Ben and Aelxei are thru-hiking the Pacific Coast Trail, which may sound like garbled nonsense to you if you’re also an Indoor Person like me. But the gist is this: they’re walking from the Mexican border to the Canadian border, give or take a few hundred miles. Alexei is hiking to clear his head and come to terms with his new reality after coming out to his super religious family. Ben is hiking to prove to himself that he can do grown up things and make good choices before starting a new career. So of course these two giant cinnamon rolls meet by chance and decide to hike together for a while! Their dynamic filled me with such utter and profound joy that I don’t think I have the words to fully describe it. Are there hardships and misunderstandings and bad choices? Yes. But there are also two dopey idiots falling in love and learning to accept themselves just as they are. A recurring theme is that The Trail Provides: companionship when you’re lonely, water when you’re thirsty, dinosaurs when you’re in need of a campy distraction. Personally, the trail provided me with Ben and Alexei at a time when reading was starting to feel like more of a chore than something I do for fun. I truly wish every book could make me as incandescently happy as Something Wild and Wonderful. Thank you so much to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read this ARC early!