Book Review | Wilder Girls by Rory Power

Wilder Girls is a (debut!) young adult horror novel by Rory Power.

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 normally don't care for moment in time stories, but I loved Wilder Girls! Wilder Girls is being marketed as a stand alone, but I'm holding out hope that it will turn into a series. Everything about it feels way bigger than the story we got with Wilder Girls. I want to know more about the disease, the setting, the characters... I want prequels and sequels and more of this world.

If you enjoy body horror, I think you will really dig Wilder Girls. It's going to end up on my favorites list for the year.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Book Review | The Maze Runner by James Dashner

The Maze Runner is a YA dystopian novel by James Dashner. It is also the first book in the Maze Runner series.

If you ain’t scared, you ain’t human.

When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his name. He’s surrounded by strangers—boys whose memories are also gone.

Nice to meet ya, shank. Welcome to the Glade.

Outside the towering stone walls that surround the Glade is a limitless, ever-changing maze. It’s the only way out—and no one’s ever made it through alive.

Everything is going to change.

Then a girl arrives. The first girl ever. And the message she delivers is terrifying.

Remember. Survive. Run.

Take this review with a grain of salt.

I tried to read The Maze Runner back in January with no luck. I couldn't get into it at all, and I decided it wasn't for me.

This past month, however, my hubs wanted to watch the movie. I have strict rules against watching a movie before I read the book, but since I had no intentions of reading the book, I thought what the hey. It's not often hubs is requesting one of "my" movies so I went with it.

Here's the kicker - I really liked the movie. So much so that I wanted to read the book.

The book was much easier for me to get into this time around because it was more like a reread. I was also listening to it on audio with a good narrator so it was altogether a nice read for me.

I can't say what my original rating would have been if I had forced my way through it, but I do know my interest in this series is high right now. I just need to decide if I'm going to read The Scorch Trials now or stick with watching the movies.

6/10: Good Read

Have you read The Maze Runner? What about the movie - have you seen it? I'm really looking forward to The Scorch Trials. I'm leaning more toward doing the movie again, though.