The literary YA feminist speculative horror book you've been waiting for!
This is the literary YA feminist speculative horror book I've been waiting for!
With lyrical, vivid prose, Rory Power describes the girls of Raxter Academy, who have been quarantined on an island since infected with the mysterious Tox.
This story manages to be a page-turning survival thriller, while also digging into the complexities of being a teenage girl, and lingering on the intimacies of female friendships and romance. It describes emotional pain as vividly as the gruesome body horror of the Tox.
And perhaps most impressive of all, this book shows restraint. It explores these themes with nuance and without every being too on the nose direct. The ending is satisfying without tieing every plot element up with a neat bow. Most of all, it respects the intelligence of its readers.
My favorite debut novel of 2019.
With lyrical, vivid prose, Rory Power describes the girls of Raxter Academy, who have been quarantined on an island since infected with the mysterious Tox.
This story manages to be a page-turning survival thriller, while also digging into the complexities of being a teenage girl, and lingering on the intimacies of female friendships and romance. It describes emotional pain as vividly as the gruesome body horror of the Tox.
And perhaps most impressive of all, this book shows restraint. It explores these themes with nuance and without every being too on the nose direct. The ending is satisfying without tieing every plot element up with a neat bow. Most of all, it respects the intelligence of its readers.
My favorite debut novel of 2019.