Reviews with content warning for Injury/Injury detail - Wilder Girls

I’ve had this book for a while and just got around to reading. Naturally, I went into it knowing nothing, as one does. To say it was not what I was expecting was an understatement. The plot did have a promise, there were some things that seemed all too realistic in a horror-ish paranoid way. The setting was done nicely at least.

Honestly, most of what I didn’t like was the ending. We got no answers for anything really, and it left with absolutely no resolution. It just felt like it was dragged out and then it just ended. The switching POV I normally really like just didn’t work for me; they just seemed too close to one another and a few pages in I’d forget which character it even was.

(First Person POV)

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danaslitlist's review

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mysterious reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

Wilder Girls is a book that in theory should work well. It is a story about an island home to a school of girls and teachers cut off from the world (save for occasional supply drop offs from the government) after an outbreak of a mysterious illness known only as The Tox. Everyone, and everything, on this island has contracted The Tox and as such have become mutated in various ways. Some girls have silver limbs, some girls have extra hearts, and others have lost eyes. We follow Hatty and her two friends Byatt and Reese until one night Byatt goes missing. Her remaining friends are determined to find her and set off to do so while uncovering dark secrets.

Or so that's what the synopsis says and while it's not entirely misleading it certainly isn't as dark and mysterious as it's made out to be. Wilder Girls plays with a lot of ideas and themes yet fails to tie them together and worse yet, fails to commit to any.

For a story of survival and friendship we don't get either. One of the biggest flaws in the story is the failure to take it's time setting up the stakes for the characters. It sadly falls into the trap of telling and not showing. We are told what the dangers are: mutated and enhanced predators in the woods, a supply of food and rations that is always dwindling until the next shipment, the presence of the illness that can flare up in the girls. But we don't get to experience this firsthand and if we do begin to there is an immediate pivot to something else that shatters any inkling of worry or suspense.

We are told that Hatty, Byatt, and Reese are best friends and are given explanation of why (they've grown up together in this place, they've been together through the Tox) but we don't get to see this happen. We're simply told and expected to bond with them. And this is a big problem when the driving force for Hatty and Reese's characterization and plot is trying to find Byatt. They have no fear of hurting themselves or putting others in danger and without the bond between reader and character it doesn't feel heroic or relatable, it feels selfish and reckless. The characters also don't feel like their own beings and instead they are simply cardboard cutout stereotypes for the science fiction genre. There is a surprising lack of depth to all of them.

The characters are safe from any real danger because you know early on who the author values above the rest. And this is detrimental to the severity of what this story is supposed to be. We are supposed to worry and to wonder who is next, what is going on, is this going to work out? But I never once found myself worried for anyone. I knew who was going to be safe.

And then we move on to the nameless bad guy, big corporate entity that is behind it all which was led to the biggest eyeroll from me. The author couldn't even be bothered to really commit to a villain and instead kind of just lets it fall on the shoulders of a faceless, nameless group of people and also kind blame it all on climate change off handedly (which I didn't catch until I read another review over at ThePigeonCo). The explanation and revelation of what is causing the Tox was generic and also offhandedly explained to the reader as if it was an afterthought and not the backbone to the book.

The kicker is: the author almost had a flawless reveal earlier on. I'll be moving onto so spoilers that showcases the lack of thought the author put into the story:

LOOK BELLA IT'S A WORM!

If you're going to have a reveal of a parasitic tapeworm, you have to make the explanation and follow up interesting.

The chapter when Byatt cuts the worm out of her arm after being gassed would've been the best reveal of the book had the author let it happen later on. By having it happen and then cutting back to Hatty and Reese it was entirely too anticlimactic. I mean, what was the point? The readers don't gain anything from that chapter because the rest of the characters also don't gain anything. It doesn't come up again until they find Byatt at the end. There are no clues or hints to it ever being a parasite and the characters simply don't do anything with the information. The author should've had them all discover the worm at the same time when they were reunited; have had Byatt outside in the snow still alive because of the worm but her trying to remove it.

But the part of the book that had me rolling my eyes was the very convenient "Oh I have my dad's dingy boat" line from Reese. For years they have all worried about not being able to get off the island, not having an escape, but the moment the island is going to be nuked Reese is throwing out this plot hole fix. That to me really highlights that lack of any real thought to how to resolve the events taking place. Neither Reese or Hatty give a second thought to the other girls before leaving, they don't at all linger on the idea that they are leaving their friends behind to die, they just go.

All in all it's very easy to tell this is the authors first book and I think she bit off a bit more then she could chew with it (or her editor just failed to help). The ideas were there, but it lacked in anything else.

Content Warnings

jetromeo's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

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amberghinii's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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tiredtori's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

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sapphire_dreams's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This is literally one of the best books I ever read!! It’s chilling, dark and kinda a coming of age. I ADORED the characters and the whole story was so well constructed. The whole of Raxter and the dynamic between the girls was SO GOOD!! I genuinely loved it

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katieswrld's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

This story was beautifully written and immersive all the way through. The Tox and how it affects the girls’ bodies was so unique and compelling, with the perfect mixture of body horror and realism. Nothing was so out-there that it was hard to picture, everything was described beautifully and vividly. Also, I liked that the author put trust in her readers, and didn’t spelling things out for us. Some books give you a fantastic line of description or dialogue and then get nervous and over-explain it. Not here. Perfectly vague and perfectly descriptive when needed, respectively. In terms of the ending, I can see how others would find it too vague, but I had no problem with it! I definitely would’ve appreciated more pages at the end just because I loved the story and the world within it so much, but I was content with where it left off! The open ending felt right in this instance.

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