LogFAQs > #929153980

55. Wilder Girls by Rory Power (16.5 points)
Nominated by: Gatarix (0/1 remaining)


Importance: 4.5
Fear: 6
Snake: 6

Rory Power's first novel, Wilder Girls has received acclaim and a warm reaction from many readers. Billing itself as a survival story about friendship, Wilder Girls is much more than that. Part Lord of the Flies, part Cronenberg body horror, part feminist allegory, Wilder Girls compels with amazing descriptions of the girls' twisted deformities but can also alternate into the beauty and freedom the girls all have. The basic concept is a virus was unleashed, trapping a school full of young girls on an island, where going out beyond their school grounds is toxic and dangerous. The teachers are dead and the remaining girls have become shadows of their former selves. When Hettie's, one of the remaining students, best friend goes missing, she braves the forest to try and find her. I like how each character has their own defining trait; for example, Byatt, one of Hettie's friends, grow an exterior spine. I was not expecting this book to be as gruesome as it was based on the cover, which melds body horror with body beauty. The subtext is mostly pretty obvious, and I think that comes with the YA territory, but when it comes to the details that really matter, it's well-written and never bores, aside from an ending that's left extremely open ended.
---

I try in vain to slumber, my reveries gripped by violent terror. My only salvation, the shock of awakening. Something is very, very wrong here.