Thank you to NetGalley, Rory Power, and Random House Children's for the opportunity to read Wilder Girls in exchange for an honest review.

This book is told from the perspectives of Hetty and Byatt, two girls attending Raxter School for Girls,  along with their friend Reese.

The school and everyone on the island are quarantined because of a phenomenon they call the "Tox." Unsure of what this strange epidemic is, the girls at Raxter all know one thing: it mutilates and kills. Each girl is affected by the Tox in a different way. Perhaps growing an extra eyelid, or a second spine, or even another heart! While the appearance of these extra body parts might be painful in themselves, it's the flare-ups that really bring the girls to worry, never knowing if they will make it through the fevers. But still, they wait for a cure.

Hetty, Byatt, and Reese are as close as friends can be when there aren't many alternatives on a quarantined island. Each girl has her part to play, including Boat Shift, where the girls bring in newly delivered food and supplies, or Gun Shift, where girls are trained to shoot and kill anything that comes through the gate, for they aren't the only ones on the island affected by the Tox. The animals have mutated in frightening ways as well.

Hetty starts as Gun Shift but is later promoted to Boat Shift, which makes her friend Reese furious; she wanted the job herself. One of the better perks, being first to see what comes in, having prime selection from supplies before anyone else.

Their worries soon dissolve when Byatt, sick from a flare-up, goes missing. Hetty refuses to have her best friend, someone she even considers a sister, taken away from her. While Reese and Hetty work together to find Byatt, they also act on their own buried feelings for each other. While the LGBTQ aspect of this book is a bit short, it is there, and it's something that can be built upon later in the series.

Meanwhile, Byatt is being experimented on. Are they actually seeking a cure, or is there more to the experimentation?

When the school is compromised for a number of reasons, it's up to Hetty and Reese to find their friend and escape the island, no matter the cost.

This was a pleasurable read with its tinge of horror. The horrific descriptions are phenomenal in their detail, and the concept of the Tox and what it does to something alive (human, plant, or animal) is rather intriguing. I would recommend for the older side of the YA age group, or any fan of strange horrors and mysterious happenings.

Overall, an enjoyable book with exciting potential in a sequel.

Wilder Girls is set on in an all girl’s school on an island in Maine. Already cut off from the mainland, they are further isolated as the Navy and the CDC remove their ability to communicate with the outside world.
The unknown illness, or “the Tox” as they call it comes in waves, killing most of the teachers and several of the girls. Those that survive are forever changed in strange and obvious way, some growing claws, extra spines, a 2nd heartbeat, blindness and more.

And then they noticed that it began to do the same to the wildlife.

The story is focused on the relationship of three best friends that have survived. When one is taken to the infirmary during one of her spells, the girls discover that things are not what they appear to be. The remaining duo decide to find out more and get their friend back, no matter the cost.

The cover artwork was amazingly done and attracted my attention on several occasions before I read the synopsis.

My only regret is that there was not enough back story. The reader is thrown into the story during a changing of the guard with little information. I feel that had the history of the Tox been explained, the book would have been a little more cohesive.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This book is weird, gross, intense, and horrifying... and I LOVED IT. I think this will shock and delight readers, as it did me. Fans of Annihilation should particularly love it.

Wilder Girls is set at a girls' boarding school on a remote island off the coast of Maine, that has been hit with the Tox, which ravages the girls' bodies and changes them. The mutations are fascinating/at times gross (one girl's eye is swollen shut, something moving behind it, another girl develops a second spine, a third has a silver, scaled, pointed arm/hand), and they kill some girls, leaving others to fight for limited food and resources. They're quarantined by the Navy, and everything on the island is trying to kill them--animals turned vicious and grown out of control/rotting from the inside out. Of course, whatever's changing them might kill them first--many girls don't survive their flare ups. Will the Navy finally find a cure before it's too late?

I mean, it's creepy AF. The girls are ruthless, and there's lots of blood, gore, death. There are conspiracies and secrets. It's super queer, and effortlessly so. And like, SO GROSS. Lots of body horror. I was both horrified and deeply impressed. It reminded me of Annihilation in that sense--I was fascinated by all the bonkers sci-fi body bending and melding of animal & human... if it had been a movie I probably would have closed my eyes during some of the pure body horror scenes, but reading it, I just read super fast, gasping all the way ha. If you're squeamish, there are a few passages (at least three) where it just gets REAL GROSS. Of course, horror readers (and sci-fi horror readers) will LOVE IT.

There were some fun twists, as ultimately it is a suspense thriller. Once I hit the mid-point, I had trouble putting it down! Up until that point, reading Wilder Girls was like a warm bath--I wanted to just swim in the gorgeous prose/haunting imagery as I got to know the girls. And I shouldn't give that short shrift: the prose is hauntingly beautiful. It's a stylistic choice some YA readers may not like, but I devoured. It had a literary bend without being too pretentious. I wanted to drink down some of the sentences. I can really see this sparking with adult sci-fi horror readers, and being a crossover favorite.

Also THAT COVER.

This story was absolutely captivating. Rory did a fantastic job of creating such a horrifying story of these girls, and their teachers stuck in quarantine on their school island. No knowledge of what is eating at them. Everyone is just trying to survive, and it is barely. This mysterious toxic has infected everyone on the island, and it does horrifying things to the people it touches.
This rag tag trio of girls, Hetty, Byatt, and Reese have this different dynamic. What they go through shapes them into these harder beings. I love that they have this fierceness about them. It was also so disturbing because you could absolutely see something like this unfold in reality.
TRIGGER WARNING: It is very graphic, and gory. There is a full list of all the possible triggers on the author's website.

I honestly tired so hard to finish this book, but I could not force myself to read another chapter. The premise sounded intriguing: a girls school quarantined on an island in Maine after a deadly virus. When her best friend goes missing, Hetty must risk breaking quarantine to find her. Other readers described the transformations caused by The Tox as horrifying and compared the story to Lord of the Flies. However, I found it all just too strange. The disease didn't make any sense. The girls weren't on their own a la Lord of the Flies, but organized by adults. Add in a poorly done teenage romantic plot (albeit between two girls), and I had to give up. If you love YA horror, maybe you'll love it like all the other reviews I've read. Else I suggest skipping this one.

I was completely drawn in and held fast by this book. How do you take Annihilation and make it better? By making it YA, gay AF, and almost entirely female on both the "goodie" and "baddie" sides. It was brutal, but the writing holds you through out every dizzying, brutal, disoriented moment.

There were parts I wish were further explored, characters I wish I better understood, but overall, I loved the Wilder Girls. I'd recommend this to anyone who likes feminist horror in the veing of Sawkill Girls.

"See how a body will change, to give you the best chance it can."

I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Delacorte Press. Trigger warnings: death, body horror, bug horror, violence, severe injury, severe illness, blood, bruises, hospitals, needles, poison, starvation, animal death.

It's been nearly two years since the Tox hit Raxter School for Girls, remaking their little island into its own image. Most of the adults and some of the girls died, but the ones who lived are different. Just as the woods are wilder and overgrown, the girls, too, have been ravaged by nature. Some of them grow scales or spines down their backs; some of them bloom with constant bruises or drip blood from wounds that never close. While they wait for a promised cure, they receive food from the nearby Navy base, but it's never enough. The girls are forced to fight for everything they have, as monstrous inside as they are on the outside. When Hetty's best friend, Byatt, goes missing, Hetty will risk anything to get her back, even breaking the long-held quarantine and discovering the secrets buried deep within Raxter.

This book has a wonderful, eerie concept, and in that respect, it's an unequivocal success. Power captures the spooky, overgrown wildness of the island and its inhabitants with graceful ease. The island is practically a character of its own and, if it is, so is the Tox that's turning it feral. I loved all the descriptions of nature growing itself to destruction and monstrous girls who aren't afraid to be monstrous. She has an eye for detail and the bone-shiveringly creepy, and if anything is going to stick with me from this book, it's the haunting imagery.

Unfortunately, the rest isn't as strong. I never felt attached to the characters, and even though Hetty is the main character, we don't know her very well. Her defining feature seems to be her platonic love for Byatt, which is mixed in with her loyalty to her and her crush, Reece. Byatt is one of my favorite, unapologetic mean girl tropes, and I wish we'd gotten to see more of her. Reece is equally fierce and vulnerable. A strong girl-friendship group (with a minor wlw romance) should have been one of my favorite things about this book, but it never really came through for me. I didn't feel anything for the girls, and it seemed like the novel always held them at a distance.

Plot-wise, it's interesting but not groundbreaking past the Tox itself, which is full of fun twists. There are the usual untrustworthy authority figures and fairly typical secrets that come with most plague/outbreak narratives, and I wished the novel had spent less time on those and more on the island life and living with the Tox. The characters are hemmed in by the nonsensical quarantine, and it keeps most of the interesting stuff out for most of the book. Pacing-wise, it's slow to take off while Hetty tries to uncover secrets. It isn't until the last third of the novel that the plot really takes off and then leaves things rather open-ended. Wilder Girls doesn't quite live up to its potential, but I'd be interested to read a sequel or more of Powers's writing. First novels don't always pan out, but there's a lot of potential there.

I review regularly at brightbeautifulthings.tumblr.com.

I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
Thanks NetGalley!

I just have to say that i was SOO excited for this book, and was extremely happy to be picked for the arc. The girls at Raxter Academy are quartined on an island since they were infected with Tox. The book is more of a survival thriller, BUT it also touches down on the struggles of being a teenage girl, falling for your (female) friend...... the details of the emotional pain and physical pain are intense and vivid.

read this book. i promise you'll enjoy it.

Loving this book wasn't hard. Filled with government conspiracies, monster girls, a quarantine, and Queer girl romance, this was literally the book I hoped it would be. I did take a star off because it was terribly hard for me to keep up with the minor characters as they all kind of... seemed the same.

This is the literary YA feminist speculative horror book I've been waiting for!

With lyrical, vivid prose, Rory Power describes the girls of Raxter Academy, who have been quarantined on an island since infected with the mysterious Tox.

This story manages to be a page-turning survival thriller, while also digging into the complexities of being a teenage girl, and lingering on the intimacies of female friendships and romance. It describes emotional pain as vividly as the gruesome body horror of the Tox.

And perhaps most impressive of all, this book shows restraint. It explores these themes with nuance and without every being too on the nose direct. The ending is satsifying without tieing every plot element up with a neat bow. Most of all, it respects the intelligence of its readers.

My favorite debut novel of 2019.

TW- gory and bloody (at times)

I don’t know what I think of this book. Like, at all. It was compelling and I flew through it! I couldn’t put it down at times and at other times it was disgusting. The themes of feminism and survival are extremely interesting. However, the ending did leave me unsatisfied!! I wanted to know what happened. I wanted to know if the girls made it. I wanted to know about the cure (if there is one!!) I would say go into this knowing it’s a gory dystopian type read, but read it anyway?!

Wilder Girls has been one of my top books of 2019. It was absolutely fantastic and worth the hype I saw around it. Rory Power is magic with the written word.

Honestly, I’d give this a solid 3.75 stars - but I can't give half or quarter stars, so 4 it is.

One of the things I really liked about this was the storyline - an apocalyptic sickness taking over the school and the entire island it resides on. Turning the girls into deformed monsters and killing everything in its path. I’ve read and seen apocalyptic illness stories before, but never like this. Usually they take on a zombie standard, but most of the girls remain the same and keep their sanity - for the most part.

The new social survival standard was interesting too. Loyalty was still present even in the dog eats dog world as the girls fought each other over everything. Even between friends, Hetty still has to fight to survive as she continues to look out for the people she cares for.

One thing I wasn’t a fan of was Hetty and Reese’s relationship. They weren’t friends but they were more than strangers and it was hard to accept that they were loyal or cared for each other. Hetty was much closer with Byatt and clearly cared for her deeply - so to make it seem like Hetty and Reese had an intense relationship felt false. While it’s clear their relationship changes, there are some aspects to it that don’t feel right or could have been developed more.

Another thing that was somewhat explained but I didn’t fully understand was the sickness itself. There’s some explanation of symptoms and what happening to them, but it doesn’t explain why some people survive while others don’t. Or what is actually happening to them. It kinda hinders the story for me as we continue to see the effects of this illness on everything and I think it will impact book #2.

Overall, I enjoyed the story. The synopsis is a little misleading because it makes it seem like a grand adventure but most of the story takes place at the school. While there is a lot of action, it’s not as action packed as I hoped. I am definitely interested in reading what happens next though! Definitely a 3.75/5 stars for me.

What an extraordinary, astonishing read! Wilder Girls is one of those books that seems to have just always existed, and couldn't possibly have been created, particularly not by a debut author. It's an artifact, a monument, a natural wonder of the goddamn world. But of course I know it didn't grow from the earth with the smashing of tectonic plates (as much as it seems to; as much as its power implies)--no, it arrived in the hands of Rory Power, an author who with just this one book is now on my automatic pre-order list. I don't care what she writes, when she writes it, or what it has to do with--I'm throwing down money to read it on pub day.

I'm not going to spoil anything about this book--if you're looking for some plot hints or narrative nuggets, visit the publisher's page. They're more experienced with telling you only as much as you need to know and not a syllable more. For my part, I don't want to do anything to make your experience less incredible than mine. I will say if you are fans of Jeff VanderMeer, Kelly Link, China Mieville, even Emily St. John Mandel (who, with Power, knows how to sculpt such beautiful works with words), then you will probably dig this book more than most.

I give it all the stars, all the thumbs, all the... cakes, whatever, I don't know. It's great. No, it's GREAT. Read it and you'll be a better human for it.

Set in a boarding school for girls, this dystopian storyline gives a glimpse of human nature in its rawest form. Secrets and bonds of friendship compete to determine alliances that could be the difference between life and death. Who is truly good? Who will ultimately look out for herself? The twists and turns are intriguing and make for a fast-paced summer read.

Wilder Girls is the debut novel by Rory Power, and I can’t wait for more! Her writing is beautifully descriptive. The reader can actually picture all the grotesque things that the Raxter girls are dealing with after being exposed to the Tox.

I really enjoyed this book and I’m hoping (fingers double crossed) for a sequel because that ending...talk about a cliffhanger. I NEED to know what happens to the girls!

I would definitely purchase this book for my library and recommend to anyone looking for a story with strong female characters.
Note: I received a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this book! I will be recommending it to all my young adult readers! Thank you for this opportunity to connect books to their readers.

I don’t know what it is about an illness that can take the human race out, but I love that shit. They call it Tox. Tox is an illness that touched a whole school of girls ages 11-18. But Tox doesn’t discriminate. It’ll infect the old too. Slowly, painfully, and gruesomely it will take over the body in unpredictable, inhumane ways. And once you are infected, Tox won’t stop there. It continues to cause “flare-ups” in the body. Morphing the fragile human frame in ways you hadn’t even considered. And if it can do such things to humans, imagine what it can do to nature and her creatures….

Wilder Girls alternates between two points of view, Hetty and Byatt. Hetty and Byatt are one another’s solace in this cruel dystopian world. At least, Byatt is Hetty’s solace until she goes missing. After that their unsure world turns an already twisted existence upside down. Hetty will stop at nothing to find what remains of Byatt (if she even remains….). But everyone knows there are no actions without re-actions. And Hetty has no idea how catastrophic her actions really might be. Thus unfolds Wilder Girls.

After completing the story, I ended up giving the novel a 4 star rating for two reasons. I had built this book up. I had high, high hopes for a living with this one. And while the novel was great, it felt like something was amiss. It could be related to my feelings for Hetty. I’m not entirely sure what the deal is but I wasn’t super into our protagonist. She had some double standard issues that I found hard to deal with. Albeit she openly calls her rationality out. But still….

Overall, dystopian novels are my jam. They always have such eerie settings with a body count that might as well be infinite. Setting the tone for a novel of epic proportions (at least usually). I’m happy to report Wilder Girls content is as pleasing as the cover.

I predict this novel is going to be a huge book in 2019. Thank you NetGalley and Random House Children’s Delacrote Press for the advanced read.

Like other reviewers have mentioned, I think the marketing is doing this book a disservice--it's really nothing like Lord of the Flies, but it is amazing. The plot was riveting, and I couldn't put the book down. The only thing keeping me from giving the book 5/5 stars is that I found the ending a bit unsatisfying--but if you go in not expecting a full resolution to the story (possibly leaving room for a sequel?), then you may enjoy it more.

Ok, if all of these stories were married and had a baby "The Girl Who Owned A City", "The Island of Dr Moreau" and "Aliens" this is what this book is. It is no way close to "Lord of the flies" where each tribe or child is each to his own. This book is about comradery and trying to live together, adults still in charge. So, no Lord of the Flies here, where they turn and kill each other just because they can. Oh there is killing but it's not intentional.. think "Aliens" I'm trying not to give anything away here so read between my lines. This was great. I was on the edge of my seat and could not put this book down.