I really enjoyed the first half of this book, and I loved the almost all of the last half, but sadly the quick ending just really left a bad taste in my mouth. I would love this to be a first book in a series, and I would love to read more, but as a standalone it just didn't feel very great to finish.

I was so excited for this book, the premise sounded interesting with a virus and infected girls quarantined in boarding school and the cover is gorgeous enough to make me want to read without even knowing what the book was about.

The beginning of the book was fantastic and scary and I was so there for it. But then it felt like the plot spiraled out of control and I was not invested in it even a little. What first appeared as a horror dystopian became a sort of survival friendship love story that I didn't care about. The lack of answers about EVERYTHING sucked and I found our three "heroines" to be very selfish and completely self involved, unconcerned that their actions potentially could kill others. Also, there was not a whole lot of character development or relationship development and everything felt flat.


**Mild spoiler **
If the tox is estrogen sensitive, why are all the animals crazy since half the animal population would have estrogen??? I just need more answers. After discussing the book with my book club someone pointed out that the reason for the tox was given in a single random paragraph that I guess I overlooked (and so did so many others so I am not alone in my confusion) but it was never given any real importance.

Other people seem to really like this book, it just went in a different direction that what I expected and what I wanted.

4.5/5 Stars

The only reason I took off half a star is for the abrupt ending but even that almost doesn't seem like enough reason to not give this a full 5 stars. That's how much I loved this book!

I was very unsure how I would feel about reading a book with body horror and apparently I love it!? I found myself rereading certain passages and wishing that we had heard about what was happening with every girl. Not sure what that says about me but I very much enjoyed that part of the book.

I was completely drawn into this world and wanting to know all the answers. A little disappointed that I didn't get all the answers but was also kind of okay with that and normally I wouldn't be. I also very much want to reread this book and see if I will be able to connect some things that I might have missed the first time.

Also this book has a f/f romance that is kind of hate to love or at least, "I thought you didn't like me but really you're just bad with your feelings." The romance was not a huge part of the book but I enjoyed that as I don't really like romance. Also there's so much other stuff going on in this book that if the characters and put that romance as a priority I would have been annoyed and rolling my eyes.

So overall this book won't be for everybody with questions left unanswered and the very abrupt, open-ended ending, but I still love this and it's probably in my top five books of 2019.

If I could describe Wilder Girls in one word, it would be weird. I've noticed that there are varying opinions on this book, especially when it comes to the ending. Some loved it, others not so much. I think I fall more on the side of loving Wilder Girls. It was weird but in a positive way! I wasn't going into this with any expectations except that it was going to be a wild ride. And it really was. This book stands out among all of the other books that I've read this year and I am incredibly eager to read whatever else Rory Power writes!

Hetty, Byatt, and Reese go to extremes to figure out the strange disease that has them quarantined at their island boarding school, off the Maine coast. The girls are changing physically, in addition to the mental stress of being isolated with reduced food and supplies. The Tox has taken over the island, infecting the plants, animals, and girls living there. Friendships are forged and tested as survival becomes paramount.

I loved Lord of the Flies when I read it in college and am loving this trend in retellings with gender swaps and modern sensibilities. I first put this in my survival section, but as I read further, I think it fits better in mystery/horror.

P. 121 Byatt: Too bright and too bored and something missing, or perhaps something too much there.

I don't know what I was expecting when I started reading this book, but this wasn't it. Wilder Girls is a crazy book involving a strange disease, a quarantined boarding school, and mutated wildlife. It's also about friendship, love, and a search for answers. Wilder Girls will leave you guessing till the final page.

Eerie and horrifying and bloody. Some amazing voice and character bonds. But I still have so many questions??? The ENDING???? I need a sequel.

Wilder Girls is part survival thriller, part dystopian, and part horror. It manages to do justice to all of these genres, but it still felt unfinished to me. The book is often marketed as a feminist retelling of William Golding's classic Lord of the Flies and while it does share similar themes to that dystopian classic, Wilder Girls holds its own.

It's been a year and a half since the Raxter School for Girls was ravaged by the Tox, a mysterious sickness that crept in slowly through the woods, distorting the properties and bodies of anything in its path. The teachers' and students' bodies have been changed in vicious ways, ranging from new body parts to skin changing into scales for those who survive and those who don't suffer an excruciating death as they wilt and their bodies blackened as the Tox eats away at them. Left with the promise of a cure, the quarantined girls watch out for one another. That's precisely what Hetty is doing when her friend Byatt disappears, and together with her friend Reese, she breaks quarantine to penetrate the wild beyond the fence to find her.

Wilder Girls has a very creepy atmospheric quality to the story that hovers around our main characters rather than the traditional jump scares. For much of the story, the reader and the girls do not know much of what is happening but we are enraptured by this twisted tale by the little hints of a backstory dropped throughout the book and effective foreshadowing done by the author. The elements of body horror is quite striking throughout the novel with the graphic mentions of a stitched-up eye with something lurking underneath, a second protruding spine, animals growing three times their size. There is a connection between the Tox and the female physical development which I found to be fascinating and wanted to learn more about.

The story is divided into mainly two narratives of Hetty and Byatt and it is Hetty's fierce loyalty which drives the story. Unlike Lord of the Flies, in which their isolation catalyzes their social hierarchy and eventually makes the characters turn on one another, Wilder Girls has the complete opposite result. The girls' solidarity and their relationships help foster their survival. While there are clear differences as to who holds power, the story does not focus on the girls tearing each other down, which I really appreciated. I also appreciated that our main characters all fall in the spectrum of LGBTQ+ and their sexual identities are not a big deal. There is a hint of romance or perhaps two are that are brewing in the background, but it is not the main part of the story. Overall I really loved the themes of the story and the representation of the characters, but I wished I had gotten a few solid details of the Tox and I did not care for the open ending. I would recommend this book to readers who are looking for a unique horror book that moves beyond the scares. I am looking forward to see what the author does next.

I received an E-ARC of this book from Random House Children's through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  All thoughts and opinions of the novel are my own.

A sickness named "The Tox" has ravaged a small all-girls boarding school on an island off the coast of Maine for the last year and a half.  No one knows how it started or what to expect from it.  Girls have quickly died from The Tox, and others have suffered from extreme mutations that have disfigured them.  All the girls know is that the military is trying to help them the best they can, and they just have to stay alive until they can find a way to cure them.

This novel was equal parts terrifying and intriguing.  The Tox itself is a fascinating epidemic, as it seems to have only been contracted on the island and no one knows how it started.  This is never truly determined in the novel, which I found to be a little disappointing.  There were some theories developed of what could have caused it, but nothing was determined. 

The characters themselves were interesting and had some great ideas for depth to them, but the marks were missed.  Two of the characters are either bisexual or lesbian, which is always great to see, but the relationship between them seemed a little forced in my opinion.  It almost felt like it was just thrown in there for the sake of lightening things up since everything else was so dark and dismal.  One of the girls is the daughter of a Navy man, which is really unique in its own way, but there wasn't a lot past that.  There was a lot of potential for some great anecdotes from the character and how she survived on the island based on what her father told her, but it was missed.

The atmosphere of the story was the best part.  Every second of reading this story was filled with questions and fear for what was out there, as much of the wildlife had succumbed to the ways of The Tox as well.  It had some vibes that I felt were similar to "The Maze Runner" by James Dashner, which worked for the story, since the island is so far removed from the rest of civilization.

Overall, I truly enjoyed the story, but felt that it was lacking in some points and could have been dug into more to really get at the characters and understand the true origin of The Tox.

Rating: 4/5 stars

Delacorte Press and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of Wilder Girls. I was under no obligation to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

Fenced in and locked away from the rest of the world, the young teenagers and the remainder of the staff from the Raxter School for Girls must rely on random drops of supplies from the government to survive. Physically altered by an unknown source, the struggle to make it through is complicated by flareups of the Tox and the pain that results. For Hetty and the rest of her peers, is there something at play for which they have no knowledge? Who can they trust? Are they every truly safe?

At first, Wilder Girls had a Lord of the Flies type feeling, but this changes as the book progresses. I actually liked the story more in the beginning, a classic survival of the fittest story that shows the breakdown of social norms during a disaster. The author seems to throw in plot points, in order to drive the story toward the eventual ending. I did not like the second half of the book, with one exception. The bit of realism at the conclusion did not do enough to resurrect the story for me, so I would be hesitant to recommend Wilder Girls to other readers.

This book was a wild (no pun intended) ride. Part sci-fi, part dystopian, part coming of age story. It was an interesting story with a few twists at the end. However, if you're looking for a book with a perfectly wrapped up ending - this won't be that. A great debut novel, will definitely check out further works by Rory Power.

On an island in the North Atlantic sits a private girl's school. As Rory Power's book <em>Wilder Girls</em> opens, a plague has already spread across the island (and more?) and the surviving girls and instructors have found their own way to move on with their new lives. Their independence is frail, however, as they cannot go into the woods surrounding their school because the plague, referred to as 'Tox,' is thick, making the wilderness around their school truly wild.

Three girls, Hetty, Byatt, and Reese, have become quite close friends through the shared ordeal. One day Byatt is suddenly missing and despite a strict, warden-like adult trying to care for the girls, Hetty goes in search for her friend only to make some horrific discoveries.

The book is told through two alternating viewpoints - Hetty's and Byatt's. Given that there are three friends, it makes for a highly interesting writing device making Reese's involvement <em>more</em> interesting.

Rory Power understands that 'less is more' and that often what we are <em>not</em> told is more interesting than what is directing in front of us. Here, sometimes, what we are not told over-powers the story. The biggest of these is the Tox itself. It's a dystopian novel and the story is about the girls and their survival, but knowing anything about how this all came to be makes it the intriguing story that we never get.

That the Tox plays a major role in the plot, yet we know nothing about it, makes it the frustrating story we never get.

I definitely fell into the hype surrounding this book (there's been a real marketing push for this) and I was most certainly drawn to the incredible cover, which promised a strange, dark story (which is provided).

I think that there is a strong YA readership that will devour this book. As a YA book this follows all the plot requirements (a youth, typically a girl, on her own, not understood by the adults in her life, facing odds that are depressing) but with some twists that make it stand out among other books. But for me, the lack of information made it more frustrating than appealing.

Looking for a good book? <em>Wilder Girls</em> by Rory Power is a dystopian YA book with plenty of intrigue but leaves many holes in the story.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

Knowing that they are special, the Wilder Girls, who were once a young group of girls sent to a boarding school on an island, learn to survive despite the advent of mystery physical deformities. Provided they live through the metamorphosis. But as they wait each week for the provisions provided by the government, a group of three girls uncover secrets that were to change the course of their lives. Rory Power’s debut novel shows a societal commentary of the horrors of how little a government can care for its people. This novel is intermixed with fantasy, love, and an overall horror that shacks the reader into realizations they may never want to have had.

I did not like this book at all. It was not even worth reading. I couldn't seem to bring myself to enjoy it. the characters were too flat.

In a new, horrifyingly unsettling YA novel by debut author Rory Power, the hit TV show Lost meets the classic novel The Lord of the Flies; that is, if The Lord of the Flies was set on an island inhabited only by girls and plagued by a sweeping infection that is literally painting everything black.

The Raxter School for Girls, located on an island off the coast of Maine, was hit with what is called the "Tox" eighteen months ago. The Tox has infected the girls of Raxter School, causing them to develop strange mutations, including scaly skin, sealed off eyeballs, and extra body parts that are normally singular (two hearts or spines, anyone?) For those who haven't died yet, it is just a game of survival. Holed up in their school, they are cut off from the rest of the world, 1) because the Tox has also infected the animals of the island, turning them into something ferocious and fierce, and 2) because the outside world does not want to risk infection themselves. Supplies are periodically dropped off to the girls, but there never seems to be enough of anything to go around, especially food. Yes, not only are the Raxter girls infected, they are also starving.

Hetty, Byatt, and Reese, three Raxter School girls, share a room and never leave each others' side. That is, until the day that the Tox causes a severe reaction in Byatt, making her deathly ill. When Baxter is quarantined away from the rest of the girls, Hetty and Reese are determined to find her ... but at what cost? Pretty soon the already dangerous and tense atmosphere of Raxter Island is made even more explosive as the girls uncover secrets that no one was ever meant to discover.

Wilder Girls has all the makings of a suspenseful, compulsive read, set on an island being overtaken by a mysterious force, and inhabited by a group of teenage girls with little to no adult supervision. The Tox is terrifying, the tension is thick, and the atmosphere is eerie. Wilder Girls also plays on the theme of an isolated community void of men. The Raxter girls are no damsels in distress. These girls scavenge, kill, and plot to their advantage - there's no waiting for a prince in shining armor to show up on this island.

However, while this novel has a lot of great story elements throughout, there is little payoff at the end. Readers who are expecting to learn all about the origins of the Tox, how the girls became infected, and why the Tox manifests itself so differently in each girl, should be warned that little to nothing is explained by the end of the story. Perhaps this means that a sequel is anticipated? However, with no promise of a series, the ending was quite disappointing and abrupt to me, hence my three star rating.

3.5. The concept was really intriguing and this book started out strong. The dynamic between the survivors was great, the connection between the individual girls and the way their body horror manifested was thought-provoking, and I was really drawn into the unsettling nature of the story. But then it began to focus more on describing the eerie atmosphere and we did not really get any closure/specificity on anything--the disease, the army, the oddness of the island, et cetera. More ambiguous than I would've liked.

I liked this book. Were my expectations overwhelmingly high? Yes. But I enjoyed the characters and the atmosphere may have been my favorite part of the story. The ending did kind of... affect my rating, but overall this was a nice, creepy read.

The cover, the story, the characters and the ending.....AMAZING! Do not hesitate to get this book! Thank you Netgalley for a free ARC IN exchange for an honest review!

This book had the potential to be so much more. The storyline was great, and the writing style was really interesting and engaging. There could have been 100 more pages to better flesh out the backstory and give it a better ending but all in all it was a good book.

A lot of people have been calling Wilder Girls a female version of Lord of the Flies; I'd say it's much more of a YA take on Jeff Vandermeer's Annihilation, since both involve an all-female cast, weird fiction focused on a very specific environment, and an overlying sense of unease and strangeness. Unlike Vandermeer's creation of humid Florida otherness, Wilder Girls is set on an isolated island off the coast of Maine, home to an all-girls boarding school that has been completely cut off from the mainland for a year and a half after the outbreak of a mysterious disease referred to as the Tox. The Tox, along with causing intermittent episodes of crippling pain and affliction, warps the bodies of the girls to suit its opaque purposes: one character's hair glows, and the cover illustration shows a metaphorical look at the potential for beauty in these mutations, but the reality for the rest of the girls is much more sinister: our main character Hetty's eye has been sealed shut, her best friend Byatt has grown a second, alien spine, and our hair-glowing friend Rae can't use one of her hands.

The disease and quarantine, however, are affecting more than just the girls' bodies. The majority of their teachers are dead, and no other adults are left alive on the island; the Navy sends food intermittently, but it's never enough; and the girls are forced to be constantly vigilant against the threat of attack from Tox-warped wild animals from the surrounding forest. Contact with the outside world is almost non-existent, but the girls still left alive have become survivors, adapting to an unthinkable new reality with pragmatism and strict adherence to the new rules of their lives. Until a few crucial things change: Hetty acquires new information that makes her question what's really happening on the island, and her best friend, seemingly irrepressible, blue-blooded, capricious Byatt, goes missing.

I love weird fiction (think Vandermeer or Samanta Schweblin) and am delighted to find the genre finding a foothold in YA. Powers creates an intensely atmospheric setting in Raxter Island that feels like a character itself, and the mysterious illness plaguing the island's inhabitants is a constantly creeping antagonist, at times forced to the background and at other times reasserting its presence forcefully, throughout the other horrors that the characters encounter. Hetty is a tough, survival-focused main character, and I loved her loyalty to her friends, her determination, and her slowly developing romance with Rae. I also loved complex, morally grey Byatt, who I could easily read another entire book about.

Wilder Girls is fascinating and immersive, and I didn't see a lot of the plot twists coming, but the pacing is a bit irregular and unconventional, which may bother some readers, although it wasn't an issue for me personally. And I'm not going to give away any spoilers, but I do need to address the ending. I really don't mind an open-ended or thought-provoking ending as long as it's done well--Kelly Link is one of my favorite authors, for example, and all of her stories both end and begin ambiguously. But I didn't feel that this was the case in Wilder Girls, and rather than feeling ambiguous, the ending struck me as unfinished, and unfortunately didn't work for me, which is why I'm giving this 4 stars rather than 5.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an eARC of Wilder Girls in exchange for an honest review.