*Sexually explicit content.
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Disclaimer: I have read this book of my own volition. Any and all opinions and interpretations contained herein are my own.
The Spoiler Report is a recounting of the major events of the novel mixed with my own interpretation of the meaning and symbolism of events, emotions, and actions. Reading this report is NOT a substitute for reading the actual novel and should not be taken as such. Not every single detail, feeling, and event is divulged within. It is essentially a lengthy outline of the story. Many details and all dialogue have not been included. This report is for those who appreciate knowing what happens or feels they may miss things when reading, or just want to have a detailed overview of a book before, during, or after reading.
****THIS REPORT CONTAINS SPOILERS****
This is not a book review. For the full review of Something Wilder, please visit HERE.
The story begins with a short prologue painting a picture of Lily Wilder and Leo Grady as they begin their happy life – young. Lily has just been given the responsibility of managing her family’s ranch. Which she has big plans to revitalize.
With her father, Duke, gearing up to presumably set out on another Indian Jones style treasure hunt. Lily sees her and Leo, her love of all of five months, living out a dream in Wyoming.
Fast forward to present day, a decade later, and Lily is living in Utah, with her best friend Nicole. With the help of Nicole, Lily owns and operates an adventure business called Wilder Adventures. They offer tourists a week long adventure journeying along the trails of Butch Cassidy and his gang. Hores-back riding, roughing it, and treasure hunting.
Meanwhile, Leo has landed back in New York, where he began, working a corporate 9-5. Annually, he and his best friend, Bradly, take off on a friends’ vacation. This year it is Bradly’s chance to plan the trip. A trip that no one knows any details until they arrive at their destination.
Of course, Bradly has chosen Wilder Adventures.
Lily is still hurting over the loss of Leo. When Leo unexpectedly shows up as one of Lily’s guests it knocks the wind out of her. Leo doesn’t react much differently. He is still the same person she remembers only better now that he is a full-grown man at the age of thirty-two.
After their first day of traveling on horseback and an awkward orientation, they stop to make camp for the night. That is where Lily and Leo find themselves alone by the fire and a chance to have the talk.
Once they are able to get their versions of the past out into the open, they both realize they were living under a diluted veil of miscommunication.
Lily was only able to stay on the ranch for a week after Leo left when they were young. The supposed dig her father had left for was really him going to sell the ranch. She had only tried to call Leo once, three days after he left, but it was the day he was arranging his mother’s cremation and was cold and terse with her. Of course Lily took it as he was over and done with her. Justified by never hearing from him again.
She never heard from him because she had left the ranch and drowned her phone because she was so mad at her dad. By the time Leo called Lily at the ranch he spoke only with her dad and left messages with him for Lily. Since Lily’s phone was sleeping with the fishes, her dad was unable to pass along the messages. Lily and Leo – ships passing in the night of bitter waters.
Once the truth is out, both Lily and Leo are flooded with guilt. If only they had known…
Lily and Leo spend the next couple of days avoiding any direct contact not pertaining to the excursion. Neither truly knowing how to process that they were both simply victims of horrible circumstances and nothing more.
Terry, one of the friends in the group, the kind of guy that not only do you have to apologize for but be ready to convince people not to press harassment charges against. Terry has caused problems since the guys arrived at the airport. Of course when he saw that two women were to be their guides, well, there was no hiding his true nature.
While the other three men were trying to solve a puzzle given by Lily in order for them to get their dinner one night, Terry wonders off. Something the girls have expressly warned against. When he returns, Lily notices that Duke’s journal is sticking out of his bag. In the struggle to get it back, a gun is discovered in Terry’s bag. Feeling threatened, Terry pulls the gun and grabs Nicole. Holding the gun to her head, Terry raves about the treasure that is still ‘out there.’
Out of nowhere, the desk-riding Leo decides he can’t let anything happen to Nicole. Rushing Terry unexpectedly, he saves the girl. Then gently goes for the gun, trying to talk Terry down.
As soon as Terry realizes he can’t undo his actions or the impending consequences he begins to fight, ensnaring all the guys. The gun is thrown off to the side of a small cliff.
Being the sandy desert that it is, the scuffle builds into an all encompassing cloud of dust. As realization that there is a drop off nearby hits them, the guys stop fighting. The dust settles just in time for them to see Terry disappear over the edge.
Appropriately, chaos ensues as everyone begins to panic. Not thinking, Bradly grabs the gun and points it at Lily and Nicole after Walter says he saw Bradley push Terry. Bradley adamantly insists Terry’s fall was an accident. The more Walter, very matter-of-factly, states Bradley pushed Terry the more the others agree.
Nicole’s answer is to put a knife to Leo throat. Trying to dissolve the situation, Leo mentions his sister, Cora. The sister that knows his friend as Uncle Bradley. Hearing her name brings him back to reality and dropped the gun.
Once all is calm, Lily finds comfort in Leo’s arms and tells everyone about the journal. It is very akin to Indian Jones and the Last Crusade. Famous father’s famous journal with clues that have been gathered over the years pointing to the resting place of a famous treasure. Any treasure hunter worth anything knows about the notebook and has been wanting to get their hands on it.
Two pages had been torn from the back and then shoved back in, bringing attention to them – a map and a riddle.
After going through the rest of Terry’s bag, they realized he was ready to handcuff and subdue anyone who got in his way of going after the treasure. The group discusses if they should start taking the possibility of the treasure seriously. It was only supposed to be legend. With the ultimate decision landing on Lily’s shoulders. She decides to sleep on it.
In the morning, her and Leo get another chance to check in with one another. She tells Leo that her father, Duke, had had a stroke two weeks after Leo left the ranch. Lily had already moved away but had to return in order to take care of him. She took Duke home to his cabin and looked after him for the last three years of his life. Three years where he could only mutter one word – Lily.
Both admit they had fantasied about running into each other in the future, how they would find each other, and what they thought the other’s future would have looked like. Both agreeing that no matter how they would have met, the possibility of them had passed.
Just by happenstance, the day before Lily took the guys out, she got a letter from the man that bought the ranch from her father. He is selling the ranch and giving Lily a chance to be the first to purchase it.
Having Leo there gives Lily the confidence to find some hope and optimism.
To start their journey, they stop in the small town of Ely, population, 2.
Settled in the ‘eatery’ which is more a bar than anything else, the five of them go over maps and try to decipher more of her father’s riddle.
It isn’t until Leo goes into the men’s bathroom and sees a picture of Duke in front of a cabin, entitled “Duke’s Tree’. Emerging from the bathroom soaking wet, Leo rushes everyone to their newly borrowed Jeep. He stole the picture that was nailed directly into a pipe that was now leaking water into the bar. Not surprisingly Axl, the owner of the bar and one of two residents of Ely, is now chasing them in his ode-to-small-penises truck with a friend in the passenger seat.
Thus begins their Goonies style car chase. Lily sits in the backseat with Leo fighting car sickness. Good ol’ Leo to the rescue as he soothes her with his words and a neck massage. Anti-climatically, they lose the truck after it gets stuck in a ditch.
Reaching their camp for the night, Leo begins to take stock and realize his life back in NY has become something of fiction. Being out in Utah awakens him – it feels right.
Quickly trying to set up their tents before a pending storm, Leo helps Lily with hers. For some reason, this is too much for Lily. Pulling Leo behind a rock for some ‘privacy’, she confronts Leo about his possessive behavior.
When Leo tells Lily he still has feelings for her, she breaks – more. To Lily, losing Leo was the catalyst for every awful thing that has happened in her life over the last decade. While she understands why everything happened as it did with his departure, it doesn’t erase the pain. Lily fears having Leo back in her life will take her to that place of hurt again.
The storm hits and they instantly become drenched. Hurt turns to nostalgia, turns to want. When Leo starts to head back to his tent, Lily grabs him and kisses him fiercely. Frantically grabbing at each other until something in Lily snaps. She jogs away without a word.
Early into their journey the next morning, Walter slips and breaks his ankle. It is decided that Lily and Leo will go on with the treasure hunt and Nicole and Bradley will take Walter back and to a hospital where they will tell the authorities about Terry. Their official ‘Terry story’ is that he wandered off and Lily and Leo are out looking for him.
Crossing an engorged river due to the recent rains, Lily’s foot becomes entangled in some underwater roots. After a suspenseful rescue, Leo and Lily finally stumble onto the shore. Both becoming more aware how much they mean to each other now that they have faced the possibility of death. Leo wanting to rekindle their relationship and never let her go. Lily is stuck in self-preservation land convinced burying her emotions will prevent a repeat.
Trying to recover from her bout in the river, Lily ends up on Leo’s dry sleeping bag, since her pack was completely submerged, next to the fire. Leo in a pair of boxers. After some nostalgic banter Leo joins her in the sleeping bag next to the fire.
On the verge of kissing Leo, he tells her not to if she will regret it as she seemed to do last time. Leo doesn’t want his emotions played with any more than Lily. She opts not to kiss him.
Crammed into the one dry sleeping bag in their tent, snuggled in the same position they used to sleep when they were a couple. They each try their hardest to keep things as plutonic as they can while their entire bodies are squished together.
Waking in the middle of the night, Lily finds Leo is not asleep. Both, find being shoved into a tight sleeping bag with minimal clothing on, plus their history and fragile emotional state, too much to bear.
Still stuck in their own individually messy heads, Leo doesn’t want to be played with and used. Lily doesn’t want Leo to think hooking up means ‘forever.’ And yet, they hookup like hormonally driven teenagers. No sex, but they both find satisfaction. Which leads to them oversleeping and rushing come morning to continue their journey.
On which they finally talk about last night. Lily is reluctant to admit wanting to give them another chance. Leo is willing to do whatever it takes to be with her. Even give up his established life to be whatever she needs, wherever she is.
But Lily keeps rejecting and refuting every one of his suggestions. She’s been hurt and borderline traumatized and will not bend.
Finding the cabin from her childhood, the one from the bathroom photo, they rush to get inside as another storm hits.
After trudging up more emotional baggage, they end up abruptly having sex on the cabin floor.
Leo falls into an emotional spiral sleeping with her after a decade. But in the aftermath, they talk about all the little details of their lives since they parted.
The following morning, they are not able to locate Duke’s tree so they climb to a higher vantage point to get a better view. Up high they are able to get cell reception on Terry’s sat phone since Lily’s has died and she confiscated Leo’s, along with the rest of the guys’, at the beginning of the trip.
A text thread pops up to reveal that Terry was not working alone and his friends don’t know that he is dead. Despite Terry going dark, they are still determined to find the treasure. It is now a race!
Locating Duke’s tree, which is nothing more than a stump, Lily and Leo find a clue that looks like Braille and gives specific directions to the treasure. Just as they are about to kiss and Leo wrestles with whether or not he should drop the L-word, they hear the sound of a gun being cocked.
Two of Terry’s gang find them looking a little worse for the wear – Kevin and Jay. Binding their hands and feet, taking the journal, and the deciphered clue, they leave Lily and Leo to the elements. With a hidden knife in Lily’s boot, they cut themselves free.
Working their way up to an elevated point, Leo brings up more suggestions for their future now that it looks like they won’t be getting the treasure. He wants Lily to come back to NY with him. He can take care of her until they save enough money to move.
Allowing herself to unclench slightly, Lily admits that she does want a future with him, but can’t see any way, at the moment, for that to happen. She still feels the need to survive on her own without any help. Leo would be supporting her if she moved to New York with him.
Defeated in more ways than one, they call Nicole from the sat phone. She tells them that Bradley went home and Walter is recovering in a motel in Moab. Nicole is set to pick them up tomorrow afternoon.
Reflecting on the feelings of having Duke’s journal stolen – it is the only thing she had of him. Then realizing that they have things all wrong. Looking at the picture Leo stole from the bar, Lily sees that it is a mirror image. They need to go back to the cabin and look for a different stump which they find under a crumbled chimney that has preserved the stump and the clue it holds – same Braille-type clue with a different set of directions.
As before, a noise startles the two. It’s Bradley. Leo is initially happy to see him but Lily is skeptical about his presence. As Bradley triesto get them to tell him what has happened since they parted, Lily understands that Leo is not as trusting of Bradley either.
Working out what they have recently learned, Lily and Leo discover Bradley was the fourth person on the texting thread with Terry. Jay and Kevin emerge from the shadows. Leo wisely chooses this time to remind Bradley he was the one who pushed Terry off the cliff. Bradley dismisses Kevin’s and Jay’s concern over learning the truth and are having a hard time getting over the fact that Terry is most certainly dead.
Bradley admits he was working with Terry since the beginning. The only reason he brought Leo was to hopefully distract Lily so they could steal the journal and find the treasure.
Held at gunpoint, Leo and Lily guide them using the correct set of directions. At the end of their path is a small cave in which they find a small wooden box. Inside that is bunch of numbers written on pieces of papers.
Kevin beats Leo to persuade him to decipher whatever code Duke has left them. Hours later, as dawn approaches, Leo breaks the code – beat ya here.
Not believing him, Bradley makes Leo explain the code to him.
Shimming their way out of the box canyon, treasureless, the group is confronted by Nicole who is accompanied by a handful of rangers. The bad guys are promptly taken away. Bradley screaming, pleading the whole way for Leo to save him by confirming that it was Kevin and Jay who are the bad guys, not Bradley.
Nicole figured out that Bradley was not exactly what he claimed to be by the change in his behavior. At first he had been all gung ho about the adventure. After Lily and Leo went after the treasure he was obsessed with the money and how they would split it.
Instead of a treasure, Bradley gets to serve jail time with his buddies.
Seeing Leo in the hospital as he is recovering from his injuries, Lily sits at his bedside and internally tells Leo all the reasons they can’t work. That they come from two different worlds. But she finally gets it through her head that it is completely unhealthy for her not to be willing to try.
Leo wakes to find her sitting stoically at his bedside. He tells her that unless she is willing to literally tell him to piss off and get out of her life, he will never give up. She reminds him, for the millionth time, that he is the one that left her. She logically knows what the circumstances were and why everything happened as it did. But that doesn’t stop her from feeling like a victim and willing to do anything to never feel that way again.
But she admits that she does love him and is at least willing to hear him out.
With that settled, Leo asks Lily to hand him his jacket. In the pocket is a piece of paper with a string of numbers on it; computer code. A code that translates to ‘look at home’. Leo copied it from the numbers in the cave and hid it from Bradley and his friends.
The pair travel to Duke’s cabin, the one Lily took care of him in at the end of his life. But they have absolutely no idea what they are looking for. Beyond ‘look at home,’ they have nothing. Letting their brains stew, Lily begins to tap on her thigh as a nervous habit.
This time Leo takes notice of the rhythm and asks Lily about it. She tells him that it was Duke’s secret knock from when she was younger. After repeating the pattern a few times, Leo translates it as Morse Code that spells out L-I-L-I.
Looking around their surroundings for some context to the code, Leo notices there are nails everywhere in the walls emulating the code.
With relief Lily realizes the riddle was meant for her all along. Inspecting the walls, they discover a log on the wall that has been tampered with. Removing it, Lily pulls out a note, a key, and a single gold coin.
The next morning, they head to a bank.
The bank just happen to be the first bank that Butch Cassidy had robbed. As they step into the bank, a man approaches them because he recognizes Lily. And he was expecting them.
Fast forward two months, Lily, Leo, Nicole, and Walter are toasting over champagne. Nicole is now a land owner – the property adjacent to Wilder Ranch. Lily and Leo are planning on reopening Wilder Ranch after some travel.
At the bank, Lily was given a note that Duke wrote assuming he and Lily were supposed to have gone on the treasure hunt together. Duke hadn’t wanted to give the money to her outright. He wanted her to see what else was out there in the world. Didn’t want her to become so obsessed with a certain path that she became stuck and couldn’t see beyond it. Duke believed if he had told her about the money, it would have blinded Lily into following her same path. He sold the ranch so she would have some money to travel and expand her world, instead that money paid for Duke’s medical care.
All in all, Duke’s treasure was worth 15 million dollars.
