Thrilling, compelling, and thought-provoking - but doesn't quite stick the landing
From the very beginning, Wilder Girls captured me, with its horrific and yet very familiar (especially to me, someone who went to a women's university in a rural area) and more importantly -- vividly depicted setting and characters.
Throughout the novel, I found myself drawn to the relationships between teen girls in a mysterious setting. I tore through the depictions of their changing relationships with their infected bodies, the mysteries being kept from them and by them, their seeming abandonment and the lack of care by the agencies meant to protect them (something that, without spoiling too much, turns out to be even more pernicious than it seems). The friendships and relationships and co-dependencies and freedoms that exist in every collective of teenagers and survive here tugged at my heart in a way that knows them too well.
There's very little more fascinating to me than something that really explores the monstrosity of the teenage girl to the rest of society, and the terrifying idea of women as something other than passive: this comes very near to it.
However -- and again with few spoilers, I felt like the rollercoaster of emotions and -- really very well done -- action, as it reached a fever pace of ever more horrifying events with even more unlikely rescues for ever-fewer characters, suddenly dropped off at the end. The last few chapters felt ...strange and sudden, leaving more questions than answers, and a lingering sense of letdown.
I get it. Sometimes the world sucks, and no matter how hard we try to fight it or to protect ourselves in it, that's never going to change. But it seemed like this one had more to say even if it that was its message. 100 more pages of showing and not telling would have gone a long way. And I would have happily read this book if it were twice as long or longer.
Still, I would recommend it heartily to lovers of the monstrous, people who enjoyed having their hearts ripped out by The Last of Us, and fans of Never Let Me Go and Annihilation.
ALL readers should take a look at the trigger warnings on the author's website. I was fully ready for the body horror and still not expecting a few things that left me really shaken afterwards, especially with the lack of denouement.
Throughout the novel, I found myself drawn to the relationships between teen girls in a mysterious setting. I tore through the depictions of their changing relationships with their infected bodies, the mysteries being kept from them and by them, their seeming abandonment and the lack of care by the agencies meant to protect them (something that, without spoiling too much, turns out to be even more pernicious than it seems). The friendships and relationships and co-dependencies and freedoms that exist in every collective of teenagers and survive here tugged at my heart in a way that knows them too well.
There's very little more fascinating to me than something that really explores the monstrosity of the teenage girl to the rest of society, and the terrifying idea of women as something other than passive: this comes very near to it.
However -- and again with few spoilers, I felt like the rollercoaster of emotions and -- really very well done -- action, as it reached a fever pace of ever more horrifying events with even more unlikely rescues for ever-fewer characters, suddenly dropped off at the end. The last few chapters felt ...strange and sudden, leaving more questions than answers, and a lingering sense of letdown.
I get it. Sometimes the world sucks, and no matter how hard we try to fight it or to protect ourselves in it, that's never going to change. But it seemed like this one had more to say even if it that was its message. 100 more pages of showing and not telling would have gone a long way. And I would have happily read this book if it were twice as long or longer.
Still, I would recommend it heartily to lovers of the monstrous, people who enjoyed having their hearts ripped out by The Last of Us, and fans of Never Let Me Go and Annihilation.
ALL readers should take a look at the trigger warnings on the author's website. I was fully ready for the body horror and still not expecting a few things that left me really shaken afterwards, especially with the lack of denouement.