Wilder Girls

by Rory Power

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!

"The perfect kind of story for our current era."—Hypable

From the author of Burn Our Bodies Down, a feminist Lord of the Flies about three best friends living in quarantine at their island boarding school, and the lengths they go to uncover the truth of their confinement when one disappears. This fresh debut is a mind-bending novel unlike anything you've read before.

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.

And don't miss Rory Power's second novel, Burn Our Bodies Down!

Praise for Wilder Girls:

4 STARRED REVIEWS!

"Take Annihilation, add a dash of Contagion, set it at an all-girls' academy, and you'll arrive at Rory Power's occasionally shocking and always gripping Wilder Girls."--Refinery29

"This thrilling saga...is sure to be one of the season's most talked-about books, in any genre."--EW

"Fresh and horrible and beautiful....readers will be consumed and altered by Wilder Girls."--NPR

• ISBN10: 0593118480
• ISBN13: 9780593118481
• Publish Date: 9 July 2019
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Delacorte Press
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 368
• Language: English

Reviews

[Quirky Cat]

Wilder Girls is the debut novel of Rory Power, and man did she come out swinging! There’s a good chance that you’ve already heard about this book – I’ve been seeing nearly nonstop talk about it since about two months before the official release. And having read it, I can understand why.
Wilder Girls is an intense read. It blends science fiction with horror and thriller elements. The end result is something dark and emotional and absolutely fascinating. Honestly, there needs to be more books like this.
The novel is set on Raxter island. A unique location known for its strange crabs and flowers. But that was before. Now the all girls’ school on the island is in forced isolation. And the girls and staff are all getting sick. Or dying. Though perhaps sick isn’t the best word to describe what is happening to them…


Warnings: Wilder Girls is as beautiful as it is intense. And that means that there are plenty of warnings to go along with this novel. The biggest ones include graphic depictions of injuries, mutations, death, and gore. There are also some scenes with self harming, and others depicting forced medical experiments. There are also animal deaths and animals affected by the same mutations as the sometimes very young girls. Finally, there is a scene describing chemical gassing.
Wilder Girls is a totally unique and fascinating novel following a school full of girls and the mutations they undergo. It’s dark and chilling, showing us humanity and its worst, while something else yet lingers on the horizon. In all, it’s beautifully written and utterly compelling.
I knew I wanted to read this novel from the moment I saw the cover. It’s absolutely stunning. Having read it, I can now say that the novel itself lives up to the expectations made for it. And then some. Actually, I was quite surprised by the intensity and intricacy of this novel.
The world in Wilder Girls is a fascinating one – even if it is absolutely one I’d be content to never see in person. Rory Power did an excellent job of building up the anxiety of the situation, while also leaving us with some breadcrumbs of truth. It was the perfect balance.
The characters were strong, fierce, and just a little bit broken. In that sense they were so real it was almost too painful to bear. But it did bring the world around them to whole new levels. Which may be good or bad, depending on your viewpoint.
I adored the unexpected love story woven into this novel. I honestly had no idea it was there – I didn’t see anyone talking about those elements before I had started reading. It was a pleasant surprise and a needed light in otherwise dark and disturbing tale.
Honestly, I’m still having trouble getting over how powerful this novel was. I loved it, even while it chilled me to my core. Part of me desperately wants to read more like this, while the other part of me is happy to see this one stand out amongst the crowd.
One thing is for sure, I can’t wait to see what Rory Power writes next. I’m sure it’s going to be brilliant. On that note, fun fact! There’s another novel listed on her Goodreads profile, though it is currently untitled. Can’t wait for more revelations about that one!


For more reviews check out Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks

[Beth C.]

Wow. Crazy and horrifying and lovely, all at once. The kind of book that has so many layers, and it will stay in your head for days to come.

[Charli G.]

When I saw the cover to this book, I was intrigued. It's the August book for the Barnes & Noble YA Book Club and I was anxious to see what the book was about.

I can't say the story was terrible, because it wasn't. But there was no feeling, no emotion between the characters. Reese, Byatt, and Hetty are supposed to be such great friends, best friends, but the story doesn't convey that. You're told that they're best friends, but you just don't get that feeling from the story.

Honestly, I think the only thing that truly kept me reading was wanting to see if an explanation for anything - the Tox, why they were being kept on the island - would be forthcoming. It does, but not in a very satisfactory way.

Then there is the ending of the book. The end of the book left me feeling like the story hadn't been finished. Like the author didn't know what to do after the closing scene, so she just decided to leave it there and hope for the best. I sincerely hope there is supposed to be a sequel, because otherwise the end is just a huge letdown.

I gave this book 3 stars because the author definitely has room for improvement. The writing style could use some work, especially when it comes to interpersonal relationships between characters and ending a book properly.

[kalventure]

"The Tox didn't just happen to us. It happened to everything."

Friends, I really wanted to enjoy this book more than I did and no one is more disappointed than I am. While I absolutely loved the world-building that Power crafts in her debut novel, unfortunately, I struggled to connect with any of the characters and found it difficult for me to suspend disbelief - but not for the reasons you'd think.

"Wonder what she'll get, if it's anything at all. Gills like Mona, blisters like Cat's, maybe bones like Byatt's or a hand like Reese's, but sometimes the Tox doesn't give you anything - just takes and takes. Leaves you drained and withering."

Her prose is captivating and gruesome, as harsh as life has become on Raxter Island. The writing and story seem well suited for the screen, and I think I would enjoy this as a movie a lot more. Power has a vivid imagination that she is able to translate well onto the page, but there is something about the narrative flow that doesn't work for me as a novel. It is almost as if the narrative relies heavily on foreshadowing, only it is so overt that you notice something isn't right long before the characters uncover anything. This may be fun for some readers, but it annoyed me to no end.

I found myself having an intensely difficult time believing the circumstances of life for the Raxter girls following the Tox, to the point that it prohibited me from ever fully being swept away by the narrative. I hesitate to point out specifics because I do not want to spoil the reading experience, but I couldn't stop myself from asking logical questions like How are they fighting over blankets and jackets when earlier in the text it is stated that the US Navy continues to send food & clothes for the full number of girls originally on the island (even though their numbers have dwindled)? and Why are there not enough rooms when a lot of girls have died? I am not sure if some of these things are continuity errors or not, but much of what made me frustrated and roll my eyes wound up being part of the plot... which honestly wasn't a satisfying revelation for me because it was so overtly off earlier.

"We don't get to choose what hurts us."

I never felt connected to any of the three main characters. They felt one-dimensional and paper-thin to me. The one I felt most believable was Reese with her hardened emotions and propensity for protecting herself from emotional pain. But when you don't really connect with or care for any of the characters, it is difficult for you to root for their struggle in an action-packed and dangerous plot. I was more interested in the Tox itself than what was going on with the characters in the book.

The most compelling part of the story for me is omitted from the narrative. I understand that this is in large part because we learn about the disease through Hetty, and there is a lot that she doesn't understand or uncover. But for me as a reader, the ending felt anticlimactic and reasonably there could have been another 100 pages added to the end to expand her understanding a little bit and provide some closure for the reader.

Wilder Girls is definitely a plot-driven novel, and I kept reading because Power crafted a horrifically compelling micro-dystopian world and I wanted to see how it ended. How it began. Any sort of explanation, really. But the ending felt abrupt and unsatisfying to me. Then again, I am one of the few people that didn't enjoy this book so please do take my experience with a grain of salt!

I do want to mention that while this book is sapphic, I would hesitate to call it a romance. I think some hype and early reviews may mislead some readers into thinking this book is more centered on a f/f romance that hardly exists, and I do not want people to be disappointed.

Unfortunately, Wilder Girls was not the book for me. Being a close reader who needs things to make logical sense, I had a difficult time suspending disbelief for the dystopian circumstances on the island and it really hampered my reading experience. I know that this is an artistic choice as the book centers around Hetty's struggle for autonomy, and through that struggle, she learns that the world isn't what she was led to believe. This is an important story, but unfortunately for me, the execution fell flat because I couldn't relate to the characters. My rating is 2.5 rounded up, based on my personal reading experience.

An Argument Against the "Feminist Lord of the Flies" Comparison
I don't know who started this, but I've seen people call this a feminist Lord of the Flies, which has made me irrationally angry. The books are thematically different: Lord of the Flies is about the breakdown of the boys' society when left without adult supervision; Wilder Girls is about the fight for survival in a world of food and resource scarcity during the Tox outbreak and quarantine. The girls had no choice or agency in the way life evolved on the island as they are following the lead of the Headmistress and Welch, and are waiting for the promised cure. The boys are tempted by power and the conflict between the rules of society and the impulse of "savagery." William Golding said that Lord of the Flies came to be because he wanted "to write a story about some boys on an island showing how they would really behave being boys and not really saints as they usually are in children's books." [Source]

CONTENT WARNINGS: (from author's website) Graphic violence and body horror, gore, on-page character death, parental death, and animal death (though the animals are not pets), behavior and descriptive language akin to self-harm, food scarcity and starvation, emesis, a scene depicting chemical gassing, reference to suicide and suicidal ideation, non-consensual medical treatment.

Many thanks to Delacorte Press for sending me an eARC via Netgalley for my honest review! Quotations are taken from an uncorrected proof and may change in final publication.

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[Stephanie]

Plants in eyes. Double spines. Body horror fun for everyone :]

[shannonmiz]

You can find the full review and all the fancy and/or randomness that accompanies it at It Starts at Midnight .


I really enjoyed this one! The whole vibe was so deliciously so eerie, the author really nailed making me feel like this is an island full of awfulness. The ambiance reminded me of The Call, which is an absolutely good thing. The Tox is... well, it sounds dreadful. It has taken the lives of many, and left its survivors with a whole host of physical maladies.

The characters are appropriately desperate to survive, to save each other, to do whatever it takes to live another day. The main focus is on three surviving roommates/friends, Hetty, Byatt, and Reese, though Hetty's POV is the main one. Hetty cares deeply for those she's come to love as family, even as she fights for her own life. Hetty's blossoming relationship with Reese despite the horrific landscape around them is beautiful, and makes the world seem slightly less dismal. We even get some insight into Byatt in her own POV chapters after the girls become separated.

One of the things I found refreshing was that these young women had the same issues that others have in our current world. Fights and hurt feelings didn't end just because the world seemingly had. Sure, they became different, but in fact the worth and value of their friendships skyrocketed, making them feel even more deeply.  Setting the story in an isolated school was a great choice too, as it led to further opportunity for secrets and lies , but also opportunities for familial-like closeness among the characters as a whole.

My only real qualm with the book occurs toward the end so I am spoiler-tagging it. The ending was awfully open. And I think that this world and these characters absolutely deserve, nay, require, another book. Also I like when my questions are answered, not sorry.

Bottom Line: Wholly atmospheric and delightfully messed up, this tale of young women clinging to survival- and each other- will do nothing less than captivate.

[cornerfolds]

Read more of my reviews at Cornerfolds.com!

When I started Wilder Girls I wasn't quite sure what genre it would be, mostly because I didn't pay much attention to the synopsis. I saw the weird cover, read some weird descriptions, and knew it was going to be a book for me!

Hetty is a student at Raxter School for Girls, along with her best friends Byatt and Reese. A year and a half ago the Tox hit the school, killing off teachers and afflicting students with horrible symptoms. The agreement they have with the government is that they maintain quarantine on their island within the school's fence and they'll continue to receive supplies. Hetty is chosen as one of the girls who ventures outside the fence to pick up supplies at the dock, soon after Byatt goes missing, and things unravel from there.

I loved the characters in this book and the relationships between them! Hetty was brave and fiercely loyal and I adored her friendship with Byatt. The romance was amazing and real and I loved seeing a more realistic exploration of a romantic relationship during such a brutal situation instead of the normal "they stopped to kiss" during life or death moments in a lot of YA fantasy. It was beautiful and heart-wrenching and I loved it.

Although the characters were amazing, where Wilder Girls REALLY shines is its worldbuilding. The island and the school are creepy and created a feeling of claustrophobia even though it takes place on what feels like a large island. I loved the idea of the world outside the fence and not knowing what was out there, but the school was equally amazing. I can easily picture this whole world of weirdness and I love when an author is able to paint such a clear picture. This is absolutely my kind of book!

I don't know if I'd truly consider this horror, but I was sufficiently creeped out from the very first page. The Tox was horrifying, but what a fantastic story! I will admit that parts of this book did drag and I can understand why some readers might get bored with the descriptions of the daily lives of the girls at Raxter, but I didn't mind it. Seeing the day in and day out of the abandoned school helped to build the feeling of unease and made me feel that much more shocked when the twists started being revealed. And there were a lot of them!

While reading this I was reminded of Annihilation, which is my one of my favorite movies (no, I haven't read the book). That isn't to say that this isn't unique, because this book is definitely that! But I Wilder Girls gave me the same (amazing) feeling of weirdness and unease that Annihilation did and I loved it. If you're a fan of weird, twisty books, this is for you! I can't wait to see what this author writes next!