Your usual reminder—buy books from bookshop.org or your local independent bookstore! You’ll help real people and authors far more that way than by buying things off the dread Amazon.
Note: the bookshop.org link is an affiliate link, meaning that I may get a percentage of the book price. It’s a way to support this blog and your local b. berry writer if you so choose.
(Full disclosure: I actually read this book last year, and even wrote this review last year. But hey, it was fresh in my mind then, and the best ever part about books is that they never expire!)
Wilder Girls by Rory Power was another one of my book purchases while looking for comp titles last year—though I didn’t buy it with that intent in mind. It just popped up in the search. I purchased it because it was described as “Lord of the Flies but with girls”. Yes please! Now, I’m aware that Lord of the Flies technically shouldn’t work if it’s anything but privileged little white boys, but hey, that’s part of the appeal! I either get to see a socially aware deconstruction (like Libba Bray’s Beauty Queens) or a bunch of little girls go feral. Win-win as far as I’m concerned.
For some reason, possibly because they were described as the three main characters, I had it in my mind that there were only three girls left in this situation. That is not the case. The story centers itself on an all-girls boarding school on a remote island in Maine, where the entire place has been quarantined for a new and mysterious disease they call the Tox.
It flips between two perspectives, both first-person, but it was never confusing. (It will announce very blatantly via chapter titles when switching.) The main narrator was Hetty, who was pretty damn neat—determined, codependent, and more than a little gay. The entire story was more than a little gay.
I saw a few reviews describe Wilder Girls as “feminist horror”, and I can mostly see where they’re coming from. It’s almost an entirely all-girl cast, so there’s a wide range of characters, motivations, tropes, and thoughts at play. But horror? Horror aesthetic, perhaps. Spooky woods and mysterious and grotesque disease, plus potential conspiracy and distrust in the ranks? Yeah, it checks a lot of boxes, and maybe I’m just being picky.
I will say that it does not shy away from any of the body horror of what the Tox does to these girls. Almost right away, you find out that Hetty lost an eye to the disease, and not only suffers from recurrent pain from it, but she also describes it as something writhing about inside. (Also, props to the author for consistently writing “eye” singularly when referring to Hetty; I definitely would have forgotten after two pages.)
One girl is describe as having a secondary spine erupting from her back, another has silver scales turning one hand into claws, and many more descriptions of glowing hair, pus-filled mouth sores, and even gills. (The glowing hair is described consistently as pretty, at least.) Many girls at the school died pre-story, as well as all but two of their teachers, and many more die during the course of the story. Tox may worsen as they grow, but it’s often a slow, painful death. Many of the girls appear to be in different stages of depression; many are implied to be waiting to die.
The wild quality of most of the cast was a delight to read. The characters are the standout here, and I’m not saying that because I’m partial to feral little girls. There is fighting over food, brief might makes right dynamics, and the two remaining teachers keep order with iron fists and almost cult-like command. We see a group of girls on the brink of a true downhill slide into something worse, and they all know it. But life still goes on, one day at a time.
I will say that I wasn’t the biggest fan of the ending. I’m not against open endings, or ones leaving many questions, but it did feel anticlimactic in a few ways. The plot mostly wrapped up, but I would have preferred maybe one or two more questions answered about the remaining core cast—Hetty, Byatt, and Reese—and the nature of the Tox. There are implications, but only those. Byatt’s plot, especially, seemed cut far too short with too much left open.
Overall, I enjoyed it, and it had some very vivid imagery and great dynamics you don’t often see with female characters. I love me some good horror imagery and body horror. If a gay pile of feral teenaged girls fighting a strict quarantine and mysterious disease sounds up your alley, then I say go for it!
