Scan barcode
meet_me_inthe_library's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death of parent, Gore, and Vomit
sarahbuckley's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
An interesting concept but I was just left disappointed. So many unanswered questions, and not in a way that lets you fill in the blanks. It almost felt like the author didn’t know how to end it? And I love a good sapphic romance but this one felt like a weird after thought.
And maybe just me being nitpicky but it really felt like a shoddy editing job—there were a bunch of sentences that just didn’t make sense. “I’ve never seen it before, I’m sure of that, but there’s a twitch in my gut; like answering like.” What the fuck does like answering like mean?!
And maybe just me being nitpicky but it really felt like a shoddy editing job—there were a bunch of sentences that just didn’t make sense. “I’ve never seen it before, I’m sure of that, but there’s a twitch in my gut; like answering like.” What the fuck does like answering like mean?!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Medical content, Suicide, and Vomit
moonlitemuseum's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Several things came to mind when I was reading this book, each alone and then occurring simultaneously:
The dismal disquiet of the school setting in Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. The loamy prose in Jeff Vandermeer's Southern Reach series, an attempt to block out something encroaching that may very well be, is, already inside you. The character "Vriska Serket" from online web behemoth "Homestuck". The mechanic in the visual novel "We Know The Devil" where two friends pair up and leave the third flagging sadly behind. The promotional image often used for "Girls' Last Tour", which I have yet to read, but which haunts me with how lonely and determined it's protagonists look -- all suited up in hardy jackets and thick boots against a cruel and endless post-apocalyptic background.
2020 was a hard year to read Wilder Girls in, but maybe that's why I stuck fast to it like a lichen on a rock. In a time of ever-worsening climate change and chaos around an illness, fiction helped mask it enough that I could swallow it, and the mask Wilder Girls wears is very thin. Practically translucent. It's about a disease that's pervasive, infectious and unavoidable, and it's also about how badly everyone fucks up the response to that disease even with plenty of advance warning. It's about friendship, sort of, but it's also about how little you can really know anyone. It's about crabs. It's about a landscape that's beautiful and awful, compelling and repellent. It's about body horror. It's about kissing your most difficult friend . It's about the innate horror of something moving behind what you can see. It's about...
Wilder Girls isn't a book I would recommend someone to read if they like tidy endings or even compassionate ones with lots of optimism. It has a dour, difficult ending. You don't learn all the answers. All three of the main characters are in dire and possibly inescapable circumstances. I liked the ending very much.
I would recommend this book to anyone who loves difficult fictional girls of all pedigrees, with a strong caveat for the medical, physiological and parasitic horror contained within it. It was a difficult and upsetting book to read for 2020, but that may be why it was a great book to close out the year with. I can't wait to read more like it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Death, Gore, Medical content, Medical trauma, Self harm, Suicide, and Violence
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Chronic illness, Cursing, Drug use, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Gun violence, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Terminal illness, and Torture
Minor: Body shaming, Bullying, and Homophobia
jbellomy's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
I loved this A LOT until the last quarter. I didn't have a problem with the open ending, but I felt like it was building to a big reveal that never really came. By the end, I felt like I'd missed something. Maybe that was the part of the point? Who can say. Apparently not me.
Power's prose is so good (it's like, moist. It's so vivid that it's moist. I apologize if you're reading this and you hate that word, but that's the only way I can think to describe it) and the vibes were fantastic though. I'm gonna read whatever she writes now.
Power's prose is so good (it's like, moist. It's so vivid that it's moist. I apologize if you're reading this and you hate that word, but that's the only way I can think to describe it) and the vibes were fantastic though. I'm gonna read whatever she writes now.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, and Terminal illness
Moderate: Animal death, Confinement, Gore, and Violence
acorn7a97d's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Gore, Gun violence, and Terminal illness
Minor: Cursing
More...