The Wayfinder

May 8

About the book

Author: Adam Johnson
Publisher: MCD

More info:
The StoryGraph | Goodreads
Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the review.

Buy and support indie bookstores (+ I earn a small commission):
Bookshop.org (print or ebook) | Libro.fm (audio)

My review

The Wayfinder is not an easy read — it’s more than 700 pages long and demands close attention — but I did find it a worthy one.

Sweeping, immersive, and steeped in magic and the traditions of oral storytelling, this novel is a fictionalization of the Tongan Empire of the Polynesian Islands, which peaked between the years of 1200 and 1500 CE. It follows two alternating timelines, one of which features a young woman named Kōrero on a nondescript island and another that follows the king (Tuʻi Tonga) and his three sons on the main island of Tongatapu. I won’t spoil how the two timelines come together, but suffice to say that I did find they added a sense of curiosity and suspense that occasionally felt like a lifeline in a book that is so long and so brutal.

Because as beautiful as it is, it’s also brutal and violent, especially toward women (although this reads as authentic to the Tongan Empire rather than gratuitous). It’s also demanding; you can’t zone out for a single page, and as a result I only read it when I was able to sit down and tandem read it with audio/print PLUS felt like I had the brain capacity, and so it took me a long time to finish.

Could it have been shorter and still gotten its points across? Probably. Should it have been? I would say no; sometimes the immersion, the detail, the patience it asks, is the point.

Next time you’re ready for a literary challenge, make The Wayfinder a contender.