TW: suicide, animal death, gore, graphic violence, self harm (behaviors?), starvation, gassing, death... there’s more, just be cautioned when reading this book. (There’s complete lists online with every content warning, I’m just going off of what I remember.)
I finally finished a book, someone applaud me. In fact, I started and finished this book within 24 hours because it was just that good. I’m still in shock, honestly. I’ve been in a reading slump for the past 3 months and I finished an entire book in a day???
This book was amazing. I’m so picky when it comes to rating books 5 stars... but like, how could I NOT rate this 5 stars? That would just be an insult to this book. It deserves nothing less than five. I was engulfed by this book, every other single book that I’m in the middle of currently because of this reading slump I’ve been dealing with were completely forgotten about when I read this. (Which is probably going to be an issue really soon... I definitely forgot the plots of The Diviners and Beowulf.) I’ve been taking months to just finish a singular book, but I read this one in a day? I think that shows my adoration of Wilder Girls.
I had no idea what the plot was before I starting reading, but I immediately wanted to read it when I heard it was sapphic. And between the plot and the wlw-all girls school plot, this book was absolutely perfect in my mind.
Okay, maybe there were flaws now that I think about it really hard. Some of the characters were annoying at times (Hetty...), but honestly, compared to most books, Hetty is probably one of the least annoying protagonists in books I’ve read. And if I have to be brutal towards this book, it was gross. The descriptions of what was happening to the girls (plus Reese’s dad and Teddy) were disgusting. The extremely described suicide scenes and death scenes of both humans and animals did occasionally make me stop reading for a little because they were that disturbing. The self harm behaviors of lots of the main characters as well.
And most of the characters didn’t have much of a backstory. Hetty was probably the most boring character to make the protagonist. Her entire backstory is basically being from some place I already forgot. Reese? She was slightly more interesting backstory-wise, but it was repetitive with the whole family issues storyline. Somehow, Byatt wound up being my favorite character although her storyline wasn’t that developed either. But she was probably the most developed out any of the other characters.
The plot, however... there’s a reason I rated this 5 stars and the plot is the reasoning. You cannot trust any of the characters. And vice versa- some of the characters who you thought were “bad” were actually not “bad” at all. I had no idea what this Tox thing was for the longest time. I had guesses, but they were wrong for the majority of the time.
Despite the flaws, my love of this book isn’t budging. It was probably one of the most intriguing books I’ve read in a while.
I finally finished a book, someone applaud me. In fact, I started and finished this book within 24 hours because it was just that good. I’m still in shock, honestly. I’ve been in a reading slump for the past 3 months and I finished an entire book in a day???
This book was amazing. I’m so picky when it comes to rating books 5 stars... but like, how could I NOT rate this 5 stars? That would just be an insult to this book. It deserves nothing less than five. I was engulfed by this book, every other single book that I’m in the middle of currently because of this reading slump I’ve been dealing with were completely forgotten about when I read this. (Which is probably going to be an issue really soon... I definitely forgot the plots of The Diviners and Beowulf.) I’ve been taking months to just finish a singular book, but I read this one in a day? I think that shows my adoration of Wilder Girls.
I had no idea what the plot was before I starting reading, but I immediately wanted to read it when I heard it was sapphic. And between the plot and the wlw-all girls school plot, this book was absolutely perfect in my mind.
Okay, maybe there were flaws now that I think about it really hard. Some of the characters were annoying at times (Hetty...), but honestly, compared to most books, Hetty is probably one of the least annoying protagonists in books I’ve read. And if I have to be brutal towards this book, it was gross. The descriptions of what was happening to the girls (plus Reese’s dad and Teddy) were disgusting. The extremely described suicide scenes and death scenes of both humans and animals did occasionally make me stop reading for a little because they were that disturbing. The self harm behaviors of lots of the main characters as well.
And most of the characters didn’t have much of a backstory. Hetty was probably the most boring character to make the protagonist. Her entire backstory is basically being from some place I already forgot. Reese? She was slightly more interesting backstory-wise, but it was repetitive with the whole family issues storyline. Somehow, Byatt wound up being my favorite character although her storyline wasn’t that developed either. But she was probably the most developed out any of the other characters.
The plot, however... there’s a reason I rated this 5 stars and the plot is the reasoning. You cannot trust any of the characters. And vice versa- some of the characters who you thought were “bad” were actually not “bad” at all. I had no idea what this Tox thing was for the longest time. I had guesses, but they were wrong for the majority of the time.
Despite the flaws, my love of this book isn’t budging. It was probably one of the most intriguing books I’ve read in a while.