I’ve confessed before that I have a habit of buying books based on their covers. I totally bought this book based on the cover. I read the summary and I was like “hm.. it’s probably YA” and I don’t tend to buy YA these days, but then I said “I don’t care- that cover art!” So, it is YA, and like the cover, it’s very, very good YA. I’d say it wears it’s inspiration from Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation trilogy proudly, and does a lot of the things his books did successfully but with it’s own spin. This deserves to be a hit with teens, because it deals with complex emotions delicately and with nuance. It should be a hit with adults too, and if the studios get their hands on it, no one will be scoffing at a female led body-horror action movie for teens.
The teens of the Raxter boarding school are quarantined with a dangerous illness that warps and changes their bodies into things they don’t recognize. It killed the adults first, and over a year and a half later, is still working it’s way through the all-girl inhabitants of the school. Left to their own devices, they fight starvation, the unknown wilds beyond the gates of the islands, and their self doubt and insecurities with little guidance, all until Hetty’s best friend, Byatt, goes missing, and she starts a chain of events that will challenge what they think they know about everything.
I really enjoyed it. It reminds me of a less meditative version of Annihilation, and is not as purposefully obscure. People who liked the themes of that book, but were frustrated by the pacing and obscure elements, might get more satisfaction from this, because it does answer more of it’s own internal questions. Rory Power is a person to watch, and I suspect she’s got a sequel in her, because it certainly ends with room for one and the characters and their world is richly drawn and worth revisiting.