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Wilder Girls

Rory Power

Start date: June 1, 2020

Finish date: June 30, 2020

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Wilder Girls

Wilder Girls: Reviews
By *❆ Kαɾҽɳ ❆* · 1 post · 2 views

last updated Jun 19, 2020 08:08PM

Wilder Girls: Ch 17-26 (Hetty)
By *❆ Kαɾҽɳ ❆* · 1 post · 2 views

last updated Jun 19, 2020 08:07PM

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What Members Thought

Aug 11, 2019 Whitney rated it it was ok

Shelves: beautiful-cover-boring-book

This is an example of being mislead by a pretty cover. I was incredibly disappointed in this. This was one of my most highly anticipated releases of the year and it was such a let down. I was expecting a YA version of Annihilation and got a very watered-down version of that, at best.

The book transitions between Hetty's POV and her friend, Byatt's. Hetty's is ok, if not a little boring. She doesn't feel like a fully fleshed out character, as most of her dialogue is worrying about friends. Byatt This is an example of being mislead by a pretty cover. I was incredibly disappointed in this. This was one of my most highly anticipated releases of the year and it was such a let down. I was expecting a YA version of Annihilation and got a very watered-down version of that, at best.

The book transitions between Hetty's POV and her friend, Byatt's. Hetty's is ok, if not a little boring. She doesn't feel like a fully fleshed out character, as most of her dialogue is worrying about friends. Byatt is a terrible person and I loathe her. She had no redeemable qualities. The other characters are also kind of one-note. Reese is too quiet to really gain any sense of her as a person aside from her family ties. The various background girls are just there to be there. The adults are painted in a pretty negative light for no discernible reason. None of them seemed to have nuance or character arcs.

Additionally, the way the Tox is explained is very nonsensical. Without giving it away, they wait to fully explain what it is until the end, and by then it's too late. You're bored, you don't really care, and the "reveal" makes no sense, medically, anyway.

The pacing to the book is also off. There isn't a real sense of urgency or that characters are moving toward any specific goal until the last 1/4 of the book or so. It's slow and monotonous for much of the book and is essentially a lot of characters ambling through the woods off and on or characters getting a lot of exposition in a hospital-like setting.

The one redeeming quality of the book is that the descriptions of the woods and the surrounding wild life were very well done. The world building in the sense of setting was excellent and gave you, as the reader, a very immersive sense of how the island was laid out, the layout of the school, and how the characters interacted with their world.

Additionally, I will add that Ms. Powers made a point to mention that her characters get periods and that menopause exists, which I appreciate. Not every book needs to mention this, but when it's skipped over completely and the female characters are presented as going months in the wilderness without experiencing it or needing a shower, it comes off as unrealistic. While it was presented in a medical sense, not enough authors make note that it exists. The only other one I can think of is Sarah J. Maas. So that was another plus for me.

The last thing I want to point out is that people are making it sound like the LGBT aspect plays a HUGE role in this book. While there are aspects and references to various relationships in this book, to say that it revolves around an LGBT love story as I've seen it marketed in some reviews is highly misleading. Two characters kiss and that's about it. To make it seem like it's anything beyond hints of some queer relationships is not painting an accurate portrait of the representation in this book.

Overall, this was just really, really big let-down. I would have a tough time recommending this to anyone. If you REALLY want to give it a try, then by all means, don't let me stop you. But I expected this to take me 2-3 days MAX and it took me over a month because I was so bored with it. ...more

4 likes · Like · see review

Aug 23, 2019 Lesa Divine rated it it was ok

Shelves: read-it, library, 2019

2 🌟
1 🌟 for the cover 1 🌟 because I actually finished it...

4 likes · Like · see review

Dec 25, 2019 Marta the Booktrovert rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: own, yalc2019

I saw so many good reviews out there about this one but… this book or the characters did not appeal to me at all. Also, the Byatt’s POV parts reminded me too much of Juliette at the beginning of Shatter Me and in general I don’t know, I just did not find the plot or the characters interesting enough. It was quite repetitive and I was skimming through because I just wanted to understand the big Tox mystery but, I could not connect at all with the story.

Thank you Netgalley and publishers for a fre ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

Sep 05, 2019 Authentikate rated it liked it

Shelves: ya, horror

There’s a lot of potential for this book and for the other works this author will likely write.

For me, the book fell just shy of being great. The beginning of the story felt disjointed to me; the reader plopped down in to an event with no backstory. There’s a disease—called Tox—and girls at a boarding school are being quarantined. Here, I would have loved to read about the beginning...how the girls first got Tox, what happened, how the dynamic of friendship and leadership formed. There was none ...more

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Mar 11, 2020 Aysha rated it it was amazing

Shelves: you-have-changed-me, you-stand-a-lone, e-books, 2020-favorites

Sapphic horror excellence anyone?? This was PHENOMENAL. I don't know what I was expecting, and I really did go into this blindly, but thank god I did because this was absolutely incredible. I enjoyed every single page of this book. The writing style, the fear, the horror, the gore, the pure emotion and betrayal and open-endedness of it all. Granted, the characters could've been more fleshed out but I'm willing to overlook that to be honest. This is definitely one of my favorite books of the year ...more

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Sep 18, 2019 Livia rated it liked it

Shelves: mystery, lgbt

I was kinda confused. Certain things didn't get explained and I didn't know what was going on. I did really like the body horror and Hetty's loyalty to her friends. ...more

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