Blog Tour + Review: Wilder Girls by Rory Power

Wilder Girls

by Rory Power

Release Date: July 9, 2019

Source: Publisher

Goodreads

It's been eighteen months since the Raxter School for Girls was put under quarantine. Since the Tox hit and pulled Hetty's life out from under her.

It started slow. First the teachers died one by one. Then it began to infect the students, turning their bodies strange and foreign. Now, cut off from the rest of the world and left to fend for themselves on their island home, the girls don't dare wander outside the school's fence, where the Tox has made the woods wild and dangerous. They wait for the cure they were promised as the Tox seeps into everything.

But when Byatt goes missing, Hetty will do anything to find her, even if it means breaking quarantine and braving the horrors that lie beyond the fence. And when she does, Hetty learns that there's more to their story, to their life at Raxter, than she could have ever thought true.

I don't even know where to begin with this book because it is so different than any book I've ever read before. All the stars for originality! 

Eighteen months ago, Raxton school for girls shut down and went under quarantine when girls started coming down with strange illnesses. Slowly, each girl would experience body disfigurements and only the lucky ones would survive each bought of illness. Hetty is just surviving day by day with her best friends Reese and Byatt, but when Byatt disappears, Hetty is determined to find her friend. 

When this book started, it threw the body gore in your face and never looked back. This is definitely not for the faint of heart and one scene had me closing the book and stepping away for a second. I'm usually totally fine with blood, but...ew. Other than the gore, there was also this huge mystery behind where this illness came from and who you could really trust out of the girls left alive at Raxton. I loved how loyal Hetty was towards her friends and how much she was tested as she learned more and more secrets about the school. 

While the mystery and friendships were great, I will say the romance wasn't even really a romance? Like it happened (kind of?) and then it was completely forgotten for the rest of the book. Then, we're finally on the cusp of getting at least some answers to the mystery, and then the book ends. And there's a second book? Is there? Because so many things were left unanswered and I feel like the book could have been so much more surprising and twisted (answer-wise) than it was. I was just left wanting some more at the end. 

If you want a super unique survival story, you definitely have to pick this up. You never know what's coming and what gory thing is going to happen next!