... a thought-provoking and heady mix of memoir, journalism and philosophy.

Three-quarters of the way through her book, Wells gives up on her series of immersive jaunts with 'believers' and steps back to draw on the thoughts and writings of others. We miss the outrageous forays, the wrong turns and the tangled ways her rootlessness drives her. Somewhere she loses her thread and fails to fully break through. Her own 'promised land' is always elsewhere.

Wells shows us the faces of an evolving movement dedicated to saving the planet from the ravages of human exploitation. Their stories are often heart-wrenching, with personal tragedies fueling their desire to create environmental change.

Believers is digressive and its scope broad, the book’s many threads tied by Wells’ appraisal of environmental damage and repair. She’s largely successful in this intertwining, although some storylines are better executed than others. A chapter that fluctuates between a reconciliation ceremony in Taos, New Mexico, and a mental breakdown on a trip to Philadelphia feels off-kilter. (Sometimes, the language itself feels circular; while reading, I underlined a sentence that struck me. When the same sentence appeared 10 pages later, its repetition felt more accidental than intentional.) Still, Wells’ prose, rooted in her poetry, gives her a unique advantage when writing about living through this unstable moment in history.

This impassioned plea and call to action will spark the interest of anyone who cares for our environment..

In this effective blend of reportage and memoir, poet and writer Wells introduces readers to various individuals with their own ideas about how to save the natural world.

Wells offers no pat prescriptions for nurturing 'lived relationships with water and plants and soil'—only an ardent hope that humans will persist in 'fighting and reconciling and reaching across the divide of mutual misapprehension' to save their world. An urgent message gently conveyed..

... [a] dense and eclectic survey.