I always thought it would be cool so see a Maze Runner-esque or lord of the flies type of story. I loved that this story flipped that entire premise on its head and Rory (the author) really went for it. I loved the LGBT POV of the main character. In my opinion I loved how flawed and relatable she is to both boys and girls. The world the author created in some strange way I envisioned it so clearly. I loved rooting for everyone. My only criticism is that the book ended. Hahaha.

Weird and creepy, with just the right amount of sapphic plot twists, this book is a hit! I love how this book takes the ordinary and turns it into something else entirely. The plot is original and the idea is stunning! Love this and everything that Rory Power writes!

Super interesting, with the right amount of scary, feminism, thriller, and action. Feminist horror is a great new genre.

Received a digital ARC of this book via NetGalley.

Good storyline-especially since it came out pre-pandemic 2020. I found the beginning kinda slow but at about the halfway mark all the way to end was filled with action! Definitely detailed though regarding how the Tox has affected the various characters. I could visualize the vines, the blood, the little worm thing.

Wilder Girls has a beautiful cover and a fantastically creepy setting. A strange illness called the Tox has spread through the Raxter School for Girls, after teachers and staff begin dying, the school and surrounded wooded island has remained on quarantine until a cure is available.

The story centers around teenage girls in an academia-type setting. The illness is plaguing everyone with fear as it begins to mutate and kill others, including animals. Hetty, the main character, is desperately searching for her missing friend, Bryatt, and while she is led to believe Bryatt is dead, she slowly begins to uncover secrets that start to unravel everything she knows.

I loved the horror, the friendships, the gore, the confusion, and especially the writing. It is mysterious, strange, and moody. I was quite enthralled throughout the book due to the creepiness, and it is quite a unique book in this way.

My only complaint is the ending and lack of a backstory which I feel the book would have really benefited from in order to invest the reader into the story more.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this to lovers of YA and I look forward to reading more from this author.

Thank you to #netgalley and @DelacortePress for my advanced e-galley in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to like this book. I really wanted to. But I couldn't connect with the characters or the plot. It's not a bad book but I personally wasn't interested. I really wished they talked more about the virus than the effects that the virus had on the girls.

If only this was as good as the cover is beautiful. It's not a bad story: the three characters are relatively interesting, especially Hetty. The plot moves along at a fairly good clip and at least it's creative and new, if not terribly well executed. The setting was nice and creepy. My problem was that it jumped around a lot, the multiple POVs felt forced, and it seemed like the author wanted to do too much. The Tox was the worst part because it made no sense. Any book with an illness needs to follow basic illness rules to be believable. This thing was all over the place and lost its scariness because of that. I didn't mind this, but I didn't really like it either. But it kept me occupied during jury duty, so...win?

Thank you NetGalley for the advance copy of this book. I had really high hopes, and I wanted to enjoy this book, unfortunately the writing style turned out to be not something I enjoyed. Gave up around 30%. I hope someone else will enjoy this book more than me.

5 stars. This was as good as I thought it was going to be. My kind of body horror and weirdness. Review to come.

Due to being a high school teacher, I have been falling behind on reviews. Here are my initial thoughts.

Really interesting and gross at times YA horror that has a post-apocalyptic feel with queer girls and a vague ending. Writing and story felt very unique.

I'm not sure why I didn't put my feedback on here. Sorry about that. I read this book in July of 2019 and absolutely LOVED IT! I got the arc via netgalley but then also won a giveaway for it so I have a physical copy.

I originally heard of this book on BookTube and thought it sounded really interesting, and boy did it come through. I really liked the horror aspect of it in regards to what the Tox did to the girls. It gave them deformities such as a second spine, and it's just something i've not seen in a book before. The characters were great and there was queer rep.
Overall it was a really good read, just beware if you don't like gore/death/violence there is a decent amount of that.

Sorry the review isn't the greatest and it's pretty well overdue, I got pretty busy over the last year and a half and have been in quite a bad reading/reviewing slump.

I enjoyed Wilder Girls - it wasn't what I was expecting, but it was interesting and kept me turning the pages.

This was, perhaps, the weirdest book I've read in a while. Confusing, but not in a bad way, more the style that makes you eager to uncover the mysteries. With a narrator that pulls you in to her, makes you become her, share her struggles and desires, it was difficult to put down, despite its, um, unusual content. Absolutely unique, enthralling, and left me feeling glad I had read it, and yearning for more.

Appropriately creepy while not fully a horror story, an excellent thrilling novel about teens, the relationships they form and thrive on, and how they deal with disaster.

This was a slow burn, really insidiously creepy book. Gorgeous cover, lyrical writing, and I wish there was sapphic horror in every book ever published because WOW.

I thought this novel was fantastic. Fits in with my teen readers want of dystopian novels with a thriller twist. Well written with strong characters- I can see this being made into a movie.
Purchased for my high school library and book talked a lot.

I have had a difficult time writing the review for Rory Power's Wilder Girls. I've sat down to write it time and again and nothing I write seems to be enough. Wilder Girls is a powerful story of survival and strength in a scary uncertain time and condition.

There are so many things to love about this story:
- strong women
- a contagious illness with the potential to destroy the world
- a low grade lgbt+ plot line that isn't corny or pandering
- people who fight back

On top of that, writing so good that you can visualize the insanity of the illness overcoming all obstacles. I can't, this story is just too good. It's been added to my beloved books list.

The upside (?) to insomnia last night was reading this delightful Lord of the Flies retelling! I could strongly identify to the claustrophobia of quarantine and isolation (thanks 2020) and the fear of a disease that ravages without pattern. Spooky, gory, and with no easy answers or explanations, Power’s debut is a winner. Perfect for fans of Nick Cutter’s THE TROOP. #netgalley ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Chilling story of survival. A small group of schoolgirls has been quarantined on the island where their school, Raxter, is located. The "tox" has killed many of the school's students, teachers and island animals. When Hetty's friend Bryant disappears, Hetty sets out to search for her, not knowing that what she'll find may totally shake up what she thought she knew. As the story progresses, Power gradually ratchet's up the creepiness factor. Fans of Lord of the Flies will enjoy this feminist take on a similiar theme.

My thanks to NetGalley and Random House Children's/Delacorte Press for an eARC copy of this book to read and review.

I am the type of reader that if I get bored or if the story is going in a direction that I don't like, I will read spoiler reviews and skip to the ahead or to the end (where I can, it isn't easy to do that in an eBook). If the negative reviews echo sentiments that I also do not like, or the book goes someplace I do not enjoy, I will DNF the book. There are too many books out there that I will enjoy to spend time with one that I do not.

This was one of those books. 32% of the way in and I was 1) bored and 2) concerned this was going to have an ending that I wasn't on-board for. After reading the negative reviews, I concluded that the MCs didn't get any better, that in fact they got worse and that the ending was in no way satisfactory.

I am not into body horror and this book did have a lot of that. It was easy for me to kind of gloss over, but others may not enjoy reading about the bodies of the people and animals transforming in painful and bloody ways.

Also, the eco-system of the island before the Tox hit wasn't quite believable, making what happened further on in the book less so. There is an obligatory conspiracy, which I'm not overly fond of and violence.

Ah yes, the violence. They fight for food, even the friends. One of the MCs, Reece, wanted to be on the Boat team, so she could leave the school compound and try to find her father who left the school because he was sick and didn't want to be a danger to the girls. Her friend the MC whose POV we first follow (can't recall her name, my apologies), gets the position instead. So Reece launches herself at her friend who got the job and chokes her, trying to hurt/kill her. The MC who was attacked is then told she should try to make up with Reece, by an adult teacher and the other BFF.

They then become a romantic couple later on in the book.

No. Just NO. If Reece were a guy and attacked a girl like that, if they were to become a romantic couple later, there would be a HUGE hue and cry over it. If it isn't right for a guy to attack a girl and then become an item, it isn't right for a girl to attack a girl and then become an item.

I am SO SICK and tired of things that wouldn't fly in a heterosexual couple being ok in a same sex couple in books. IT IS NOT OK. ALL people should be able to be in a relationship without violence from one person on the other. Same if it was a girl attacking a guy, not ok either. Why does YA seem to show unhealthy relationships as ok, of any gender combination?

I was going to give the book two stars, as it wasn't written poorly, it just didn't work for me, but then I remembered this bit and I can't in good conscience give it more than 1 star. I am not going to give a work more than one star when it shows unhealthy relationships like this and where the victim is told they need to make up with the attacker. That is not what ANYone needs to read, ever, let alone the demographic this is aimed at, YA readers, most likely females.

I'm sorry, I really wanted to like this book more than I did. That cover is GORGEOUS, but it didn't really translate to what was inside, at least not to me.