This was the story of Eden, a teenage girl who gets sent to live with an uncle she barely knows after her father is sent to jail. She is working in the woods when she comes across a “pack” of 4 girls and one of them is injured. She helps the injured girl and the story follows Eden (now called Rhi) and the girls as they come to live in the real world after growing up in the forest being cared for by a man they called Mother. There is so much more to the story than this initial storyline, but I don’t want to give too much away. I could feel every emotion the girls felt in this beautifully written story. There were some serious and deep topics, but it never felt too heavy. Every young woman should read this book!! Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this advanced reader’s copy.

CW: for trauma, violence, abuse, child abuse, r*pe, death, mental health triggers. It's an intense book. Spoiler warning at end of review.

Rhi is in foster care, after a troubled childhood and desperate for a new start in a new location. While in the woods she discovers a pack of half-feral teenage girls, living wild and free with wolves as their guides. Are they really lost princesses from another land, as they claim, or are they missing children who had been kidnapped long ago?

The mystery of their origin deepens as the wild girls - Epiphanie, Oblivienne, Verity and Sunder - are introduced to the modern world, trying to reconcile with the prophesies they have been taught to believe. And as things spiral out of control, the lines between reality and the magic and identities they know to be true become more and more blurred.

This was an intense book. We have two stories interwoven together - that of the Wild Girls and their adaptation to the modern world after a lifetime living wild and isolated; that of Rhi, living in an abusive household. Both stories deal with trauma and mental health challenges that are strained under different stressors, but both are guided through by psychologist, Dr Ibanez, working to try and heal the wounds of the past and the now.

At it's core, this is more than a magic-realism book about wolf-pack women and magical prophesies - this is a book of healing, of identity, of empowerment in the face of immense challenges and despite the fact that "No one fucking listens to teenage girls".

This is technically classified YA, but I'd recommend it for older teens in that classification/age bracket.

~ Many thanks to NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review~

==
**Spoiler warning/content warning:
One character does take their own life. This book does look at their mental state prior to the event, and the grief of those left behind.
There is also a depiction of child abuse and sexual assault

There is something so dark and so wonderful contained in these pages. It is a story about pain and terrible things, but it is also a story about the magic of women and the ways we can help each other.
This is a book that you absolutely need to check the trigger warnings before you read it. It doesn't shy away from the bad parts of these girls lives. They have been abused and beaten down, and life has not been kind to them. But it also shows a lot of love in the way these things are handled, and I think if you go into it knowing the extent of the bad stuff, you'll find a lot of comfort in the way the author goes about it.
I am a big lover of books about messed up teenage girls. I think it is a universal experience for all teenage girls, regardless of race or class or anything else, to be messed up in some way. And these girls are MESSY.
This is an important, haunting, and ultimately beautiful story. I highly recommend.

Did not finish. Did not finish. Did not finish. Did not finish. Did not finish. Did not finish. Did not finish. Did not finish. Did not finish. Did not finish. Did not finish. Did not finish. Did not finish. Did not finish. Did not finish. Did not finish. Did not finish. Did not finish. Did not finish. Did not finish. Did not finish. Did not finish. Did not finish. Did not finish. Did not finish. Did not finish. Did not finish. Did not finish. Did not finish. Did not finish. Did not finish. Did not finish.

The cover was brilliant, definitely caught my attention.

Story revolves around Rhi, a teenage girl who is neglected and mentally abused by her father and step mother.
The real story begins when she’s walking out in the woods and happens upon 4 feral young girls.
These young girls tell a story of being raised in the wild, cared for by a man they call “mother” and being taught that they are princesses from another dimension.
Despite their story, Rhi has an instant bonding with the girls that leads her to believe she is the lost “sister” they need to return “home”.
This book touches on some serious topics so be sure to read the trigger warnings in the synopsis.
There are some loose ends that I wish were touched on more but I was captivated with this story from the very beginning.
The author did a great job showing how society tries to shape and mold the minds and self concepts of young women.
Finding strength in our friends, realizing family isn’t always blood, learning to stand up for ourselves and giving ourselves permission to heal.
This is my take away from the book ❤️

I. Am. SPEECHLESS. This book was spellbinding. I was riveted from the very beginning. Be sure to read the synopsis for trigger warnings as there are many.

Rhi is a girl who has spent her life feeling unloved, and desperate for human touch. When her father is arrested and her stepmother abandons her she is taken in by an uncle that she has never had a relationship with. Her uncle works hard to help her heal and show her the love that she has always craved and deserved. One morning in the woods Rhi comes upon a pack of wild girls and their wolf protectors. One of the girls is injured and Rhi calls for help.

Through the course of the book Rhi discovers that these girls were raised in the woods by a man called “Mother” and they believe they are princesses destined to save a kingdom named Leutheria. They believe Rhi to be their fifth sister. Right up until the end I wasn’t sure if Leutheria was real or not.

This book discusses what it is like to grow up in this world as a female. How the world attempts to dim our light, douse our fire, and mold us into a compliant and meek person. You can see the world beating these girls down throughout the book and how viciously they fight to keep their wildness.

The author did a great job of making me feel what these girls were feeling. Their anger, their confusion, their fear…and the overpowering love that they had for each other.

Do yourself a favor and READ THIS BOOK. NOW.

Thank you to NetGalley and Zando for the opportunity to read this book.

This book takes sisterhood and being a woman, with all of its feral, angry and heartfelt energy and creates a narrative out of it. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will read anything else this author writes

4.5 star on The Wilderness of Girls.

Thank you to Dreamscape Select, Zando Projects and NetGalley for sending me an ARC and Audiobook of this title in exchange for review.

The separate copies I received of this book must have been from different editing stages because the audiobook was quite different. Not in a huge subject changing way just dual reading with both I noticed a lot of the vocabulary was different. However the narrator for this was amazing. She gave emotion and depth and in no way sounded robotic or monotone like many other audiobooks I’ve listened to.

This book…. Wow. It had me in tears. You get the feeling straight away that it’s going to be a heavy book, and it definitely delivers on that. I’d check the TW if that is concerning to you, personally it was a lot but it made me fall into the story more and feel closer with the characters. The extremely strong found family in this book is beautiful I love girls just being girls (a little bit feral) and supporting each other. I will be preordering this as soon as I finish my review to have on my shelf (I think this comes out tomorrow!!!).

It hit me hard and had me interested from page one and now I’m going to google Madeline Claire Franklin and dive into all of her works.

Special shoutout to uncle Jimmy!!!

I first want to say that I loved the cover of this book and honestly it's what drew me in. I cannot say that I loved the book.

There were aspects of the story that I did enjoy. My favorite character was Eden/Rhi whose story was so emotional but so real.

I didn't always enjoy the 'wild girls' aspect of the book. It felt confusing, where was the magic? I also felt like there were loose ends, who was Mother? I would've loved to hear more of that story.

I just think this particular story wasn't for me, others will love it! I will try this author again.

Huge triggers in this story...sexual assault, rape, cannibalism, physical and mental abuse.
*The piece of the story with dismemberment and cannibalism was unnecessary in my opinion.

Thank you to NetGalley, Madeline Claire Franklin and Zando Young Readers for this e-arc version of this book. All opinions stated above are my own opinion.

I thought this book was going to be much different than it was. It had very heavy themes that were revealed slowly. By the end I understood why the author chose to give the girls the idea of magic but it was pretty misleading. I did enjoy the book and appreciated how the abusive pasts were handled but I would not have chosen to read this book had I known that it was primarily about such horribly abusive lives. Good book but not the kind of book I would normally read.

5/5 ⭐️
“I’m not sorry I helped you, but you….all of you…you were wild. You were free. And I can’t help feeling like it’s my fault the world is going to tame you. “
“It is hard. ... To balance who you really are with what the world expects you to be. Sometimes the world is correct, sometimes it is not. It seems like a person could spend their whole life learning to tell the difference.”
Why does your story matter? This is a question Abbie Emmon asks in her YouTube series helping writers with their craft. This is a question I have found lacking in some stories lately, or not pushed far enough, but this story answered it. Why does this story matter? It beautifully asks the question of what it means to be a young woman in this society by showing us the struggles and ordeals this group of girls go through. It explores environmentalism and PTSD and trauma and individuality and freedom without being hit-you-over-the-head obvious. But it is also so wonderfully crafted that I felt such strong emotions while reading. The words might be simple, but I felt anger and darkness and hollowness. I felt their love. I especially felt their sadness. This was an exceptional story, one that I think is perfect for fans of The Grace Year by Kim Liggett and When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill. I look forward to seeing what else this author puts out.
Thank you to NetGalley and Zando Projects for providing an advance reader copy of this book for my honest review.

In THE WILDERNESS OF GIRLS, Rhi finds four feral girls in the forest and introduces them to society, wondering if they ought to be tamed, or if she should embrace her own sense of wild?

TW: sexual assault, suicide

The mystery around the four feral girls captivated me. I read the first half of the book in a single sitting. The juxtaposition between Rhi, who grew up in society, and the girls, who grew up completely in the wild, led to very interesting questions on girlhood.

Ultimately though, I felt like the novel tried to do too much. As someone who has recently been touched by teen suicide, I wish the novel had handled the issue more sensitively. While Rhi's assault was integral to her character arc and the central themes of violence (violence in the wilderness versus violence in society and violence against women), I felt that the suicide wasn't needed to tell the story the author set out to tell.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Madeline Claire Franklin for providing me with a complimentary digital ARC for The Wilderness of Girls coming out June 11, 2024. The honest opinions expressed in this review are my own.

I really loved the beginning of this book. I thought the summary was really interesting and I was excited to read it. I thought Rhi was an interesting character who had been through a lot. It was good to see her have a fresh start in life. I thought there was a lot of mystery surrounding the girls she found in the woods. I thought it was all very dark and atmospheric. I was interested in their story and why they were in that situation. I think I lost some interest halfway through the book. There were parts that seemed a bit repetitive. There was a lot of build up with the girls and them wanting to go back to Mother. It just seemed to be a lot of the same. It was somewhat long at 400 pages, but I thought the short chapters and different formats were good. There were some really dark themes that I wasn’t expecting. I thought it would go in a different direction. I don’t think this book was quite for me. The themes were a little too much without a lot of a wrap up. I felt like there should’ve been more of an ending after all that. I would check out other books by this author.

OOF. This was nothing like what I expected and I am so pleased to have been given the opportunity to read and review it early. I love stories about girls and womanhood, especially ones focusing on their identities and strengths. I wasn't sure that this book would be that, but it was, and it completely nailed it in a brand new way.

Eden is a young girl in an unstable home, and shortly into the book finds herself a ward of her uncle. There is clearly unmentioned history of Eden's past, and we get snippets to which one can form conclusions, that drives a low-frequency anxiety throughout the whole book-making a reader committed to Eden's story and strive for her success- even though she's only one in an ensemble of incredible and unique characters- girls and boys, men and women, doctors or family, front and center or otherwise.

The "Wild Girls of Happy Valley" have their own story that abruptly intersects Eden's story - and the five work through their trials as a pack- from institutionalization to a reckoning about their destiny. The girls were not parodied either- every character was well described without being verbose; I felt like I fully understood everyone in this book.

The plot feels brand new to me and it did not disappoint. Lately, I've heard this amazing plots and the books do not rise to the challenge. This plot was thorough, dissected, and profound. It did not make a mockery of any of the girls or their experiences, of which there were many heartbreaking ones.
Nor was gratuitous or "sympathy porn" in any way- it talked about some brutal topics with clarity and directness but without harshness. I tend to avoid "depressing" books whose sole purpose is to make the reader feel pained/heartbroken/sympathetic etc- I would NOT consider this to be one of them. The girls' histories are significant, but not the entire plot.

My thanks to NetGalley and Zando Young Readers for the ARC of "The Wilderness of Girls" in exchange for an honest review.
Let's get right to the point here. This book can easily break your heart multiple times and on multiple levels. The amount of emotional hurt on display is unrelenting and the story kept a lock on my full attention from first page to the last. The phrase 'immersive read' doesn't even begin to describe it.
The primal storyline is a trope we've all seen in books and films......that of a wild, feral child taken away from its natural habitat and brought into contact with a modern world determined to alter the child's nature, to adjust their behavior to civilized normality. Madeline Claire Franklin's remarkable debut novel presents us with a sisterhood of four such girls. living in the woods. The three teens and a tween are found by Rhi, a girl close to their own ages, working as a part time park ranger for her Uncle.
The girls' story is all at once bizarre, fantastic and heartrending - they believe they're lost Princesses from a fanciful kingdom, raised by an all-knowing, mystical mentor they knew only as 'Mother'. But to the modern world they're brought into, they can only be kidnapped, brainwashed children, whose abductor filled their minds with the elaborate fantasies he created for them to live in.
This becomes as much Rhi's story as the girls' They bond with her immediately, thinking of her as the fifth lost princess whose appearance portends a return to their mythical kingdom. And they're not far off about the 'lost' part - Rhi's Uncle has also become her guardian in the aftermath damage from her dysfunctional family. and she's internalized her own painful and terrible secrets. So it's no wonder that she finds herself gravitating to the imaginary Never Neverland the feral girls believed was true. But then the real world and the girls' entry into different foster homes, touches off no end of catastrophic events for everyone involved.
I can't say enough about the how the ambitious conception of this book impressed me. Author Franklin wisely (and cleverly) deals with a host of dire distressing issues that affect girls and women throughout the world (In both current and past history). But most importantly, she accomplishes all this while keeping a reader riveted to every twist and turn of the plot. Readers can decide for themselves about whether there's magic at play, but there's no denying there's some true storytelling magic at work here. A 'don't miss' read for this year.

The Wilderness of Girls deals with the dangers and issues tied to being a young woman. While I did appreciate the inclusion of these topics, and the overall message for young women, I found that message to be heavy-handed at times. Characters said things that were not believable from them as a character, but were clearly the author talking through them.

I also found the supernatural element unnecessary. In he end, it is not explained or resolved, so I would have preferred either more exploration of that element or removal of that element.

What a haunting, unique book! The Wilderness of Girls will stay with me a while which is not typically what happens after I finish reading a book. The premise of the novel is that 4 girls are found in the wilderness by another girl of similar age. They say that they were taken care of by "Mother" who is an adult male. Who are these girls? Where are they from? And who is Mother? The story unfolds throughout including the story of Rhi, the girl who found the 4 girls in the woods. While this novel is listed as YA, I don't think it's appropriate for children and is most geared for 18+. But wow, I was so engrossed in this book and didn't want it to end.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ THE WILDERNESS OF GIRLS by Madeline Claire Franklin

Days after I finished it and I'm still thinking about this book. What a wild ride.

"After being placed in foster care, Rhi starts working at the Happy Valley Wildlife Preserve and discovers a pack of wolves guarding four feral girls who claim to be princesses from another land. Unsure what to believe, Rhi brings the girls to civilization, facing societal uproar, and as strange phenomena blur the line between fantasy and reality, she must make a life-changing decision."

This is a debut YA thriller with a touch of magical realism. At some points, it's hard to tell if something is actually happening, but it makes the story that much more intriguing. There were times I was audibly gasping at the book.

Not only is the story compelling, but there is a lot of meat here. The theme was so well done that I found myself stopping to try to highlight on my kindle often. If you teach LORD OF THE FLIES or THE GRACE YEAR, this would be an excellent accompaniment. I'd definitely consider it for a literature circle selection. The novel is so beautifully written that I'm willing to bet you could find tons of mentor sentences in it, too. It is a bit gritty with tons of content warnings (see below), but I'd consider it for grades 11+.

Thanks to Netgalley and Zando Young Readers for the ARC. Thoughts, as always, are my own. Out June 11, 2024. (Note: This is not at all the fault of the author, but I've never read an ARC that was in such bad shape. Between the formatting, spacing, and typos, I almost had to stop reading. Thankfully Franklin's writing is so good I kept going, but sheesh.)

CW: sexual assault, pedophilia, child abuse, cannibalism, disordered eating, PTSD, physical violence, suicide (probably missing a few here honestly, but I gave it a shot)

What a messy, complicated, heartbreaking, fascinating story. At first, things felt unbalanced with the four “wild” girls and the one “normal” one, all dealing with their trauma in a messy spaghetti pile of pain and hope and anger and grief. I still think I would have liked a lot more from Grace and Rhi in the middle when the tangled whirlwind of the wild girls’ thoughts felt so overwhelming, but that too felt like a metaphor. And when we finally cracked Rhi open, spreading apart her ribs to see all the messy, scarred insides, I think Grace was the perfect one to witness.

This book is a heavy one, and there’s a good list of content warnings provided by the author at the beginning of the book.

Part of me really liked that we didn’t get all of the answers, and part of me wanted more. Because in the real world we very rarely get an answer for everything, but fiction has the freedom to be so much neater. Kinda wish we got to know which of the girls was writing the memoir we got excerpts from throughout, though; I think I have an idea, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Overall, a very solid offering with a lot to think about (and mourn)

An unflinching YA debut about a troubled teen who discovers a pack of feral girls in the woods and is swept up in the ensuing mystery: Are the Wild Girls of Happy Valley lost princesses from a faraway land, as they believe, or are they brainwashed victims of a deranged kidnapper?

This was soooo good. I loved the characters and the atmosphere and the writing style. Well done!