Reviews tagging 'Child death'

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

150 reviews

lv_ct's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

The book starts eighteen months after the quarantine is called over the boarding school Raxter School for Girls. The CDC and Navy are researching to figure out what is causing an infection dubbed by the girls at the school as "The Tox." As they research, the girls are restricted to inside the school and start to mutate with the virus, as well as all of the animals and flora on the island, making the rest of the island extremely dangerous. This book follows the main character Hetty and her two close friends, Byatt and Reese, as they try to survive until a cure can be developed. However, when Byatt goes missing, Hetty and Reese make it their goal to find where she was sent, leading to secrets being revealed about what has actually been happening for the past year and a half.

Pros:

• This storyline felt incredibly unique to me, as it is a different take on the "area becoming infected by a mysterious virus" trope that is common in media. And considering that this book was published in mid-2019 right before the pandemic, it felt very ironic and almost timely. 
• I enjoyed the detailed descriptions of things such as the landscape and the mutations the girls went through as it helped me envision the constant terror and horrors these young girls were facing. It helps to put the reader in the shoes of the characters, rather than just telling the reader what was happening.
• Queer, and specifically sapphic, relationships in the midst of a dystopian, survivalist world.
• My favorite point in this book - all of the characters is morally gray. We want to root for them because you see how brave they are and vulnerable they can be. However, it's their flaws that are really noticeable. They are selfish out of self-preservation, only caring about themselves and their closest friends. It makes the reader want to scream "but you're the hero, you are supposed to save everyone." But ultimately, it is a real human thing to do.

Cons:

• First-person writing is truly difficult, and it is hard to do it in a manner that does not come off as amateur writing. This said I think there are some really well-done parts in the book where Power nails the POV writing, and other times where it falls flat and becomes victim to "Tumblr-Esque" writing.
• I really wish there were better explanations of the other characters OUTSIDE of Hetty, Byatt, and Reese. The reader is given glimpses of the other characters, but not as much as I would have liked there to be. At times we are only given the ages of characters, and nothing more. 
  • Following this, among the characters we are given descriptions to, there did not seem to be much diversity in terms of phenotypes in the characters, minus the mutations. 
  • There was a good amount of different personalities amongst the characters, so that good job on that aspect.
• I really wish that Hetty and Reese's romantic relationship was delved into a bit deeper rather than tied in the last 100 pages. I am glad they got together because throughout the book it was an obvious question of "something is going to happen, but what?" Nevertheless, their relationship with each other is never fully fleshed out. Especially with Hetty killing Reese's dad, I wish I could have a little more background substance to their relationship before that heavy blow.
• The explanation of what happened in regards to the Tox on the island truly only comes out in the last 50 pages, and still did not feel very cohesive. The reader is thrown bits and pieces of an explanation before the acknowledgments are indicating the closing of the book. It really feels like the book should have been either 1. longer or 2. had a second part to it.

Conclusion: 
I personally really enjoyed this book. It is the first book I have read for fun in a long time, as I am either working or in school. I have been recommending this book to people constantly recently and I do recommend for anyone looking through these reviews to read it yourself - if you are okay with gore, blood, grief, and violence -  cause it is a great read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Death, Gore, Self harm, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Mental illness, Death of parent, and Murder

tinnuben's review against another edition

challenging dark tense fast-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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Self harm, Suicide, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

f2c's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

aleshamiller's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, and Blood

bubaubz's review against another edition

challenging hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Death of parent

Moderate: Confinement, Gore, and Medical content

Minor: Child death

I feel like this was a good premise but the characters felt a little flat

I just found myself not caring what happened from the bear attack right to the end. I also don't see how they knew quarentene had been breached to pull the plug on the experiments, it would have been fair enough if the navy guy getting infected was the trigger for it all but somehow they magically knew

Still worth a read.

mfrisk's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

I can’t quite decide how I feel about this one but I think it’s a 3.5 for me. 

I really enjoyed the atmosphere and the build up of the Tox and how that shaped Raxter and those within it. The scenes with the deer and one of the character’s parents were particularly chilling in their descriptions. The dual perspective was done fairly well though I think I was waiting for more from Byatt’s side in terms of her backstory and what drove her to lie. 

Things I didn’t love were the seemingly out of nowhere nature of the romance. While there were some touching moments it was a bit confusing and didn’t feel fully realized. 

And finally the ending was a huge disappointment. While you think the ending would at least give us more information about the navy and cdc involvement or about the tox or even what happens next we instead are led to an ending where we determine what happens. It felt like a chapter was missing and while I wasn’t expecting a happy ending perfect wrap up I definitely didn’t expect what we got. 

I hope to read more from this author as I overall really enjoyed this book but there were definitely some aspects I just wanted to see be pushed further given the darkness of the story. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Vomit and Toxic friendship

r0ry_'s review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Gore, Blood, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Kidnapping

kelseyrm's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

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

4.25

i liked it a lot, but honestly im not the biggest fan of fantasy books like this bc i can never follow along with the world building. i was really confused abt the tox stuff and the ending felt rushed and unfinished.
but lots of wlw rep i love that! and hetty was a great protagonist. i felt like her and reese didnt have a lot of chemistry tho, like i didnt hate them together but i wasnt loving it(maybe bc it felt rushed too..im more of a slowburn type of girl)
unrelated but some parts made me cringe, you know when you can just tell that an author used to write fanfiction? dont get me wrong i love reading ao3 but i dont want to read borderline fanfiction in an actual published book

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Medical content

Minor: Homophobia

june_buggie's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I really wanted to enjoy this but I felt there were so many plot holes and the ending just wasn’t enjoyable 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Gore, Terminal illness, Death of parent, and Murder

Moderate: Physical abuse, Abandonment, and War

sifairi's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

I really enjoyed this book, but It felt very slow for me. About 3/4 of the way through it does pick up and then I couldn't put it down.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Confinement, Self harm, and Torture