Match BookWomen Who Run With the Wolves
Clarissa Pinkola Estés
1992 · 537 pages · Narrative nonfiction
How it reads
Women Who Run With the Wolves is narrative nonfiction (mythological psychology, specifically), and its dominant mood is hopeful. Whatever it puts its people through, it believes things can get better. It's a slow burn: character-driven, with a payoff that comes from accumulation rather than twists. It rewards attention and suits unhurried reading more than five-minute gaps.
It's set in several locations, in no single period, told through letters, documents or mixed forms. Its central concerns are identity, nature and faith. In weight it's heavy and literary — denser, more serious, and more demanding of you.
It stands alone, so there's nothing else you need to read first or after. The ending is left open, for you to argue about. At 537 pages it's an ordinary novel's length. It's well known, the kind of book most keen readers have heard of.
Pick it up if…
- you're in the mood for something hopeful
- you have time to settle in
- you want something to chew on
Maybe not if…
- you need something melancholy or dark
- you're reading in five-minute gaps
- you want something you can finish this weekend
All 15 dimensions
- Genre
- narrative nonfiction
- Author gender
- female
- Author experience
- prolific veteran
- Setting: place
- multiple locations
- Setting: time
- timeless or multiple
- Mood / feeling
- hopeful
- Pace
- slow burn
- Tone / weight
- heavy and literary
- Length
- long
- Narrative style
- letters, documents or mixed forms
- Publication era
- modern classic
- Popularity
- well known
- Series vs standalone
- standalone
- Themes
- identity, nature, faith
- Ending style
- ambiguous
What these mean: the 15 dimensions of a book.
Books with a similar reading
The closest books in Match Book's catalogue across the same dimensions, and what they share.
- On the Genealogy of MoralsFriedrich NietzscheShares: narrative nonfiction, heavy and literary tone, slow burn, ambiguous ending
- The Perennial PhilosophyAldous HuxleyShares: narrative nonfiction, heavy and literary tone, slow burn, ambiguous ending
- Critique of Practical ReasonImmanuel KantShares: narrative nonfiction, heavy and literary tone, slow burn, set in multiple locations
- Cooked: A Natural History of TransformationMichael PollanShares: narrative nonfiction, hopeful mood, heavy and literary tone, set in multiple locations
- Thinking In Systems: A PrimerDonella H. MeadowsShares: narrative nonfiction, hopeful mood, heavy and literary tone, slow burn
- Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution – and How It Can Renew AmericaThomas L. FriedmanShares: narrative nonfiction, hopeful mood, heavy and literary tone, ambiguous ending
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