This book was being marketed as a Lord of the Flies type story which so happens to be one of the only required reading books from High School that I actually enjoyed reading. So I was all in. Unfortuntely, I was to be disappointed. This book had so much hype around it and I found the premise to be really intriguing and I liked the eerie and unsettled tone that wove throughout the book, but I felt like there was too much that was just weird. The Tox itself doesn’t really make much sense. Why does it effect everyone differently? What causes the flare ups? And then in the end, the explanation for it is unsatisfying, comes out of nowhere, and doesn’t really fit the tone of the rest of the book. It actually would have been a more satisfying ending if there HADN’T been an explanation. Another issue for me was Byatt. I just 100% did not understand her as a character. Lastly, I had a hard time with Hetty and Reese’s “relationship”. I felt like so much of their currently existing relationship is backstory that we never get to see and we’re more told how they “feel” about each other rather than shown. They kind of just get slapped into this relationship and then just as quickly slapped out of it. 3/5

What a weird, strange and creepy little book! Before picking up Wilder Girls myself, I’d read mixed reviews about it from several people, and I could see why! The narrative style of the story is certainly not for everyone. There’s a good bit of flowery description happening throughout the book, and not a whole lot of explanation about how and why the Tox began. Fortunately, for myself, I was so drawn in by the plot of the story that I was able to suspend my disbelief enough to be entertained by it. But then again, I also enjoyed reading Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer, which shares some similarities to this story as well.

Wilder Girls is a dystopian story about the Raxter School for Girls, which is (conveniently for the plot) located on an island. The story starts over a year after the Tox has already hit Raxter and the island, and the girls, have been quarantined. The Tox initially killed many of the school’s teachers and left only two adults remaining. It affects the girls in many strange and terrifying ways, some girls grow scales, some lose an eye, and some form extra bones and joints. It’s bizarre and definitely one of the creepiest parts of this story. When the main character, Hetty, finds out that her best friend Byatt has gone missing, she will stop at nothing to find her and prove that she’s still alive. Even if that means breaking quarantine.

The dynamics between the girls and their two remaining teachers are intense and often even verging on savage. I know this book at some point got called “feminist Lord of the Flies,” but other than the survival aspect, there’s really no comparison here. The girls have little resources and are strictly governed by the two adults in their dystopian “society,” even being appointed to different teams such as the Gun Team, who protect the school from the denizens of the Tox-ridden woods outside the fence-line, and the Boat Crew, who meet the supply boats.

Overall, I can’t really pinpoint exactly why I was compelled to keep reading this story, there were certainly things that didn’t add up, and yet I kept hoping for more answers until the very end. I gave this a higher rating because I was definitely entertained the whole time and I think the world Power created was unique and weird as hell (which is my aesthetic), but I could definitely see how this might not be for every reader out there.

Great concept and a perfectly creepy vibe. I don't always want a sequel for a book but I hope this gets one because it needs it with more explanation about the Tox and what it has to do with hormones. If it's a standalone it will have fallen short for me. But I can see that it'll definitely appeal to teens.

This was...interesting. The story is based around a school for girls that has been put under quarantine due to all of the girls, teachers, and other creatures on the island being affected by some kind of toxin. There are lots of secrets, some violence, a lot of competition, and more. I feel like the story itself was fairly interesting, but I needed more. I’m not even sure what I needed more of. I will purchase this for my school library and I will even put it in some hands, but I’m not sure I would read a sequel if there are more of these.

GAH!! I need and want more!!! I was left unsatisfied but in a good way, cause I want more of this story, MORE of these girls!!This book is AMAZING!!! It was so deliciously weird and dark but in the best ways possible. Hetty and Reese are forever ingrained in my heart.
This book leaves you wanting to visit Raxter, to witness first hand this horrible disease taking over the island. The descriptions and atmosphere of the story are spot on. A very unique plot.

I definitely recommend! AND THIS COVER!!!!! THE BEST EVER! It has won the best cover award from me 😂

Thanks to netgalley for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review!

One of YAs best of the year for me by a long shot! I’ve been waiting for this book and thankfully found some time to start it and I’m glad it was a long weekend bc I stayed up all night reading it! It is worth the hype and readers of all ages will delight in the captivating story and beautiful writing style.

A haunting, gory, fiercely feminist book that will stick with readers for a long time. For any readers looking for horror with a deeper message. I look forward to handing this to older teen readers at my library, and hope that there will be a sequel!

Whew. This book was INTENSE.
I'm not sure how to expound on the book without giving too much away. It's a simple premise and has been likened to a female "Lord of the Flies", but that's not entirely accurate. The girls focus on survival more than anything; relationships are formed as life preservers as they battle their own bodies.
I did enjoy that details were presented sparingly, we don't learn too much about what the Tox is or why the Raxter girls were the guinea pigs, or even how much the Navy knew about the Tox. It is a gripping read, and I recommend it highly.

4,5*
Pros: God, I missed dystopians. Dark, rough, heart-wrenching. Twisty and a complete nail-biter. Grim and enthralling world-building and narrative style. Complex yet mysterious characters. LGBT female leads. Unpredictable, full of hidden turns. Refreshing take on plagues and viruses. Focuses in survival, resilience, friendship and love.
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Cons: The ending was uncharacteristic of the leading character.
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Trigger warning: Violent and gruesome, affecting children.

Thank you to Netgalley & Delacorte Press for providing me with an e-ARC of Wilder Girls by Rory Power in exchange for an honest review.

2.5, rounded up!

Wilder Girls by Rory Power is a pretty difficult book to review; I let my thoughts resonate for the night & still haven’t fully figured out how I feel about this read. Wilder Girls was advertised as a ‘feminist twist on Lord of the Flies' & that concept quickly sold me on this book. However, I can’t help but feel slightly disappointed after reading Wilder Girls.

Rory Power has her MA in Prose Fiction & that’s evident when reading Wilder Girls. Her words are very elegant & it did take awhile for me to adjust to her writing style & truly appreciate it. However, this is at no fault to her. Some people eat up the fancy words, whereas others would prefer their writing with a little less lace. Personally, my opinion lays smack down in the middle.

Wilder Girls felt grey — which, for some reason, this statement makes complete sense to me. Power created such a gloomy & grey world; the aesthetic is just.. so on-point. Her words made the Raxter School for Girls come to life & I was able to actually visualize everything as it was happening.

Throughout reading this, I questioned how can this possibly end? There’s no way it could end well for the girls at Raxter & it’s this that helped me not DNF Wilder Girls. I needed to know what was happening & how Hetty was going to make it out.

I really enjoyed the F/F relationship in Wilder Girls, because I am a sucker for angst & that’s exactly what their relationship was. In general, this entire read was riddled with angst. So, bonus points there.

At about 60%, I questioned why I wasn’t fully engaged with Wilder Girls. I mean, the aesthetic was very pleasing & the writing was pretty; it had a LGBT component, plus there was a lot of violence & horror — sounds perfect, yeah?

It’s at this 60% mark where I realized that even though I wanted to know how it would end, I didn’t actually care. I didn’t care if Hetty lived or died, or if she would ever see her friend again. I had zero connection with anyone in this book, and that’s what really dragged the story down for me.

This book has been described as a feminist retelling of Lord of the Flies and as a sapphic horror novel. Both of those things wildly compelled me to pick up this novel, but I did not feel that either description was accurate.

My main frustration as I read was that I never really understood what the Tox actually was. Throughout the story, we are given descriptions of the Tox's effects on the girls -- disfigured bodies and changes that came out of nowhere, but the way it started was never explained. Because we weren't given enough backstory and information on the Tox, I became much more invested in what the Tox was than what was going on in the actual plot of the novel. 

That being said, I felt more connected to the plot than to any of the characters -- they felt paper-thin to me and there was nothing about them that made me care if they lived or died. None of them was memorable to me in the slightest.

I was interested enough in the Tox to continue reading, but was ultimately left more confused than satisfied. The ending happened very abruptly and could have used an additional 100 pages of explanation, in my opinion. While I am glad I read this book, I feel that it would have benefited from additional details and length.

I do want to mention that while this book is technically sapphic, its certainly not a romance. Hype and early reviews led me to believe that there would be more of a focus on a f/f relationship in this book than there actually is.

Thank you to Delacorte Press and Netgalley for providing me with an ARC of this book! All opinions are still my own :)

3.5 Stars**

Y'all...I did it. I finally finished this one. And honestly, it wasn't as good as I had hoped it would be.

I love the concept of a YA body horror, and this had all of my favorite things; queer rep, tight-knit friend groups, dark and corrupt authority, a boarding school setting, etc. But while there were so many great elements, I found the pacing very strange, and as it usually goes with multi-perspective stories, I preferred Byatt's chapters to Hetty's chapters. While I loved how dark and gritty this story was, (it's pretty gross guys, definitely not for the faint of heart), it felt like people died for the sake of shock value a little too often, and there were certain plot lines that I don't think were necessary in the long run, (uh.....Teddy????).

We won't even talk about how much of a cop out that ending was.....

All that being said, I'll definitely recommend this book to people looking for the dark and gross in YA and look forward to what Rory Power does next. Unfortunately, I just had expectations that were a smidge too high.

Trigger and Content Warnings: VERY graphic Gore/Body Horror/body mutilation, blood and injury, illness, medical procedures including stitches and IVs, medical experimentation and nonconsensual medical "care", incredibly graphic and brutal descriptions of death including suicide, vomit, loss of a family member, starvation, murder, self harm, chemical gassing

Wilder Girls made my skin crawl! It's been awhile since a book made me shiver. The editor's note at the beginning said, "Dig deep, though, and this novel is a brilliant feminist twist on Lord of the Flies," and I can totally see it. I vaguely remembered Lord of Flies from school, but this book made the story come rushing back.

I've been struggling with this review (and my rating), because I really loved the story, but not its conclusion. The private school (Raxter), the Tox, the mutations (humans, animals, plants), and the relationships were all amazing. It kept me on the edge of my seat, and I never wanted to stop turning the pages. However, the story kept building until my mind felt like it was going to explode from the anticipation... and then it ended. There's no resolution and very few questions are answered. A few aspects are hinted at, but nothing is really confirmed or validated. I needed so much more after all that suspense and buildup. The anxiety alone was brutal.

Think about it this way... you're on the verge of an orgasm, and then your partner suddenly stops, or your vibrator decides to die. You're left feeling extremely frustrated, and probably a little angry. I loved everything that led to the story's climax, but ultimately I was left feeling unsatisfied.

There were a few inconsistencies throughout the book, but this was a review copy, so some errors are to be expected. I was mostly confused about the gate... at one point it needs a key to be opened from the inside, and then other times it only needs a key to be opened from the outside. There's also a bit at the end with the keys that felt off. If you've read a finished copy, let me know if you experienced any confusion regarding how it works.

I loved the relationships between the characters in this book, and how their dynamics shifted after the Tox. Their situation seemed to make them feel everything more strongly, and my emotions were directly tied to theirs. I disliked the "adult" presence we see throughout the book, because they're mostly dishonest and manipulative. I never knew what their intentions were, and I hated that the girls suffered because of their decisions.

The end of Wilder Girls progressed a little too quickly. I wanted more from Byatt's perspective, because even though it was choppy and disorganized, it provided a lot of clues. Additionally, the characters really struggled for most of the book, and then things conveniently clicked into place at the very end. There were no explanations, and their last encounter with the Headmistress felt weird. I almost want to re-read the last few chapters to see if I missed a major turning point. It all happened so fast!

Hetty and Reese were both really impressive characters, and they did what they had to do to survive. Their friendship felt realistic, and we see them have their ups and downs. Being quarantined on an island didn't change the fact that they were teenagers. There were fights and arguments, but even those felt intense and like lives depended on the outcome. (Side note: Hooray for some wonderful f/f representation!)

I really enjoyed the world Power created, and think it's very original and unique. I wish we had learned more about the island and how the Tox originated, but information is hard to come by. It seemed like everyone had secrets they were willing to die for, and it was interesting to see people working together but also for themselves. They needed each other to survive, but in the end people only cared about themselves and those closest to them. Lives lose their value when you get used to death, and it was heartbreaking to see what these girls had gotten used to.

I hope there's a sequel planned, because I am still fuming about the lack of an ending!

Originally posted at Do You Dog-ear? on July 14, 2019.

T His one was hard for me because the premise was so intriguing, but i just couldn't finish it. Maybe if i had kept going i would have liked it better, but i just don't think it's for me. I could not get past all the violence, which was hard, because as a feminist, I think that we should be able to have books where girls are violent, where girls act more like boys are expected to, and yet i just really did not like it. It was big turn off for me. I guess i'm also not a fan of violence anyways, so all of that right away just kind of turned me off from the beginning.

A fascinating Lord of the Flies-inspired story, fast-paced and thrilling. The characters were well-developed and the plot gripped me until the very end. I will definitely be recommending this to my teen patrons.

Hetty has been sent to the Raxter School for Girls. A toxic illness has ravaged the school and the outdoors. Tress are black and distorted. The wildlife isn’t afraid of humans—in fact they have turned into beasts that will chase and eat humans. The island has been quarantined with promises of help. Only help never comes. Food is scarce. The students and teachers have gotten the disease and many of the teachers have died first. Some students have resisted this disease and others have had it though survived it with strange changes in their bodies. What were these changes? Will they survived? When Hetty’s friend Bryant becomes ill and disappears from the infirmary, Hetty doesn’t believe it when they told her she died. She is determined to find her. Will she find her? Will they survive?

The writing is excellent in this book. There are twists and turns with occasional unpleasantness. Yet it haunted me with the thoughts of why weren’t doctors and nurses to help at the school. I thought Hetty was a brave and loyal friend. This story while being about survival is much more than that. It is about friendship, courage and being true to oneself. Do read this awesome novel. It’s one that shouldn’t be missed!

Wowza! I was not expecting this book to be as brutal as it was. I'd heard how this was a feminist version of Lord of the Flies, and I guess I was expecting the usual YA fare. Wilder Girls was so much more than that. It was crazy, brutal, and really addictive. I couldn't believe the things that were happening as I was flipping through the pages. I'm glad that this book, with such a gorgeous cover, delivered on the story inside.
I love shocking and brutal stories and Wilder Girls really delivered that. It was crazy from page one. The reader is dropped into the situation at Raxter School For Girls about a year and change after the Tox hit. We're kind of dropped into the middle of an ongoing thing. I won't lie, most times I want to see the whole journey. I want to see when everything starts going downhill. I would have loved to see Raxter School in the very beginning stages of the Tox. When the girls started to realize what was happening and the chaos that ensued. I'm okay that Wilder Girls started in the middle of the Tox, but I would have loved to witness the whole thing.
This book was so fast-paced. I loved that about it. I just couldn't seem to stop reading it. The writing style was really good too. It reminded me in aspects of Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer and the Video Game The Last of Us. It had that weird, depressing kind of vibe to it, which I'm a fan of.
The Tox was so brutal. The images it conjured were so vivid, so disturbing, and so right. The Island was such a great, strange setting. These girls were cut off from everyone, going through unspeakable things. The whole thing was just crazy.
I wasn't blown away really by the reveal of what caused the Tox in the first place. It was covered so briefly and quickly, that it almost felt like an afterthought. I'm not going to say what it was, I just think it could have been done better.
This next thing might make me unpopular, but so what. I don't think the little romantic relationship that was included needed to be there. It was also one of those things that just felt like it was added as an afterthought. Like that little box that needed to be ticked off so the diversity quota would be met. It did nothing for me. I think the friendship bond was stronger than any romantic thing that tried to take off.
My last little thing was that I wanted more closure from the ending. I mean, I didn't hate it, but I don't feel like it concluded anything. Their final situation was just as hopeless as everything else. I would have been okay with a brutal ending, because at least that would have felt believable.
Wilder Girls was an awesome read overall. It had so many shocks, so much gore, and so much crazy, I was hooked. I'm really interested to see what Rory Power comes out with next. Wilder Girls wasn't a perfect read for me, but it was such a crazy ride. I'd definitely recommend giving it a read.

BOOKCITEMENT LEVEL 4.2/5
Intense

I received an ARC of Wilder Girls from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. It was just released on July 9th.

Wilder Girls had so much promise, but sadly it didn't live up to the hype for me. At first I was really into the story and I couldn't put it down. I was so invested in finding out what was happening to all of these girls and finding out what the Tox really was. So many crazy and disturbing things were happening to them. They were cut off from the world and had to survive on limited supplies and while battling the Tox and sometimes each other. It was pretty intense, especially at the beginning.

Eventually I started to get a little bored with what was going on around the halfway point, because nothing really did happen after awhile. Some of the girls started to really annoy me and some things started to get a little too weird or confusing. I felt like there were some unanswered questions and the ending was really underwhelming. I felt like it wasn't a complete ending. I don't know if there is plans for a book two (I didn't see anything about it), but I felt like book just all of a sudden ended and that was that. There was no resolution or anything. I was really confused by that.

Overall, I did like Wilder Girls and thought it was hard to put down at times. It was pretty creepy and disturbing. I just wish there were more to it, especially the ending. It felt like so much information was missing and that nothing really got resolved. Maybe it was setup that way in case there is a sequel one day? Who knows...that just really bugged me though. I will forever have all of these unanswered questions. I don't want to go into what they are though, because it'll be spoilerish. I just wanted more and wasn't happy with how things just all of a sudden ended.

thank you to netgalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

3 stars

this book was probably my most anticipated novel on 2019, and sadly I was a little disappointed.

the writing was beautiful and I will definitely be reading more of the author’s stuff based on the way she writes unapologetic characters and setting. it was probably my favorite thing about this book besides the sapphicness of it all!!

the setting of the novel gripped me tight and never let me go.... until the end. I am not a big fan of cliffhangers but I must say this one was pretty well developed. nevertheless, it is a personal preference of mine that cliffhangers are a No Go.

now the characters weren’t as fleshed out as I wanted them to be, which is a big deal for my preference since I am a character driven person. If I can’t connect to the characters, it won’t do well with me.

I do love the relationships between these characters and the intensity that is the setting which tightened those bonds!! I absolutely live for that.

But all in all, there was something lacking in this novel which I don’t really know what it is which frustrates me. It is not a bad book by far! but it’s not something I would consider a favorite.

despite this maybe negative review, I would definitely recommend it to others who would love to see the journey of these sapphic girls. I did enjoy that much <3

Marketed as a female Lord of the Flies, Wilder Girls doesn’t disappoint. From the beginning, you are dropped in the middle of the story and the need to understand Raxter, the Tox, and the Girls keeps you turning the pages.

I’ve seen this called feminist horror and I can’t think of a better description. It’s entirely female characters (except 2 male side characters) and each one is dynamic and fully-fledged.

With beautiful writing and descriptions (even when tinged with some horrific body horror), this is a story about female friendship, female perseverance, and the fight to stay alive.

**I received an e-ARC from Netgalley**