Americana UK
Jonathan Aird, 5 May 2023. Reads the book as a sequence of recollections and anecdotes rather than a shaped narrative, and finds the interest in the sheer number of things that happen to her.
"it's certainly a life full of incident"
Book Review: Vashti Bunyan "Wayward: Just Another Life To Live"
American Blues Scene
Bill Graham, 19 April 2023. Comes to the book as a reader of music biography and takes from it an account of living at the margins, and of getting through.
"a story of triumph of the human spirit"
'Wayward' – Vashti Bunyan's Telling Of A Life Lived
Los Angeles Review of Books
Dave Mandl, 2 September 2022. Sets the failure of Just Another Diamond Day against its rediscovery thirty years later, and argues that the years away are the real subject.
"A rare memoir that deserves the now-exhausted metaphor 'journey'"
"I'm Going to Learn How to Make My Own Kind of Life": On Vashti Bunyan's "Wayward"
The Quietus
Mathew Lyons, 9 April 2022. Takes issue with the words usually attached to Bunyan's singing, and argues that the restraint of her prose is a deliberate and hard-won thing rather than a weakness.
"The delicacy comes from a place of great resilience."
Lives Lost In Mending Gaps: Wayward By Vashti Bunyan
Buzz Magazine
David Nobakht, 6 April 2022. Finds that her reasons for leaving London went much deeper than a taste for the open road, and reads the book as an account of refusing the industry's terms.
"A beautifully written and moving book penned by a gentle soul"
Wayward book review: Vashti Bunyan's unconventional music career
The Observer
Kitty Empire, 3 April 2022. Follows the counterculture dream as it comes apart under hardship and the gender roles of the day, and is struck throughout by the sexism Bunyan met.
"spare, often luminous prose"
Wayward by Vashti Bunyan review – the adventures of wander woman
Louder Than War
Nicky Crewe, 31 March 2022. Traces the line from the 1968 journey to the album to the return three decades later, and reads the book as a record of endurance.
"Her softness became a strength and her fragility transformed into resilience"
Just Another Life To Live by Vashti Bunyan – book review
SNACK
Keira Brown, 15 March 2022. An early Scottish review, written before publication, which keeps its attention on the decisions the journey forced on her rather than on the scenery.
"an emotional and explorative tale about finding purpose, living life and making decisions"
Book Review: Vashti Bunyan – Wayward: Just Another Life to Live