Review - Wilder Girls by Rory Power

Title: Wilder Girls

Author: Rory Power

Pages: 368

Publisher: Macmillan Children's Books

Release Date: 11th July 2019

Blurb from Goodreads:

Everyone loses something to the Tox; Hetty lost her eye, Reese's hand has changed, and Byatt just disappeared completely.

It’s been eighteen months since the Raxter School for Girls was put in quarantine. The Tox turned the students strange and savage, the teachers died off one by one. Cut off from the mainland, the girls don’t dare wander past the school’s fence where the Tox has made the woods wild and dangerous. They wait for the cure as the Tox takes; their bodies becoming sick and foreign, things bursting out of them, bits missing.

But when Byatt goes missing, Hetty will do anything to find her best friend, even if it means breaking quarantine and braving the horrors that lie in the wilderness past the fence. As she digs deeper, she learns disturbing truths about her school and what else is living on Raxter Island. And that the cure might not be a cure at all...

 Goodreads | Amazon UK | Amazon US

My Review:

*I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thanks to Pan Macmillan and NetGalley*

For eighteen months, the students of Raxter School for Girls have been stuck on the island and in the school in quarantine. The Tox has ravaged the wildlife as well as the humans living there, killing most of the teachers and changing the girls in peculiar ways.

The girls count on supplies from the outside world while they wait for a cure.

When Hetty's best friend Byatt goes missing, Hetty is determined to find her, daring to enter the woods, where strange creatures roam, and breaking the quarantine.

Hetty's search for Byatt leads to her making discoveries about the school and the Tox.

Will the cure work?

Will Hetty find Byatt?

Wilder Girls is an odd book and I'm not really sure what to think about it. There were things that I liked and things that I didn't like about it.

Hetty was the main character and I feel a bit mixed about her. She was an OK character but I didn't really feel that I fully connected to her.

There weren't really any characters that stood out for me, but Byatt and Reece were both complicated characters who I didn't really like.

The setting and the concept of the Tox were interesting.

The plot was OK but not much really happened and I wasn't gripped by what was happening, despite there being some action.

The writing style took me a while to get used to and I struggled a little at times to connect with the storyline and to care about the characters.

Overall, this was an OK read.