DNF at 10% / start of chapter 4.

The premise of the story sounded really intriguing to me and I found the title and cover drew me further in. Unfortunately, it was way too slow and too heavily character based for my own personal taste.

We learn from the book description that the modern day internet has collapsed and digital remnants or ghosts are left behind and they seem dangerous. However I feel as if the first part of the book should be setting the world up and explaining how it happened and the history of this huge life changing event and it doesn’t. The story brings you in without knowing this and mentions some vague notions towards the event without going into more detail. I was expecting a fast paced, exciting dystopian world and it doesn’t seem to be this way from the part I read.

If you don’t mind a much slower paced, character building story then you may enjoy it but this one just wasn’t for me.

'To a certain extent you are always prey when you meet wolves in the woods. It us only a question of hunger.'

Wilson has a real gift for writing modern fables, engaging traditional, often folkloric storytelling modes but presented in a way as to highlight their relevance to a contemporary audience.

We are All Ghosts in the Forest is set in a post apocalyptic or at least post modern societal world. After the collapse of the internet the world was flooded with digital ghosts: large cities and towns are now uninhabitable to humans who have been driven back to trying to live with nature in smaller communities.

Katerina, the MC, excels at this having fled the overrun cities to her grandmother's cottage on the edge of a wood. Not that she is free of risk here. Fragments of the internet have even wandered this far and the wild has its own dangerous. Katerina is a loner, slow to trust others and full of a deep, somewhat justified conviction that she does not fit in or mesh with other people. When she is entrusted with the care of a mute child, she is forced to confront both her own ghosts and the digital disease which is eroding humanity.

This story is many things - a modern fairytale, a love letter to forgiveness, self acceptance and the natural world, a meditation on the dangers of misinformation, a reflection on and a genuinely creepy story about the consequences of allowing an idea to infect you. Expect a slow burn start - which you need, frankly, because this is a book to bring your for - and enjoy the gradual unfolding of a beautiful, disquieting world before the pace grabs you by the throat and won't let you go. In addition, despite its deep themes, this is ultimately a feel good story even when things look desperate - something the author excels at is examining disaster and despair, then offering real threads of hope.

A beautiful book and a stunning accomplishment. Lorraine Wilson's best novel yet.

Dnf. Too much meandering and I just could not get into the story., this may have been a personal issue as I wasn’t keen on the writing style. Not a bad book but not for me