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Wilder Girls by Rory Power



Book Review


Title: Wilder Girls


Author: Rory Power


Genre: YA/Sci-Fi/Horror/LGBT+


Rating: ***


Review: So when Wilder Girls was announced it wasn’t something that really appealed to me but after sitting on my shelf for weeks I decided to give it a go. I know the genre tags for this are a little confusing so I am hoping the book itself is interesting, I am aware that this is also a book with either dual or multiple points of views which I am not too keen on, but we will see. We are introduced to our three main protagonists: Hetty, Byatt and Reese. These three girls all attended Raxter School for Girl when the virus known as the Tox hit. It killed off a lot of the teachers and students but those who have survived had strange mutations, Hetty is missing an eye and Reese has scales that cover her one hand. Unlike a lot of virus outbreaks novel this book doesn’t start with the initial outbreak but 18 months after on an isolated island, so we are only getting a small view of the world at this time. We can see very clearly that Hetty has feelings for Reese but believes her to be unattainable so doesn’t even voice them to her friend. The girls have all broken off into small groups but the Tox flares up in waves and Byatt is due for her next flare up very soon. From the outset of the novel, the tone is very dark, and I am excited to see where it is going to go.


 

As we approach the ¼ mark in the novel, not a lot has happened, we just learn more about the Tox, how it affects the girls, the differences in its effects on the teens and adults, the wildlife and plants. It seems that the Tox isn’t a virus as I first thought because it would be impossible for a virus to infect plants, animals and humans all at the same time without some extreme and rapid mutations in the virus itself. However, things get tense when Hetty is assigned to Boat Shift, the position Reese wanted in order to find her father who went out into the woods when he became infected and never came back. Out on her first shift she learns that the Navy sends them more food than the girls ever see but a lot of it is tossed into the ocean because it’s either spoiled or contains pesticides that the teacher Mrs. Welch isn’t sure their mutated bodies can handle. The Boat Shift also gets little treats like chocolate and while Hetty feels guilty she is also glad that she was assigned to the position. The Boat girls are sworn to secrecy or face being killed but Hetty makes a discovery when she heads back. She finds a cooler containing a vial of blood labelled “possible RAX009” making me think that the Tox might be a bioweapon of some kinds and the girls at Raxter are the lab rats. When they return Hetty keeps the information to herself, but she feels there is something wrong with the Tox that has spread through the island and I’m sure she is going to find out what it is. While the pacing is a little slow for me I am enjoying Wilder Girls and I am exciting to see what happens next.


As we cross the ¼ mark in the novel, Byatt has another flare up and gets taken to the infirmary where only the sickest girls go and Hetty isn’t sure she will come back down despite Reese’ assurances. It seems that Byatt is the glue that holds the three of them together and without her they don’t quite work together, maybe because Hetty and Reese are quite similar. Hetty doesn’t get much information out of the others in the infirmary so decides to sneak up there in the night. She finds that the infirmary is completely empty, and Byatt is nowhere to be found other than her needle and thread. When she gets back to the room Hetty tells Reese and decides she is going to find her friend but Reese refuses to be part of it. It isn’t until Hetty tells her that Byatt would do it for them and she would do it for Reese does Reese give in. The man on the radio talks about taking “her” to the Harker House, Reese’s old house and Hetty is sure this is Byatt and they have to get her back before anything happens to her. The man also mentions status reports and replacements reinforcing the idea in me that this is a huge experiment the girls are part of, and I can’t wait to see what happens. Here’s we also get a perspective change from Hetty to Byatt, so I hope more pieces of the puzzle are coming to come together in this part.


As we approach the halfway mark in the novel, we learn that Byatt is being tested on with a medicine called RAX009, the same on that Hetty saw in the woods although this isn’t a vial of blood but a pill, maybe a cure synthesised from the blood of the girls. This induces a flare up in Byatt that causes her thought process to seem less human, more disjointed and that’s all we get before she is sedated, and we return to Hetty’s perspective. It seems that the girls taken to the infirmary were actually sent to this place to be tested on which could have led to their deaths, however, I have a feeling that Hetty and Reese will find her and uncover the truth before the end of the novel. As the pair begin to prepare a plan for finding Byatt we see them finally confess the feelings they were trying so hard to hide from one another. I really like the dynamic between Reese and Hetty and it seems that Byatt was the one preventing them from talking as Reese always felt that Hetty was in love with Byatt when she actually sees her as a sister. When we switch back to Byatt’s perspective we learn that she is a compulsive liar so we can’t trust everything she has said or done up until this point however, we do know her feelings for Reese and Hetty are real. She evens goes as far as seducing one of the boys working at the facility because she can. Byatt also informs us the reader that she is one of a few that are happy with their mutations and don’t want to be cured because they feel that their outside now truly reflects their inside.


As we cross into the second half of the novel, Reese and Hetty get out of the school and make it to her old house without many issues at all but when Welch arrives it isn’t Byatt they bring to the house but Mona, dead. In the aftermath, Hetty spots Byatt’s initials and knows that her friend was there and alive but before they can do much they are ambushed by Mr. Harker, Reese’s dad completely overtaken by the Tox. Hetty doesn’t have much of a choice but to kill him before he kills them but it completely breaks Reese to watch her do it but they have minutes before the other people arrive to take Mona away and they have to make it back to the school. When they get back to their room everything seems to have been too easy but the relationship between Reese and Hetty has completely broken down and it hurts Hetty to watch it happen. All that they managed to learn from that night is that when Byatt was taken to the house she was still alive and still might be but there doesn’t seem to be much more they can do, however, I don’t know how the pair are going to continue to act normal when the school wakes the following day.


As we approach the ¾ mark in the novel, we switch back to Byatt’s perspective where Teddy has gotten sick and she knows that it affects boys differently and she suffers greatly as she watches him lose himself to the Tox and take his own life. After Teddy’s death, Byatt has given up and she has no fight left in her, the facility is evacuated after this leaving Byatt alone as she begins to die. However, before she dies she is determined to be outside once more, but she may have also found the source of the Tox as there is a large parasite inside her that she manages to remove. Outside she thinks of Raxter and the peace she once felt there, and it seems like she has finally died. Even though I haven’t really connected to any of the characters the scene with Byatt did make me tear up a little, since I think she did actually feel something for Teddy and after his death there was just nothing left in her to keep her fighting. When she is called for Boat Shift in the morning, Hetty learns that they are aware that someone has broken the quarantine, but they don’t know who it was. Due to this the Navy don’t send any food only a weapon designed to kill them all as Welch kills herself there on the dock. The three girls decide it is best to take whatever it is the Navy sent back to the Headmistress whose reaction to it is only slightly better than Welch’s, but all the girls know there isn’t enough food for them and now there is no more coming. Hetty feels extremely guilty and prays that Byatt’s life was worth possibly sacrificing all of theirs unaware that her friend might be dead.


As we cross into the final section of the novel, everything begins to fall apart without Welch, but things get worse when a bear gets into the school grounds because Hetty forgot to close the gate in the madness following Welch’s death. The Headmistress takes the girls to a room and locks them all in except Reese and uses the canister to gas the girls. Due to Hetty and Julia’s quick thinking they manage to get out but 16 of the girls are dead and Hetty can’t leave Reese. She finds her friend in the infirmary and learns that Taylor and the Headmistress want a way off the island and Reese is the only person that might know because of her dad’s knowledge of the island. Before she can free Reese she is confronted by Taylor who seems intent on killing her. Hetty manages to get rid of Taylor and free Reese but they have bigger problems when the bear gets inside the school. Reese and Hetty have no choice but to abandon the others and save themselves but they have finally put everything together thanks to the Headmistress and they find Byatt still alive on another part of the island. Together the three friends head in their little boat to the mainland, Hetty and Byatt have removed their parasites, Reese is the only one still infected but for the first time they have hope.


Overall, the pacing of Wilder Girls was a little slow for me and nothing majorly interesting happens until after Byatt gets taken. The ending was also very disappointing for me as it is very open ended and as far as I know this is a standalone novel, so I wanted something more concrete from the ending. I wasn’t sure about Wilder Girls going into it and I was left feeling a little meh at the end of it. For me it was a solid 3 star read but I can’t give it more than that. This novel is also labelled as LGBT+ rep and the representation is in the tiny snatches of Reese and Hetty’s relationship which really didn’t cut it for me, it seems liked it was there for the sake of putting a lesbian relationship in when it wasn’t developed at all. If it wasn’t for the great character development and semi-interesting plot I would have rated this a lot lower than I did.


Buy it here:


Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com

Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com

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