She was in love with Jonah before Calla and is sidelined in the original books. Running Wild is the first book about Jonah’s friend Marie, a side character in the early books. The first two books focus on the love story of Calla and Jonah, which Tucker concludes in the novella. Running Wild is the third book (fourth if you count the novella) in the Simple Wild series. In some ways they are even mundane, but it’s that they’re so honest and genuine in their telling and that the mundane is actually incredibly relatable. What makes them captivating to me is the very fact that they do not have an edge at all. In her bio, Tucker describes herself as writing “captivating stories with an edge”, and I think what I like about these books is that they are NOT that. I have loved everything she has done with this series, it’s honestly like she can’t go wrong. It wasn’t even so much that I didn’t care for them, I actively didn’t like them and it made me question how she can get some of her books so wrong and continue to get this series so right. I’ve read a few of Tucker’s other books outside this series and I didn’t like any of them. So I wasn’t nervous to read this book out of a fear of not liking Marie, more I was worried that it wouldn’t live up to how much I love the books that came before. As Marie uses to defend her actions, I always thought she was “only human”. Her and Jonah were good friends and who isn’t disappointed when the friend they were hoping to be ‘end game’ with doesn’t pan out.

It never really bothered me that Marie was into Jonah, though I know some people were really offended by it. That was never the problem for me though. I feel like the tagline of this book should be “don’t write it off, give it a try”, because even the author felt like she had to convince her readers that they should care and want to read about Marie.

I’m honestly quite shocked to say that I loved Running Wild.

The simple wild book cover