The Wanderer. Nia Forrester. 2018. Stiletto Press. 202 pages. [Source: Kindle Unlimited.]
Blu — short for Bluebell — has finally come home, sort of. She’s a wandering soul, the product of two “hippie” parents who never quite focused their life energy on her and her younger brother. She’s spent most of her adult life on the go, working for relief organizations in developing countries. When she lands herself in Washington, D.C., unemployed and living with her younger brother, she’s open to what the world brings her way. That path, coincidentally, brings her back in contact with one of her closest friends from college, Bryan.
Along with their other friends, Blu and Bryan bonded over their art, painting for her and writing for him. In rekindling their friendship, Blu and Bryan realize they’ve both changed in subtle and obvious ways. Blu’s travels have opened her up to the world — including love and pain — that have shaped the way she approaches her relationships and life in general. Her art is still as significant to her, but Bryan’s has tapered off. Instead, he has settled into a life as a teacher and father, leaving his writing a part of his past. He’s also settled into his marriage, which, to Blu’s chagrin, is with a white woman. Much of the book centers on their re-learning of each other and, navigating the place they hold in each other’s lives. To date, Blu has been reluctant to put down roots, so her presence in D.C. isn’t quite a guarantee. Bryan is in crisis regarding his marriage, his uncertainties being exacerbated by Blu’s reappearance in his life.
It’s undeniable the these two have an attraction. The timing and circumstances aren’t quite conducive to exploring it, but it is something that can’t go unaddressed. Much of the book follows how they attempt maintain a friendship when both know there are obvious romantic feelings on both sides. This is a complicated story; no one is inherently good or bad, which mirrors reality. I did find Blu to be a character who outwardly seemed grounded in herself (or at least her actions), but needed to grow the hell up and understand that her actions don’t occur in a vacuum – consequences are real and what she does impacts others. Luckily, she seemed to show a lot of growth by the end of the book in that she was still a work in progress, but was capable of understanding others better. Bryan obviously wanted to do right by others, to a fault. He has a family to maintain – a wife he intends to stick it out with along with a son he plans to raise into a man. Much of his life is spent navigating a tightrope of who he is and who society has groomed him to be. His growth has a different trajectory, but no less welcome.
I loved interactions with peripheral characters in this book, especially those from other works, such as Darius from Acceptable Losses. Others, including her parents and younger brother Rain, serve as foils to disrupt Blu’s flightiness and judgment of others. She holds a lot of baggage from childhood trauma, but hadn’t done a great job of reconciling how that impacted her life’s choices. I also found it particularly interesting how Forrester juxtaposed Bryan’s marriage with Blu’s own experiences in relationships. Where Bryan’s choice of partner seems contradictory to the man she knew in college, she herself has practices a more open-minded approach to her lovers. I enjoyed understanding more of Bryan’s internal challenges with his marriage; I think it’s realistic, but doesn’t overshadow the story.
Overall, The Wander is a very interesting book. I found it refreshing – I had my assumptions about and expectations for these characters that were often challenged in a good way. What is, on the surface, a romance novel is just as much an exploration of finding your identity in the face of social and life pressures, growing through pain, and balancing responsibility against happiness. I definitely recommend it.
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