Wilder Girls by Rory Power

For my next read, I decided to try a book that's been lurking in the back of my mind ever since I bought it in 2019-- Wilder Girls by Rory Power. I first saw this novel in an article about upcoming summer releases and was immediately struck by the cover art. This has got to be one of my favorite book covers of all time. It's absolutely stunning. The summary in the article raised my interest even further. It was being billed as a female Lord of the Flies, and that was all I needed to hear. I added this book to my shelves on its release day. Of course, I didn't get around to reading it right away, but it remained one of the titles I would always think of when considering what to pick up next. My Clear the Shelves Challenge gave me the perfect excuse to finally give it a try.

The plot follows a trio of teenage students attending Raxter School for Girls, Hetty Chapin, Byatt Winsor, and Reese Harker. Raxter is a boarding school located on a small island off the coast of Maine, and is very isolated. As the story begins, the girls have been trapped there for over a year due to the emergence of a contagious disease called the Tox. They've all been infected and are under quarantine until the government can develop a cure.  The Tox is unlike any other illness. It attacks the girls in waves and triggers strange and painful mutations in their bodies. One girl grows a bloody set of gills in her neck. Another sprouts a second spine. Some can't endure the changes at all and die immediately.  It's a horrific and gruesome disease, and it's taking over the island. Even the plants and animals that live there are affected.

Tensions are high and supplies are very limited, so the girls have turned tough. They work in shifts to defend the school from increasingly bold animals in the surrounding woods, devise a system for rationing their food, and take care of each other as much as they can. Everyone is hoping for a cure to be discovered soon, but as more and more girls are succumbing to the Tox, it's starting to feel hopeless. Hetty, Byatt, and Reese grow very close, and their relationship helps give some comfort to their chaotic, messy lives. Their group becomes fractured, however when Byatt's condition takes a turn for the worse and she disappears from the island. Hetty and Reese are determined to find her, but their investigation turns up several disturbing secrets that threaten to overturn what little stability they have. There is more going on at Raxster than what is on the surface, and Hetty and Reese must solve its mysteries in order to save their friend.    

I ended up really enjoying this book, mostly because it was so strange. The story is a like a fever dream filled with pretty graphic body horror as the characters suffer under the effects of the Tox. I liked that it was all girls too, because we got a chance to see them be the ones shooting, fighting, and controlling the situation. It's not often that you have feminine characters covered in blood, puking, etc. in young adult fiction. I was struck by how gross it was, but in a good way. This story is definitely not for the squeamish.

Power's writing style was suitably dark and deliberately hazy throughout the story. This isn't a "nice" book. The characters are all dealing with horrific events, and the writing reflects their reality. She reveals information at a decent pace and creates a good amount of suspense throughout. The characters are pretty intriguing as well. Hetty, Byatt, and Reese all have distinct personalities and issues in the story. It's hard to like any of them, because we are seeing them all at their worst, but that doesn't matter so much here. 

This ended up being a quick read for me, because I was anxious to see how it would end and kept on turning the pages. I did have a few issues with it though. Since the plot is tightly focused on the action and the mystery of what's happening on the island, we don't get to learn as much about the characters as I would have liked. Byatt, especially, had an interesting back story hinted at, but we don't get to discover many specifics about it. The same is true of the Tox and the island. Due to the novel's quick pace, a lot of the details about how the disease worked were glossed over. Similarly the deeper mysteries of the island, including the information about what people on the outside were doing regarding testing and cure development were not detailed as clearly as they could have been. I wouldn't have minded this story being a bit longer, so it could have included more information. It would have felt more complete this way.

As it was, however, those issues didn't prevent me from enjoying the novel. I wouldn't exactly call it a "female Lord of the Flies," but it was still a very enjoyable read. I'm not sure if Power is planning a sequel to Wilder Girls or not. The ending was open enough to leave room for the possibility though, so I think I'm going to hang onto this one, just in case.

Challenge Tally

Clear the Shelves 2021: 2/50 (keep)

Total Books Read in 2021: 4