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tiredtori's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror and Blood
Moderate: Animal death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Gore, Self harm, Terminal illness, Violence, Medical content, Murder, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Drug use, Emotional abuse, Vomit, Grief, Suicide attempt, and Death of parent
moonlitemuseum's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Several things came to mind when I was reading this book, each alone and then occurring simultaneously:
The dismal disquiet of the school setting in Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. The loamy prose in Jeff Vandermeer's Southern Reach series, an attempt to block out something encroaching that may very well be, is, already inside you. The character "Vriska Serket" from online web behemoth "Homestuck". The mechanic in the visual novel "We Know The Devil" where two friends pair up and leave the third flagging sadly behind. The promotional image often used for "Girls' Last Tour", which I have yet to read, but which haunts me with how lonely and determined it's protagonists look -- all suited up in hardy jackets and thick boots against a cruel and endless post-apocalyptic background.
2020 was a hard year to read Wilder Girls in, but maybe that's why I stuck fast to it like a lichen on a rock. In a time of ever-worsening climate change and chaos around an illness, fiction helped mask it enough that I could swallow it, and the mask Wilder Girls wears is very thin. Practically translucent. It's about a disease that's pervasive, infectious and unavoidable, and it's also about how badly everyone fucks up the response to that disease even with plenty of advance warning. It's about friendship, sort of, but it's also about how little you can really know anyone. It's about crabs. It's about a landscape that's beautiful and awful, compelling and repellent. It's about body horror. It's about kissing your most difficult friend . It's about the innate horror of something moving behind what you can see. It's about...
Wilder Girls isn't a book I would recommend someone to read if they like tidy endings or even compassionate ones with lots of optimism. It has a dour, difficult ending. You don't learn all the answers. All three of the main characters are in dire and possibly inescapable circumstances. I liked the ending very much.
I would recommend this book to anyone who loves difficult fictional girls of all pedigrees, with a strong caveat for the medical, physiological and parasitic horror contained within it. It was a difficult and upsetting book to read for 2020, but that may be why it was a great book to close out the year with. I can't wait to read more like it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Death, Gore, Self harm, Suicide, Violence, Medical content, and Medical trauma
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Chronic illness, Cursing, Drug use, Gun violence, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Terminal illness, Torture, Forced institutionalization, and Grief
Minor: Body shaming, Bullying, and Homophobia