History Literature / WilderGirls

Raxter Island, Maine, is home to Raxter School for Girls and little else. Or at least it was, until the Tox struck; now having been in strict quarantine for 18 months, the students and their two surviving teachers are in a daily struggle against illness, starvation, and the mutated forests surrounding the schoolgrounds.

!!This novel provides example of:

* BadBlackBarf: Mr. Harker, the school groundskeeper and Reese's dad, starts throwing up black sludge when he contracts the Tox.
* BearsAreBadNews: On Hetty's first trip on the Boat Shift, the team encounters a bear but they manage to avoid engaging with it. Later, a bear infected with the Tox invades the school grounds and does get into the building.

* BoardingSchoolOfHorrors: Before the Tox, it is a regular boarding school for girls, albeit a bit strict (no cell phones allowed, uniforms required). Afterwards, the girls are completely cut off from the world (they can't even communicate with their families in the mainland) and they have to deal with the meager food supply.
* BodyHorror: The Tox manifests in wildly different forms for every person (or creature, as it also affects animals) it infects, and almost all of them manifest as this. Byatt's noted to be one of the relatively luckier girls, and she has jagged bones from second spine ripping through her back.
* BrownNote: After her flare-up part way through the book, [[spoiler: Byatt's]] voice becomes a harsh and guttural sound that causes immense pain to everyone around her when she speaks, [[spoiler: because it matches the resonance frequency of human bone]].
* ChekhovsGun: Early on Hetty mentions that all the girls know how to open a bullet and swallow the gunpowder if the Tox gets unbearable. [[spoiler:Late in the book Headmistress tries to poison the bottled water with gunpowder, and [[LaserGuidedKarma Hetty forces her to drink one in retribution.]]]]
** When Hetty's sealed-up eye is described, she often mentions she can feel something growing behind it. [[spoiler: The final moments of the book have her realize the Tox is a parasite that's been living inside all of them, meaning she was likely feeling it moving inside her.]]
* ChromosomeCasting: By virtue of being set at an all girls school on a quarantined island. The only male characters even mentioned by name are Mr. Harker and Teddy.
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: After Byatt breaks containment, the government pulls out and the situation on Raxter destabilizes quickly, with Hetty killing Taylor and Headmistress after they attempt to [[DeathGas gas the students]], a bear attacking the school, and the Navy launching jets to bomb the school just to be sure there are no survivors. She and Reese abandon the other girls to die, find a severely wounded and possibly EmptyShell Byatt, and attempt to make for the mainland in a battered boat, with only a tenuous hope of a cure, if they make it that far.]]
* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:Welch, when the last boat drop consists only of a canister of DeathGas. She realizes the the government stopped trying to find a cure.]]
* EmptyShell: The Tox sometimes manifests as this, hollowing out people and leaving nothing but the infection, which sometimes turns them feral or leaves them aware enough to commit suicide. [[spoiler: After removing her parasite, Byatt is also noted to be empty, implying the parasite had become so linked to her that she effectively died when she removed it]].

* FreudianSlip: When Byatt is under lock and key at the infirmary, the Headmistress tells Hetty that her friend is lucky to have Hetty "looking for her." When Hetty repeats the latter three words ("Looking for her?"), Headmistress corrects herself with a strained smile: "Looking ''out'' for her." This is one of the first hints Hetty gets that something is wrong.

* GreenAesop: Very late in the book, Hetty and Reese discover [[spoiler:the Tox is a parasitic organism that spent eons trapped in ice that's finally melting due to climate change.]]

* HairOfGoldHeartOfGold: Zigzagged with Reese, whose blonde hair literally glows thanks to the Tox, but is initially cold and tough. However, she defrosts as the book progresses.

* LaserGuidedKarma: [[spoiler: Headmistress laced bottles of water with gunpowder for the girls to drink, and later claims that it was to spare them from the pain. Hetty force-feeds the poisoned water to that person, so they find out for themselves how painless death by gunpowder poisoning is. Hint: it is painful.]]
* MagicalRealism: The Tox causes some people to exhibit unnatural abilities, such as Reese's glowing hair or [[spoiler: Byatt's voice becoming a BrownNote]].

** [[spoiler:Headmistress claims that was her intent when she leads the girls into the music room and releases the DeathGas, and the same with the water bottles with gunpowder.]]

* NoPeriodsPeriod: Justified, as Byatt mentions none of the girls have gotten their period since falling ill with the Tox. Headmistress is also speculated to be post-menopausal.
* PlantPerson: It's noted that [[spoiler: testosterone]] changes the effects of the Tox, incorporating more plant features in both [[spoiler: Teddy and Mr. Harker.]]
* PosthumousCharacter: [[spoiler: Mr. Harker. Reese is hopeful he's still alive somewhere until she and Hetty encounter his monstrous, Tox-animated corpse.]]

** The reason Welch throws away most of the food that arrives in the air drops: [[spoiler: to sabotage government's efforts to test cures on the girls.]]

* UnwittingTestSubject: [[spoiler: Everyone on Raxter, as the government and Headmistress knew about the properties of the Tox and were studying it long before any of the protagonists arrived on the island. It's also implied that the government was never really looking for a cure, having declared the victims dead, and opting instead to study the effects of the Tox on humans in hopes of replicating it in a controlled fashion.]]

* BearsAreBadNews: On Hetty's first trip on the Boat Shift, the team encounters a bear but they manage to avoid evade its attention. Later, a bear infected with the Tox invades the school grounds and does get into the building.

Wilder Girls is the 2019 debut YoungAdult novel from Rory Power. In addition to combining elements of survival horror with a myriad of accent genres, it is noted for its casual inclusion of LGBT characters.

* BearsAreBadNews: On her first trip on the Boat Shift, Hetty and Welch encounter a bear but they manage to escape its attention. Later, a bear infected with the Tox invades the school grounds and manages to get into the building.

Raxter Island, Maine, is home to Raxter School for Girls and little else. Or at least it was, until the Tox struck; now in strict quarantine, the students and their two surviving teachers are in a daily struggle against illness, starvation, and the mutated forests surrounding the schoolgrounds.

Wilder Girls is the 2019 debut novel from Rory Power. In addition to combining elements of survival horror with a myriad of accent genres, it is noted for its casual inclusion of LGBT characters.

* AmazingTechnicolorWildlife: Invoked with the “Raxter blue” crabs.
* BodyHorror: The Tox manifests in wildly different forms for every person it infects, and almost all of them manifest as this. Byatt's noted to be one of the relatively luckier girls, and she has jagged bones from second spine ripping through her back.
* BrownNote: After her flare up part way through the book, [[spoiler: Byatt's]] voice becomes a harsh and guttural sound that causes immense pain to everyone around her when she speaks, [[spoiler: because it matches the resonance frequency of human bone]].
* ChekhovsGun: Early on Hetty mentions that all the girls know how to open a bullet and swallow the gunpowder if the Tox gets unbearable. [[spoiler:Late in the book Headmistress tries to poison the bottled water with gunpowder, and Hetty forces her to drink one in retribution.]]
** When Hetty's sealed up eye is described, she often mentions she can feel something growing behind it. [[spoiler: The final moments of the book have her realize the Tox is a parasite that's been living inside all of them, meaning she was likely feeling it moving inside her.]]

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: After Byatt breaks containment, the government pulls out and the situation on Raxter destabilizes quickly, with Hetty killing Taylor and Headmistress after they attempt to gas the students, a bear attacking the school, and the Navy launching jets to bomb the school just to be sure there are no survivors. She and Reese abandon the other girls to die, find a severely wounded and possibly EmptyShell Byatt, and attempt to make for the mainland in a battered boat, with only a tenuous hope of a cure, if they make it that far.]]

* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Reese has two. For the reader, when she fights Hetty tooth and nail for food. For the other girls, when she replies to a complaint of there being no boys on the island with “Plenty of girls, though.”
* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: Headmistress is always called simply “Headmistress”.

* GenreBusting: It’s a bio-horror medical survival mystery thriller with LGBT elements. Or something.
* GreenAesop: Very late in the book, Hetty and Reese discover [[spoiler:the Tox is a parasitic organism that spent eons trapped in ice that’s finally melting due to climate change.]]

* LastNameBasis: Mr. Harker is never given a first name.

* PosthumousCharacter: [[spoiler: Mr. Harker. Reese is hopeful he’s still alive somewhere until she and Hetty encounter his monstrous, Tox-animated corpse.]]

* PowerTrio: Hetty, Byatt, and Reese.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Hetty and Reese find Byatt and are on their way to the mainland]] BUT [[spoiler:Byatt’s hanging on by a thread, the girls at the school who survived the bear attack and the gassing will certainly die in the bombing, and there’s no telling what awaits the trio on the mainland.]]

* BodyHorror: How the Tox manifests.

* ChromosomeCasting: By virtue of being set at an all girls school on a quarantined island. The only male characters even mentioned are Mr. Harker and Teddy.

* FirstPersonPerspective: Mostly from Hetty’s perspective, though some sections are from Byatt’s.

* GreenAesop: Very late in the book, Hetty realizes [[spoiler:the Tox is an organism that spent eons trapped in ice that’s finally melting due to climate change.]]

* PowerTrio: Hetty, Byatt, and Reese.

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: Discussed when Reese tells Hetty they clearly have different ideas of what kind of person Byatt is. [[spoiler:The eventual revelation of Byatt’s history as a compulsive liar and her carelessness with Teddy’s wellbeing suggest Reese’s image is closer to the truth.]]