hands and command them to read it--and believe me, I have!
Rating: 
Summary: What was the point?
Review: I realize that this book meant to envoke thought and perhaps discussion of how much our society relies on material things, but I think it could have done so with better character development and without ruining the ideas the book presents by adding an unnecessary incest scene. I skimmed the book after that. What was the point?
Rating:
Summary: Just didn't buy it
Review: I enjoyed the way this novel was written, the word choice and syntax were enjoyable. However, beyond being intrigued by the idea of it, Into the Forest falls short of being even a good read. The characters were not well developed and some things did not make sense. Incest? Please. It is the last thing anyone would want to do after being raped, even if it was helping them feel connect to the only family left. I pretty much skimmed it after that.
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