Wilder Girls

Was going to be 3 stars but I am another person who got mad at the ending. The pacing was also wayyy off and nothing seemed to happen then things finally happened then it ended?

Maybe I read too many horror novels and I couldn't give this one “points for originality” since I thoroughly have other original horror novels I enjoyed much more.

Too confusing, not only in the end. It's a shame, as I was very excited to read it.

Plot who? Character building what? Conclusion how? Yeah no this book did nothing for me.

Ooo this book was good.

A+ teenage girl protagonists that are actually believable as teenage girls. They're moody and jealous, but at the same time, loyal as hell to each other. The plot of this book really grabs you by the throat right away – a plague of sorts has taken hold of a girls boarding school. It's killed over half of the school's population, and turned the rest into twisted monstery things. Basically, this is a sci-fi version of Lord of the Flies, but with girls. There's mystery, there's romance, there's violence.

It's cool as hell, but DAMN was that an abrupt ending. I would have loved another 50 pages, maybe. Just to wrap things up. I wanted to know what happened next, because the ending is sadly very, very vague. I'm hoping the author maybe has plans for a sequel – this story could really go places.

I have a few complaints, but nothing that really ruins the book for me, so end review is 4 stars!

Probably not the best idea to read this while staying at home because of coronavirus but here we are! This was really good and so hard to put down!

This one was okay. The descriptions of what was happening to the girls and their daily routines were terrible in an interesting way, but it definitely felt like the protagonist was more reactive than proactive. I also didn't really like the reveals involving Byatt, or that they left the surviving girls behind at the end. Ascribing some kind of moral imperative to a parasite was also kind of silly.

im so annoyed i was liking this sm and then the ending made no sense and when hetty and reese left it was so ooc it made my head hurt. disappointing and im MAD bc i had high expectations and i loved the first half of the book ugh

Creepy and unsettling (in the best possible way). I could not put this book down.

The ending left far more questions than answers but I'm assuming that it's being set up as a trilogy.

I loved that it's a tiny bit queer, but also that there's no romance (I hate the predictable love triangles in YA sci-fi). A lot of the dread in the book is tied to the disorienting experience of being a young woman in a body that's changing in ways you can't control and don't fully understand, which was very effective. And I looooove the cover.

This book was a lot better than I expected it to be. It reminded me a bit of Annihilation (the movie, I have not read the book) in the best way. I really liked the main character and the way she describes things. I am also very happy that the romance was not the main part of the book, that wouldn't have suited the tone at all. Aside from that, the world building and suspense was very atmospheric and realistic. There were a few things in the book that I did not care about that much, but the plot twists made me forget about those little things. Maybe this is not for everyone, though I do suggest you give it a try.

This book was...fine. I have no criticism at all honestly. The writing was beautiful, I liked the characters, the concept is great. By all accounts this should be 5/5 but it never goes the extra mile to be great. Just a solid good book.

I am not one for long reviews , but damn this was so disappointing. I feel like I was really looking forward to it, and the premise had so much potential but it was underwhelming as heck, and that ending ppppppptttth

This was an uncomfortable and very disturbing read for me - I had nightmares about flora and fauna

weird, queer, body horror galore masterpiece.

Reminded me of The Troop by Nick Cutter and heavily of Annihilation but forget all of that because this book stands on its fucking own and I love all the bits and pieces and then some.

Really 3.5 stars, but rounding up because I did compulsively read it over 2 days, and THAT COVER!This definitely owes a lot to Annihilation - both the book and the movie adaptation. It also has a few echoes of Lord of the Flies, a bit of the feel of Hunger Games (though really no plot similarities), and of course plenty of tropes from body horror / plague narratives. The one that leaps to mind is the TV show Helix.For most of its duration, the story deftly balances secrets and disclosure - learning about the tox but wondering what The Authorities are keeping hidden kept me fully engaged. However, I felt like this balance was lost toward the end, with the rather ham-fisted expedient of the Navy doctors running away, and the two adults at the school excused from any explanations of their actions, knowledge, or motivations by one killing herself and the other losing her mind. The upshot is there isn't much pay-off to the mysteries. There are a couple developments that lead to guessed-at explanations, but I didn't find it satisfying. Meanwhile, the mystery/horror/adventure story was woven with interpersonal mechanics that were mostly reasonable character development, though sometimes had me rolling my eyes at the adolescent drama (I acknowledge that I'm not the target age bracket by a mile!). Then towards the end, the driving issue for me (the mystery) was relegated and the interpersonal drama became the point of the exercise. I can see the potential in that approach, but the execution fell flat for me. (For a much better example, check out [b:My Best Friend's Exorcism 41015038 My Best Friend's Exorcism Grady Hendrix https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1533059241l/41015038.SY75.jpg 46065002].)This is definitely worth picking up at the library and bingeing your way through. Not only is the mystery and horror compelling, it was also lovely to see such a female-centered story, and very matter-of-fact LGBTQ+ representation! Just know that the ending may not deliver everything one might hope.(A note about the audio book: I'm glad I got it because I needed to know what happened next, and it really helped me get more reading in. However, I didn't much care for the Hetty reader, and the Byatt reader annoyed me like hell. Also, I don't think you can hear Byatt in the Audible sample. So caveat emptor.)

I will absolutely give this to anyone who tells me they enjoy creepy books with strong female characters. It was definitely gripping. I have no idea what my face looked like while reading graphic descriptions of various bodily horrors, but it probably wasn't pretty. I would say this was a well written novel. I care about the characters and I want to know what happens next, but I did not necessarily enjoy the reading.

4/5 stars

Here it is. Best damned thing I read all summer (so far!), and I really expected to be let down because I've kind of been disappointed by the last 10 YA novels I've attempted. I was also concerned because the cover is so gorgeous. Don't laugh! Sometimes they put beautiful covers on lackluster reads just to polish them up.
I'm not going to read anyone else's reviews, because I'm sure this book will have it's haters. I LOVED it and COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN!! Yes the girls are a little hard to tell apart. It's mostly their personalities: Hetty, grumpy and tough, Byatt, grumpier and tough, Reece, grumpiest and tough, but it worked for me that they were friends and had closed ranks in the midst of an emergency. The world-building was above par.
I think it belongs in the environmental horror genre and it is amazing. I had some preconceptions going in and I just want to state that comparing this book to Lord of the Flies is a stretch. There are adult authority figures present. Second, someone told me this was heavy on same sex love and...no, I disagree. It's about real friendship, there is one relationship sort of highlighted, but understand that this story is almost NON-STOP action and ain't nobody got time for blossoming romances.
Love, love, loved it. I don't need a sequel or a series. It was perfect.

1.5 stars.

Well.... the hype for this book set me up for a great story but nope.
The first half of this book was AMAZING but the other half ruined the whole story for me.

The only good thing about this book was the characters. I could picture them perfectly and I loved them all.

I have very high expectations in this book! The premise is very interesting, the writing style is simple yet so beautifully written, it has sapphic romance and the cover is pure art. And yet, I still find it lacking. I was expecting it to be creepy like how everybody made it out to be but the nightmares never came to eat me alive. Also, I didn't quite like how the ending went and it even made me more confused. It left me with so many unanswered questions and there was no explaination or whatsoever on how or why did the Tox happen or where does it come from, which made it kind of hard for me to connect with the story. However, I still enjoyed it and its fresh and a new take to the horror genre.

(“Why me?!”, impromptu art by my daughter when I asked her to do something for me) “Why me?!”, I asked my wife, “Why do I always have to choose the worst books?!” - with the prettiest covers, I might add. Because this book is a classic example why you shouldn't judge a book by its cover – which, in this case, is beautiful whereas the contents read like they've partly been ripped out of the script to some mediocre horror b-movie and partly been born out of the brain of a pubescent teenager. Maybe a sadistic ecology freak was on-board as well because at times the book reads like something along the lines of “nature strikes back”. The plot is simple and the premise interesting: A female-only boarding school on a small island; “the Tox”, some kind of plague, ravaging the wildlife, the girls and their teachers. Hetty, Byatt and Reese, three pupils and friends, are trying to survive. Suddenly, when Byatt vanishes Hetty learns something sinister is going on on the island... I'm not even sure where to start with my criticism because this book has almost no redeeming qualities: The writing is weird and I found myself asking “what did she smoke?!”: “And in the other hand, Raxter. No ferry on the horizon, mainland far and farther. Water and shoreline born new every day. Everything what it wants to be. Everything mine. I'm buried there no matter where I go.”The wise old woman expressing the above is Hetty, a teenager of 16 years... Yeah, riiight... The pacing is all over the place, too: Slow introductive scenes into the not-so-normal school life with the Tox dominate the first 50% of the book. Then, suddenly, things escalate quickly and we find ourselves in outlandish fights with cross-breeds between human and flora (!), and corrupted animals. Then again, things come to a screeching halt and we're back inside the school. As if that wasn't enough already, we're witnessing school girl tragedy, the evil headmistress, the misunderstood well-meaning teacher and lots of other characterless characters. In a rather simplistic attempt to cater to a broader audience, there are some LGBT motifs tacked on to the story. Unfortunately, they feel completely artificial and add nothing at all to the story. The entire ménage à trois between our three lacklustre “heroines” feels completely off and weird. Worst with respect to that, though: I didn't care one bit. Byatt? Reese? I couldn't care less whom of which makes Hetty's heart beat faster. This entire book feels very bizarre but not in a good way. I progressed from “bizarre”... ““Don't,” [...] cries from behind me. But I can't listen. It's not him anymore. I lean hard, brace my hand on his elbow as I wedge the knife deeper and deeper and start to lever it up. There's a heart to all this. There has to be.” ... by way of “seriously?!”... “He's rotting from the inside out.” ... to “disgusting”... “Until finally. A snap. And inside his rib cage, I see it. A beating heart, glossed in blood. Built from the earth, from the bristle of pine, and inside, there is something else, something more, something living. I don't think twice. Just claw at it with both hands, and it comes screaming out with a wet tear.” ... within this very scene and the entire book. Especially the above scene made me actually think that these might simply be the feverish violent fantasies of a pubescent boy, tinged with bloodthirsty revenge. Curiously, Hetty of all people sums up my feelings for this book pretty well: “Person after person collapsing under the weight of this place, lie after lie, and I've had enough of this. Enough of these confrontations, of secrets spilling out of us like blood.” Blog Facebook Twitter Instagram

This review can also be found on my blog.
disclaimer: I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for review consideration. All of the opinions presented below are my own.

Wilder Girls thrusts you into the midst of an epidemic unlike any you will have encountered before. The story is centered around a group of three friends who have all fallen prey to the Tox, which has overtaken their boarding school as well as the island it sits upon. Many lives have been claimed by the Tox, both students and teachers alike. The girls have become quite accustomed to the situation, and seem to have accepted their fates.

Part of what I adored was how original the Tox was. I think we've seen plenty of sci-fi stories focusing on diseases, but Wilder Girls took this to a whole other level. We aren't fed much info about the plague, which makes it feel quite mysterious, but its result is a whole lot of body horror that plays out differently in each girl. And believe me when I say it is a LOT of body horror. This book is really not for the faint of heart.

At first I had a bit of trouble discerning the differences between the characters themselves. It took me quite a bit to become attached to them and their relationships. The three girls at the center of the book kind of blurred together in my mind until about a third through. Luckily, I felt this issue was resolved and came to love them all in their own ways.

Also, believe the hype when it comes to how queer this book is. Hetty, one of the POV characters, is bi/pan/queer (she mentions liking both boys and girls, but no label) and Reese, another one of the characters, self-identifies as queer. Byatt, the third in the trio, doesn't have her sexuality mentioned at all as far as I remember. There is a f/f romance that is not the focus of the story at all, but was very cute and did add a lot!

Overall, I think this was just a lovely sapphic YA horror novel that gave off some serious Annihilation vibes. If any of that sounds interesting to you, you'll probably adore it. While I'd love a sequel (or a spinoff?), I do think the ending left things tied up quite nicely. I'm impressed by this debut novel and am quite excited to see what Rory Power puts out next!