Something Wilder

The novel uses Lily and Leo’s adventure in Canyonlands National Park as an extended metaphor for their journeys to find themselves and claim autonomy over their lives. When Lily and Leo set out on their “hunt for fake treasure” (11), they each have different goals and expectations for the tourist expedition. Lily thinks that she’s simply taking another group of “city slickers out into the desert to team-build and ‘rough it’” (11). Meanwhile, Leo is simply taking another “annual trip with his two best friends from college” to get away from his busy life in New York City (19). Therefore, neither of the protagonists is expecting to emerge transformed from their desert adventure. The wild landscape and treacherous terrain challenge them in physical, emotional, and spiritual ways that gradually change how they see themselves, their lives, and each other over the course of the novel.

Each of the obstacles and challenges Lily and Leo face in the desert grants them a revelation about who they want to be and what they want to do next with their lives. At times, the trip feels like a “downright clusterfuck” and the characters feel lost, confused, or overwhelmed (146). However, the further they travel “from the safety of their everyday lives” (76), the more compelled Lily and Leo feel to confront their true longings and desires. Their remote setting particularly grants them the space to reflect on their experiences and identities. For Lily, this means meditating on how she might buy back the ranch she’s wanted to own and operate since she was a child. Indeed, “running treasure hunts and expeditions” has never been “[her] dream job” and Lily is eager to conceptualize a way out of her current, entrapping circumstances (151). Traveling and working together with Leo while out in the desert helps her to rethink her life in the past, present, and future with renewed clarity.

Leo is similarly transformed by his time in the desert, as the unfamiliar environment grants him perspective on his lonely life in the city. Ever since his mother’s death 10 years prior, Leo has “lived [his] life in the most responsible, boring way imaginable” (249-50). He’s made sacrifices for his sister and prioritized her care and well-being over his own. Over the course of his time in the Canyonlands, Leo realizes that he’s “done with that” and wants to “find a way to fit” his and Lily’s lives together (250). These revelations convey Leo’s personal growth and capture how his desert experiences have changed him. In the Canyonlands, he rediscovers his passion for adventure and risk. He learns how to be brave and supportive. Furthermore, the setting has reacquainted him with a more free-spirited version of himself and thus opened up his worldview.

In these ways, Leo and Lily become more evolved people over the course of their treasure hunt. The adventure literally asks them to solve clues in order to find a pile of money at the end. However, it also asks them to reevaluate their lives, and to make positive changes for themselves and each other.