Customer Reviews

Wild Zone

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

I am a huge Joy Fielding fan. The first book I read by her was SEE JANE RUN. From then on I have highly anticipated each release from her. Some of her works are better than others but the reader is usually always promised great character development and a suspenseful realistic plot line. MAD RIVER ROAD and WHISPERS & LIES are also favorites of mine. She's had a couple that didn't quite work but they still managed to be enjoyable works.

I am speechless with this latest THE WILD ZONE. It is not just that I didn't like the plot or theme. It is honestly a very poorly written excuse for a novel. I am stunned that Joy Fielding wrote this, let alone let it be released. And where were her editors? Couldn't someone have caught this dribble before its release. It is obvious she is trying to expand her horizons here for the main characters are three men and that is totally new for her. And even though women are involved in the story it is basically about the lives of these three men. Sadly bringing a realistic male character to life is beyond her reach as an author. Here we have Jeff, Tom and Will and each one is an extreme over the top caricature. She tries to define their personalities through their dialogue and it becomes laughable. She does use language and plot turns that will shock some faithful readers but had they served a purpose in establishing true character development or storyline it would have been acceptable but instead it is very gratuituous. The fact that Joy thinks this is good baffles me.

The start is three men making a bet at a bar. Simple with lots of potential. What follows is plot twists that are shockingly unrealistic and characters that become more laughable with each page turn. I have only written praise for every Joy Fielding book since SEE JANE RUN so to write this review bothers me. But it also bothers me that the author sees fit to release this and expect readers to pay for such a poor book. I am shocked also by Publisher's Weekly praise for this book. There is no growing suspense. In all honesty, the only reason I finished the book was for it was so bad I couldn't put it down for I needed to see just how outlandish it would get. This is also a very fast read. It is mostly dialogue. The ending is a surprise and in the last 3 pages I felt a glimmer of the Joy Fielding I know and love.

I praise any author for trying to stretch but when it does not work it should not be released. Here we have what is meant to be a dark, stark gritty story about three troubled men and the troubled paths their lives take by a few mistakes in judgement. Instead we get this. I honestly laughed at many points for the dialogue was so corny and actions so unrealistic. Shame on you Joy Fielding. Your readers deserve so much better. Please acknowledge your limits as a writer and if you try something new have it pass through many eyes and get honest feedback before pushing it on your readers. I can in no way recommend this novel unless as a library read and you want to see a succesful writer falter. Regretably I will now question when I purchase a new Joy Fielding book and that makes me sad. If this review seems harsh it is only honest and I want readers to know what to expect.

I'm finding it hard to believe that Joy Fielding even wrote this novel. It was awful. All the male characters were laughably cliche, most notably Tom, who was so superficial and sterotypical that it was just way over the top. Joy can write so much better than this - she should be downrigt embarrassed to have her name on this lousy book.

Best friends and former soldiers in war, Tom and Jeff, take Jeff's visiting "little brother" Will to the Wild Zone bar were Jeff's live in girlfriend, Kristin is the sexy bartender. The men make a bet as to who can score with a beautiful woman named Suzy. With the help of Kristin, Will is the reluctant winner. Jeff and Tom are in angry disbelief. Then the wild ride begins. All three can't get Suzy out of their heads. As Will seems to flourish with his new found relationship with Suzy, Tom and Jeff deteriorate. The characters deal with Jeff's bad but reasonably controlled behavior and then with Tom's extremely violent and frighteningly out of control behavior that worsens as the book continues. Plus, Suzy struggles with a horrific problem of her own and pulls in those that have entered the "Wild Zone".

The language through the book is very rough. Not for the prudish or Mary Higgins Clark fans. For example, Tom hires an "escort" and she rattles off her menu of services as well as her do's and don'ts for the bedroom. Yikes! There are also a lot of repetitive phrases that drove me nuts. Examples, "Do you want to talk about it", "I don't understand", "what do you mean", "it's because of Afghanistan".

This is a tale that has been told before except for the one amazing surprise at the very end of the book. Before you get to that amazing surprise - everyone gets what they deserve!

I didn't think this was a great book or a fun suspenseful read. It was just so-so for Joy Fielding and somewhat predictable. The best Joy Fielding book with the same feel is my highly recommended pick Mad River Road: A Novel . Her last book Still Life: A Novel was excellent!

THIS WAS NOT, CANNOT HAVE BEEN, WRITTEN BY JOY FIELDING. THE LAST BOOK I DISLIKED OF HERS WAS "PUPPET". EVERY OTHER, AND I MEAN EVERY OTHER OF HER BOOKS HAVE BEEN MUST HAVES FOR ME. I BUY THEM THE MINUTE THEY COME OUT...YES IN HARD COVER..EVEN DURING THESE "ECONOMIC HARD TIMES". WILD ZONE HELD MY INTEREST, BUT DID NOT MAKE ME LEAVE OTHER TASKS TO GO READ IT AS IS USUAL WITH HER BOOKS.
THE THREE MAIN CHARACTERS, THREE MEN, ARE SO STERIOTYPICAL. THEY HAVE NO SIDES OR SUBTEXTS TO THEM. EVEN JEFF WHO WOULD HAVE BEEN THE MOST SYMPATHETIC OF THIS MOTLEY TRIO, SHOWS LITTLE TO NO GOOD QUALITIES. TO BLAME THE BACKGROUNDS OF THESE THREE IS A COP OUT. THEY JUST ARE SELFISH LITTLE BOYS WHO DO NOT TAKE RESPONSIBLITY FOR ANY OF LIFE'S CURVE BALLS. THAT THEY ARE FRIENDS IS THE ONLY THING THAT IS NOT A SURPRISE. JEFF AND TOM DESERVE EACH OTHER, AND WILL IS NEVER REALLY FLESHED OUT ENOUGHT TO CARE ABOUT.
THE ENDING OFFERS THE ONLY "TWIST" WHICH IS NOT VERY SATISFYING BECAUSE BY THEN, THE ATTITUDE IS: "WHO CARES".
I WILL KEEP BUYING FIELDING'S BOOKS, BECAUSE SHE CAN ONLY GO UP FROM HERE.

The Wild Zone is built upon an interesting premise but never gets off the ground. I honestly found myself wondering if Ms. Fielding really wrote it. I just don't see how such a poorly written novel could have come from a writer with such a distinguished career in this genre.

I must begin with the characters because I knew from the outset that they would be this novel's undoing. They represent a thoroughly unlikable and unsympathetic mass of stereotypes. Jeff is a pretty-boy jock who's a war hero, a personal trainer and a total cad. He spends the entire book laying bets on how fast he can sleep with women, cop a feel with women, etc, etc. His brother Will is the nerdy, brainy little brother who spends the whole book wishing he was more like Jeff. The friend Tom is a degenerate crazy man with a violent streak, post-traumatic stress disorder and anger issues. (Why must every crazy, half-baked, violent, ass of a character be a veteran? It's beyond offensive.) Enter the beautiful, tolerant girlfriend who is actually described as looking like a Barbie doll and the waif-like domestic violence victim and the cast is complete. There is very little in the way of plot to discuss. The angry veteran stays angry, the man-whore stays man-whorish, the sensitive little brother stays sensitive, the Barbie doll contemplates her implants and the victim turns up with new bruises every so often. Will (the nerdy one), while being one of the central characters, contributes nothing to the story at all other than to bear witness to events and get weepy over how he's always looked up to his brother. I understand that writing men is new territory for Fielding, but someone should have told her (an editor, perhaps?) that prolific use of the f-word does not a complete male character make. I give character development 2 stars here simply because she did at least find five distinctly separate stereotypes to include. Six if you count the senselessly violent husband.

The attempt at a shocking twist at the end of this novel is obvious from the first moment it is eluded to, so the plot's one hope for salvation fizzled out as well. Even the setting was poorly done. It's South Beach, for heaven's sake. Surely there is some regional detail or South-Beachy atmosphere that Fielding could have conjured up to paint the scene for her readers. But alas... there is none to be found. The entire story could just as easily have taken place in Boise.

The one saving grace of this read is that it moves quickly. I bet 80% of this book is dialogue. I got through it in a single day despite my limited interest in actually finishing it. Even as I write this, I'm still trying to imagine how The Wild Zone could have been written by Joy Fielding. Something's just not adding up here.

The Bottom Line: Unless the real Joy Fielding has been kidnapped by aliens and replaced by a defective clone, I am at a loss to try to explain this book.

This review originally appeared on my blog, The Lit Witch: A Book Blog.

I am a long-time Joy Fielding fan and have read most of her novels. She excels at producing novels of domestic suspense with compelling female leads and has amassed a loyal following of readers. After reading the customer reviews on Amazon, I was tempted to avoid this one due to the numerous negative reviews. Then I read the editorial reviews and decided that since they were positive, I would give the novel a shot. I am SO glad I did! I read the entire novel in one day, enjoying much of while sitting in a beach chair listening to the waves crash againt the shore (my first time reading a novel on the beach and it is absolutely true that the Kindle has NO glare whatsoever). The reason for the low customer reviews, in my honest opinion, is the fact that nearly the entire novel is told from the alternating perspectives of three terribly flawed MALE characters. For me, this was a refreshing change for Fielding, and the characterizations seemed quite convincing to me. I had so much fun reading this novel and found myself laughing at the distorted thought processes of some of the characters -- and then cringing at the dangerous places they lead these precarious minds. And the ending was quite stunning. I have a deep respect for any author who, having discovered a niche market, gambles and expands their repertoire by moving into unexplored territory. Fielding could have rested on her laurels and continued writing yet another female in distress novel. Had she done so, she would have probably received stronger reviews from customers who expected this. But to write a novel where the men are in distress, as she has done here, deepens my respect for this author.

Envy and jealousy reign supreme in Joy Fielding's THE WILD ZONE. Every individual in the book has a run in with the "green eyed monster" at some point in the story. The cast of characters include....

Will, a shy PhD candidate currently taking a break from his studies at Princeton who envies his brother Jeff's good looks and easy way with the ladies particularly his current live in Kristin;

Jeff, macho physical trainer and potential poster boy for male chauvinism. He has never been in love and maintains a love `em and leave `em attitude with the women in his life. Half-brother to Will, he is bitter about Wills "chosen one" status within the family.

Tom, armed and dangerous married father of two whose explosive temper has earned him a dishonorable discharge from the military, a drinking problem, and second rate job. He is also jealous of what he perceives as Will's intrusion into his friendship with Jeff

Dave Bigelow, a doctor with a mean streak a mile wide who delights in imparting daily mental and physical abuse on his wife Suzy and considers himself to be "smarter than the average bear".

Kristin, bartender at fictional South Beach establishment called The Wild Zone, live-in girlfriend and bedmate to Jeff but strangely attracted to Will.

And finally Suzy, the abused wife with an agenda, whose trip to The Wild Zone brings about a bet between Jeff, Will and Tom that culminates in a situation that presents the reader with a strangely compelling read and an unexpected finale.

If the above referenced characters appear to be somewhat stereotypical, well they are what they are. The book may not win any awards but it does deliver a diverting afternoon read.

I've read all of Joy Fielding's books and this latest one, The Wild Zone, is not one of her better ones. The writing didn't seem as good as in Ms. Fielding's other books. A lot of uninteresting dialogue and a lot of dragged out and unnecessary parts.
I didn't care for any of the characters in this book either.
The Wild Zone was missing the sarcasm that is usually present in a Joy Fielding book.
The ending was a surprise to me, but to get there I found myself rushing towards the last 1/4 of the book.
Overall, fair.

I love Joy Fielding and have read just about everything she's written. I was looking forward to a good read (a perfectly fine expectation given her other novels), but this book was so bad that I chucked it into the recycle bin after finishing it. The plot is silly; the characters are despicable, and all you can hope for is that the book ends quickly and they can be put out of their misery; and the gratuitous foul language and sexual descriptions are just HORRIBLE. I was so let down I cannot tell you. Yes, the ending was a bit of a surprise but not very plausible, and honestly, these characters are so debased it just felt sad. Not good at all. Do not waste your money. I'll definitely check out the next novel, because Ms. Fielding has written too many good ones to let this one turn me off completely, but Joy, please, don't ever write anything like this again!

If I rated this book by how quickly I read it (in about two or three days on my Kindle), I would probably give this book one more star than I did, so I might be overly strict or stingy. There is one major character who is cliched and very flat, as many customer comments point out, but I wouldn't be surprised if that person isn't meant to be more of a stereotype as a contrast to his two friends who are rounder, more interesting people, and who develop over the course of the book. Intentional or not, that contrast becomes effective. There are two things that drew me in to this book--its pace and its shifting perspective. Fielding takes a strong premise (three men making a bet in a bar) and paces the development in a way that makes it easy to want to know what happens next. But the pace would slacken, I think, if she didn't also give us the thoughts and feelings of different characters in different chapters (often just one character per chapter but usually a different focus in each new chapter--it creates a kind of God's eye view of these events as the narration unfolds). This shifting perspective builds interest in the characters and the plot. One character, for example, who is being followed and observed by another (seen from afar in the narration) is in the subsequent chapter the person whose thoughts and feelings we hear, a narrative shift that gives a completely different and interesting perspective on what's happening. The appeal of the book depends in many ways on Fielding's skill at manipulating the narration like this. I didn't think the surprise ending was necessary, really, since the book was enjoyable enough to keep me reading for these two reasons of pace and shifting perspective.