Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

18 reviews

dennyiii's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75


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fanboyriot's review against another edition

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dark fast-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? It's complicated

3.0

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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vigil's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0


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lv_ct's review

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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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apolloniablooms's review

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

3.0

It really choked at the end, which felt rushed.  Overall glad I read it, but it feels like a shadow of books like Annihilation and Inspection which do the same thing but feel more complete.  

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wrensreadingroom's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad fast-paced

5.0


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msradiosilence's review

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Tldr; Reese and Hetty and Byatt deserve better and I hope they all make it because PHEW.

Read my full review at: https://www.rainyreader.com/single-post/wilder-girls.

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booksbutmakeitgay's review

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4.0


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r__a's review

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dark emotional sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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miabellawymer's review

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

I got really roped into this book while reading it. I couldn't put it down, and it kept me up at night.
The ending was very anticlimactic, and the desciptions are quite graphic

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