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Wednesday, April 3, 2019

The Wilder Girls by Rory Power




It's been eighteen months since the Raxter School for Girls was put under quarantine. Since the Tox hit and pulled Hetty's life out from under her.
It started slow. First the teachers died one by one. Then it began to infect the students, turning their bodies strange and foreign. Now, cut off from the rest of the world and left to fend for themselves on their island home, the girls don't dare wander outside the school's fence, where the Tox has made the woods wild and dangerous. They wait for the cure they were promised as the Tox seeps into everything.
But when Byatt goes missing, Hetty will do anything to find her, even if it means breaking quarantine and braving the horrors that lie beyond the fence. And when she does, Hetty learns that there's more to their story, to their life at Raxter, than she could have ever thought true.

Trigger warnings direct from the author's website:
Wilder Girls contains graphic violence and body horror. It depicts on the page character death, parental death, and animal death, though the animals are not pets.
Wilder Girls contains behavior and descriptive language akin to self-harm, and references to such.
Wilder Girls contains a scene depicting chemical gassing.
Wilder Girls contains reference to suicide and suicidal ideation.


I received a copy from Net Galley in return for an honest review

Seriously people. I picked this book up yesterday and couldn't put it down.
This was a fast-paced, strange and delightful read. So different from anything else I've read in the last few years.

The characters are a bunch of tough, flawed, strong females trying to make the most of life after being stranded at a girl's school where everyone is sick, mutating and/or dying. They are put in horrible situations and just trying to make it out alive.

 It's labeled a queer horror and I love it so much more for this. The relationship in it is a delicious side note to the plot.

The descriptions of the "Tox" and how the women suffer, how the animals and landscape are affected are beautiful and disgusting.

The world building is intense and the emotions evoked are powerful, please pay attention to the trigger warnings.

The book ends, in a way that wasn't surprising but also left a lot of questions.

 The author never  100% explains the "Tox", how it came to be, why it's there or what it is for.  The author gives the reader just enough to form their own opinions.

This novel is a great YA to add to lists which include books like The Power.