Wilder Girls was one of my most anticipated releases of this year, and it intrigued me enough not only because of that gorgeous and stunning cover, but also because the premise sounded so unique and interesting that I knew I had to pick it up, and surely it did not disappoint. There were some minor details that didn’t make it a 5 star read, but it was such an incredible book and I’m so happy I read it.

The beginning was a bit slow and it took me a few chapters to get into the story and the writing style (maybe my reading slump was to blame for that), but once I kept reading it was such a gripping and fast paced book, full of action packed scenes and twists and turns that kept me at the edge of my seat wanting to know what was going to happen next. It was shocking for me to finish it in one sitting, because despite me being quite a fast reader, it’s quite unusual for me to finish an entire book in a go, but because of the pacing it was pretty easy to me to get carried away with the story.

Despite me being a bit thrown off by the writing style at the very beginning of the novel, I soon fell in love with it. The descriptions of places and landscapes were so incredibly detailed I could picture them clearly in my mind and it almost felt as if I was being inside this world, and I also really loved the friendship and the slow burn romance that started to happen in the middle of Wilder Girls.

When it comes to the characters, I have to say I was pretty impressed. Though their backstories weren’t super complex and there were some parts that I wish I’d known about them and their families, I adored the interactions between Hetty and Reese. Their dynamics throughout the story were so smooth and well written, and also their chemistry was incredible. I also really enjoyed Byatt’s POV, and I think she added a lot of insight of what was going on. Plus I think her perspective was pretty different from Hetty’s (not only in the writing style used, but also in her personality), and you could definitely feel that despair and hopelessness throughout it, which I appreciated a lot because it added such realism to the novel.

My only complains were that I think it was a pretty short book. Wilder Girls felt more like a prologue, and I honestly would be pretty disappointed if it was just a standalone, because that ending made me believe otherwise. I was also quite confused with the flashbacks, because there wasn’t anything that made it different from the actual plot, and it took me a few paragraphs to realize I was reading a memory.

Overall, I really enjoyed Wilder Girls. The plot was super interesting to follow, and I liked the take the Tox had in the story. I’m so interested to see the oath the story will take in the sequel (if there will be any) and see the journey that awaits these characters.

this is an intense read that drops you right in the horror setting immediately. I liked the premise and I kept reading because I wanted to know what was happening.
however, this book just didn't end well for me. I couldn't understand why the CDC was unable to diagnose the Tox and if the main characters were truly going to survive the end of the story, and some of the emotional arcs were really muddled and didn't resonate.

Bio-horror is typically not my thing. Too gross. And this book is indeed super, super gross, but it’s also an exceptionally good story, one undoubtedly worth stomaching all the yuck moments for.

I’ve been off dystopian novels for a while now. The genre is flooded with books that are at best nothing new and at worst unreadably bad. So I’m not sure what possessed me to give Wilder Girls a shot. But I’m glad I did.

I’ve seen this described as feminist horror by other reviewers. Not quite how I would have labeled it, but also not wrong. The frequent Lord of the Flies comp isn’t far off the mark either, though this felt less *mean* than Lord of the Flies, if also harsher and more grotesque.

In all this book was a pleasant (can I even use that word to describe this carnival of horrors?) surprise, one well outside my general areas of interest but that I liked very much in spite of that. Just don’t read it while you’re eating.

Thank you NetGalley and Delacorte Press for sharing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I chose this book because if the cover and the title. I am a sucker for covers and this one intrigued me. The swirling of the face, it looking like someone was being unraveled (I had just read Unwind by Shusterman) and then a title about “wild girls” made me pause to read the description of this book. Once I read it, I knew this was a book for me. I am a huge fan of dystopian novels that focus on powerful women and friendships. If you enjoy those books or are looking for one that fits that description, then you need to grab a copy of this book. Once I dove in to this story, I was hooked. Powers left me guessing until the very end and I could not predict anything. The setting was beautifully, and horrifyingly, well-written. Her character development was strong. Her plot was engaging.

Go read this book.

Let me start by saying that this book is like nothing I've read before. People are describing it as the Feminist Lord of the Flies, but even in comparison to that, it's nothing like anything I've read.

I think what got me was that I blindly read this book. I saw the cover and was all about it. The book started out slow, with VERY long chapters. But as I got to know the characters, I found myself staying up late to read the next long chapter. I'm not a big sci-fi fan, but this had just enough elements to make it interesting without over the top.

One thing I will say is that this is not for anyone who gets queasy or nervous about books that could happen. The Tox, the reason these girls are quarantined on the island is extremely disturbing and finishing the book makes you think we could be not that far off from it. Some of the Tox side effects of the girls in this book are not easy to read. I also found some scenes to be very intense and vividly described, something that is not for the faint of heart.

Read this book if you enjoy reading some sci-fi, don't mind gore, and love original work.

Wilder Girls was a bizarre and extremely interesting read. I was shocked at how much I liked this book.I think that young adults and regular adults would really enjoy this book.

I mostly liked this. But there was simply too much weird things that had zero explanation or purpose, given the way the book ended. It kind of petered, rather than tying everything together in a satisfying, chilling way like I was expecting. But I am here for this new trend of feminist horror circling the YA spheres right now.

Well that was just amazing. I’ve been needed a good dystopian kind of read and this is what I was looking for. I will point out that I am usually very much into a good ol’ disease spreading kind of story but this was such a good one with a YA twist. I also love gore and this has to be one of the goriest YA books I’ve ever read. I also had an extreme fascination with the disease. It was very unique. Also, all I have to say is, YAY FOR GAY. What a fantastic book. It’s released on July 9,2019!

I really like the writing style of this one, but I had to DNF because I just wasn't in the mood for dystopian before it expired. So it's a me-not-you situation!

Almost two years ago, the Raxter School for Girls was placed under quarantine after a mysterious disease, the Tox hit. The Tox hits everyone differently. One girl grew gills, another bio luminescent hair, and one grew a second spine. Plagued with terrible pains, bruises, and sometimes death, the girls are largely left alone. All but two of the adults have died, their bodies unable to handle the invading Tox. The local navy base delivers supplies across the island. Hetty, chosen to join the boat girls, treks across the island, only to uncover a horrible secret.

This was a bizarre, hard to put down book. I found myself reading late into the night. The characters were extremely interesting. They were also very realistic. I would love to read more from this author. Overall, highly recommended.

Feminist horror, yes please and thank you, may I have some more?

** Trigger warning for suicide. **

The Tox didn’t just happen to us. It happened to everything. […]

The way it happened is that the woods got it first. That’s what I think, anyway. Even before the wilderness reached inside us, it was seeping into the earth. The trees were growing taller, new saplings springing up faster than they had any right to. And it was fine; it was nothing worth noticing, until I looked out the window and couldn’t see the Raxter I knew anymore. That morning two girls tore each other’s hair out over breakfast with an animal viciousness, and by afternoon the Tox had hit us.

***

“We’ve been studying them,” Paretta says, crouching down in front of me. “The irises, and the blue crabs too. All of this is something we’re calling the Raxter Phenomenon.”
A phenomenon. Not a sickness, not a disease. It burns through my heart—that’s the word I’ve been looking for—but there’s something about the way she says it. The name too familiar, too easy on her tongue.

“Did they teach you about Raxter Blues at school?” she asks. “About what makes them special?”

I nod.

You mean the lungs

“And the gills,” Paretta says. “It’s pretty amazing, right? So it can survive anywhere. And I think it’s pretty amazing, too, that you girls are part of it now.”

Part of it. The way our bodies alter and bend. The way our fingers darken just before we die, pure black spreading up to our knuckles.

***

I think I have been a problem all my life. Here I am where problems go. First Raxter and now here, and I have always been heading here, haven’t I, haven’t I. Too bright and too bored and something missing, or perhaps something too much there.

***

The several hundred tweens and teens who attend the Raxter School for Girls run the gamut. Some, like Hetty Chapin, were admitted on scholarship when her father, a Navy man, was stationed at nearby Camp Nash. Others are warehoused there by parents who didn’t know how to deal with them; this would describe Hetty’s bestie Byatt. And then there’s Reese, the third point in this particular triumvirate (just one of many cliques at Raxter), who grew up on the island and whose father, Mr. Harker, works as a groundskeeper and general caretaker at Raxter.

Aside from the occasional tour group, he’s also the only cis man to walk Raxter Island on the regular. (That we know of! Dun dun duuuun!)

Raxter was already home to several biological anomolies – the Raxter irises, which bloom all year long; and the Blues, crabs that sport both gills and lungs for all-terrain survival – so perhaps it shouldn’t have come as a surprise when the Tox hit, altering the landscape of Raxter in ways both horrifying and wondrous. The flora took over, transforming Raxter into a forested backdrop from so many Grimm fairy tales. The nonhuman inhabitants grew to monstrous sizes. Predators became vicious and unpredictable, and even herbivores like deers sprouted canines better suited to ripping flesh from bones than leaves from trees.

And the girls.

The girls were either reclaimed or transformed by the wild, depending on your point of view; made a part of Raxter’s savage, shifting ecosystem, or else metamorphosed into something new. Something better. By which I mean something better suited to its environment; something with more favorable odds of survival. Their old environment or new one, you ask? Both. Neither. All of the above.

When the Tox hit, it changed everyone, though not in the same ways. One of Hetty’s eyes fused shut. Byatt grew a second spine and, eventually, her voice became a weapon capable of inflicting great violence. Reese’s skin turned silver and scaly, one of her hands grew lizard claws, and her hair took on an ethereal aura. Some girls grew teeth inside of them and coughed them up at night; one started to feel a second heartbeat in her chest. Blisters, boils, bruises, sores, scars. Webbed fingers and gills. No one bothers to hide their anomalies anymore; what’s the point?

Most of the adults dropped dead, save for Ms. Welch and the Headmistress. Mr. Harker started acting erratic and then disappeared into the woods. Some of the girls succumbed as well; the rest live in constant dread of the next flare-up.

Raxter Island is under quarantine; the school, already surrounded by an imposing iron fence, has become a prison/sick ward. Already isolated, internet service to Raxter was cut off pretty quickly. The regular supply drops help, but it seems that there’s never enough food to go around. Camp Nash, along with the Navy and CDC, implores the girls to stay alive and wait for help to come.

But it’s been a year and a half. How long can they hold on?

Spoiler alert: not much longer. When Byatt falls ill – by which I mean extremely ill, sicker than the others and in such bad shape that she cannot get around on her own – and is sent up to the super-secretive infirmary wing of the school, it sets in motion a chain of events that will bring everything to a head. Everyone at Raxter misses someone, or something. The question becomes, to what depths are they willing to sink to get it?

WILDER GIRLS is such a great story – true, edge-of-your-seat, white-knuckle reading. The characters are complex and compelling; the dynamics between Hetty-Byatt and Hetty-Reese and Hetty-Byatt-Reese are fascinating, and there’s a really lovely f/f romance in here to boot. The atmosphere is sufficiently spooky and the adults make for great villains (or antiheroes, again depending on your POV). The writing is a thing of beauty, and the subversive feminist elements really make the story shimmer and sparkle (and assail you with painful insights). This is a memorable piece of feminist horror with a dystopian twist, and I can’t wait to see what Power does next.

Honestly, the only downside (and reason for the four-star rating) is the ending, which leaves things a little open-ended for me. Then again, wrapping things up with a shiny red bow would have felt cheap and dishonest, so there’s that.

I won’t say more for fear of spoiling things (it’s really best to go in cold I think), but the hype is real. Badass ladies (and male allies), you want to read this book.

sigh. I wanted to like this book so much. That cover? that blurb? the promise of a gay feminist horror novel which may just be the best triple genre combination I've ever heard? sounds like my dream book.

But it wasn't. It wasn't even a nightmare book either. It was the kind of dream that you wake up and you forget about it immediately.

One thing this book had going for it is it didn't try to make it's female characters pretty, and it didn't try to make them likable. A lot of books, whether it's the fault of the author or not, tend to make its female characters softer or more palatable to reach a wider audience, but WILDER GIRLS was unafraid of making its characters mean, grotesque, and human, despite the physical changes that made them look anything but by the sickness permeating their camp. These characters are on par with Courtney Summers's main character in All the Rage, or M.R. Carey's The Girl With All the Gifts. Also! no queerbaiting. Always a plus.

However, the plot and setting just led for me to be bored for the entirety of the novel. Not to mention, books from multiple points of view, all in first person, rarely sit right with me. I will give it this -- the points of view each had distinct voices that separated them from each other, alas, it was not enough to get me to keep reading.

I think others will like this book. I'm sure that when the audiobook is released, I'll listen to it, just because I want to know how it ends. I'm going to read Rory Powers's other books. This one just wasn't for me.

This is the stuff of nightmares. A disfiguring plague, zombie animals, the scariest woods ever, and (let's be honest, the true horror) a bunch of teenage girls without proper adult supervision – all on an island without any means of escape? Oh, my.

Rory Power demonstrates incredible world-building skills. Her writing style is evocative - I truly experienced every creak, drip, and snarl. There is obvious subtext comparing the story’s literal horrors to the equally brutal adolescent experience. It’s easy to see why it’s promoted as a modern feminist Lord of the Flies. Although certainly a page-turner, I was disappointed with the great-start-but-not-quite-there characterization. A few more glimpses into the girls’ lives might have bridged the emotional gap (and made that romance arc a bit more convincing). For horror, I particularly want the transcendental quality that makes me *know* and *become* the characters. Actually, I wanted MORE all around – the ending was fine, although somewhat unsatisfying. Glad I read it, but I’d like the “Extended Director’s Cut” now, please.

Note: This book cover is outstanding.

True rating would be closer to 4.5 stars. Points deducted only because the premise is not that original, one I'd summarize as the Wayward Children meet the Southern Reach. Evocative prose, interesting characters, searing emotions. Lots of fear and anxiety, mixed with friendship and love. Might be considered YA, but there are a lot of adult situations in character actions, descriptions of what's happening to the girls is gruesome at times, and their psychological nature might be traumatic for some readers. Still recommended.

This book is dark and atmospheric and haunting and lovely. I loved Annihilation and this book definitely has similarities in story and ~vibes~ but it is also so unique and strange in its own way. Which is to say if you liked Annihilation, but wish there was a little more explanation and lady kissing this is a book for you.
This is a story about friendship and love and the things we are willing to do to protect both in the darkest of circumstances. It is a story of survival. It is a story of the darkness within us that threatens to break free and what happens when it does. It is surprising and lyrically written and dark and captures the inner emotions of these young girls poised on the edge of becoming. I can't wait for more and for the rest of the world to read this book.

This book is astonishing in its own raw viciousness. I have never devoured a book so quick in my life. This book is going to be a HUGE deal. I’ll write more on it later.

I’m crying, this book is so good. I don’t have time to write a complete review tonight but I’m telling you, it’s going to be a classic.

This book is so dear to my heart, it's so vicious and harrowing. It scrapes you hollow and you want to save these girls so much. It reminds of The Thing and Lord of the Flies and it treats girls with rough hands, survivalist's hands.

It feels like a nightmare with the dream filter punched up high to hide it. I have never felt so gut-punched by a book written in the last decade as I did after reading this one. The characters and voices are strong, the plot moves the story along at the perfectly creeping pace it maintains throughout, just enough information is left off to keep you guessing, and you are rooting for these tiny monstrous girls to just get some semblance of normal back.

If Sophia Coppola doesn't turn this into a movie, I'm going to be devastated.

(non-spoiler review)

TW/CW: body horror, violence/gore, self-harm, suicide

The concept of this book is incredibly interesting, and it’s executed well, letting us understand the background and ‘rules’ of the Tox without info-dumping. The writing style is perfect for the atmosphere, making even the smallest things feel a little creepy while also still feeling poetic and lyrical. There were so many lines I highlighted just because they were so well written, e.g. “At some point the order was alphabetical but we’ve all lost things, eyes and hands and last names.” And the descriptions of the Tox and its effects, ooh I loved them *chef’s kiss*.

The plot overall was well-paced, with excellent use of suspense and multiple good pieces of foreshadowing building up to different reveals/twists. It wasn’t necessary fast-paced, but I still always felt on the edge of my seat, wanting to know what happened next or what that small hint was leading me to.

Our three main characters, Hetty, Byatt, and Reese, were all well-developed and filled a proper role without being archetypal or one-dimensional. Their relationships with each other, themselves, the world, etc. were all unique and complex, and they could all stand on their own solidly.

They were also all morally gray, as well as all the other characters in the book, which brings me to what I think this book did best: moral ambiguity. No one in this book is 100% likeable; they all think, say, and do questionable things. Characters fight each other for food, they lie, they sacrifice the ‘greater good’ for what they want/think they need. They’re real, and a perfect expression of what humanity is like sometimes, especially when placed in such confined and dire circumstances as these characters.

That moral ambiguity ties into some of the themes I drew from the book, including the messiness of people, the world and our choices; the lengths we’ll go for the people we love; sacrifices we’ll make for some greater good, and the grayness of what that really is; how trust can save us or lead us down dark paths and the complexities of knowing who to give it to.

So yes, I really enjoyed this book. However, it wasn’t perfect, so I wanted to point out the two things that I felt made it that way. The first was a couple plot point/twists I wish had been handled differently (no spoilers, obviously). One was a change in character motivation that seemed very 180 and unexplained, and the other was the ending, which felt just a little too open-ended to me (don't get me wrong, I think open endings are really cool, but this one meant that we lost some development I was hoping for).

The other is the one that made me saddest, and that was the untapped potential/development with one of the characters. Obviously I won’t say who, but we unveiled one character’s ‘darker side’ and the complexities we hadn’t seen from the other perspective, but it was never really explained if that makes sense. Not only was I struggling to tell which parts were just them and which was the worsening Tox (which was maybe the point, but it was still frustrating), but I was waiting for more explanation in general about why they were like this and such and I just…never got it. Which was disappointing, because that character was so intriguing to read about.

OVERALL, a very atmospheric, creepy, and morally gray book that, despite some faults, was an absolute delight to read.

Everything about this was a pleasant surprise. In fact, I'm willing to go so far as to say Wilder Girls is note perfect. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what else this author offers.

Let me first thank Netgalley and the publishers for the advance reading copy in exchange for an honest review. I did enjoy this book just not as much as I originally thought. To be honest, I didn’t know a whole lot before going into this book. I saw it around social media and briefly knew it was about a school of girls quarantined due to the Tox. This was enough to peak my interest.

I really had high hopes at the start of the book. Sadly halfway through, after getting the initial descriptions of the Tox and what happens when infected, sadly the wow factor just seemed to dwindle for me. The characters were just okay for me. I guess what I’m trying to get at without spoiling anything is that the idea behind this was great, but it didn’t hold my interest until the very end like I hoped. I still would recommend it to others interested in it because it was a good book! Just probably not one that I will think about months from now.

Wilder Girls is atmospheric and haunting; its main characters are dynamic and vicious and a joy to read. What Rory Power does with the narration when it switches point of view is brilliant and breathtaking. Gripping, surprising, and disturbing, this book had me gasping out loud on public transit.

The writing is lyrical and also painful; soft and flowing yet capable of punching you in the gut at any moment. Every word feels well-placed. Much like the girls themselves, turning into monsters, there is something beautiful and something dangerous about this book.

I received an eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.