It’s been eighteen months since Raxter School for Girls was put under quarantine after its residents began dying from a mysterious illness. The Tox affects everyone differently: the headmistress’s lips constantly ooze blood; Byatt grows a second spine that protrudes from her back; Reese’s arm becomes covered in silver, reptilian scales; Hetty’s eye fuses shut, and she sometimes feels a strange sensation beneath the closed lid.
Secluded on a small island, Raxter’s remaining inhabitants rely on the navy to drop off limited food and supplies. There is never enough. Venturing beyond the school’s fence to retrieve resources is dangerous, as The Tox continues to spread through both wildlife and landscape. All the while, the girls wait for the cure they were promised.
When Byatt goes missing, Hetty and Reese venture into the infected wilderness to find her, uncovering unsettling truths about Raxter.
In this young adult novel by Rory Power, body horror is constant and vivid but rarely feels gratuitous. Instead, it reflects the girls’ loss of control over both their bodies and their environment. At the same time, there is a strong undercurrent of female resilience. The girls are not passive victims; they adapt, endure, and make difficult decisions in a world that continues to shrink around them.
The core premise of an isolated, single-gender group has drawn comparisons to Lord of the Flies. However, where Lord of the Flies suggests that human beings are inherently savage, Wilder Girls does the opposite. Here, the true monstrosity lies not within the girls themselves, but in the forces acting upon them: The Tox, the isolation, and the institutions willing to abandon them. When violence does occur, it emerges from desperation rather than cruelty, making their relationships feel both fragile and deeply human.
The novel echoes real-world histories of isolation, from leper colonies such as Spinalonga and Kalaupapa to plague quarantine islands like Lazzaretto Vecchio. It also invites comparison with the COVID-19 pandemic, when global quarantine measures sparked debates over civil liberties and collective responsibility. The ethical tension between sacrificing a few for the many is a subtle undercurrent, though the novel resists offering simple answers.
Ultimately, Wilder Girls is not just about infection or survival, but about friendship, endurance, and the struggle to remain human even as the body becomes irrevocably altered. Beneath its horror lies the fragile hope of a world beyond containment.
Mellissa Flowerdew-Clarke is an author and dramatist with a penchant for the macabre and a fascination with literary explorations of libertinism, psychopathy, narcissism, and coercive control. She is currently undertaking a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester, exploring Terror Management Theory in relation to representations of cultism and mass suicide.
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