im bored. and when it comes to ya fiction, that's quite the problem, because what else can it offer besides entertainment? here, very little. everything about this book is clickbait, from the cover to the synopsis and marketing selling it as a feminist slash sapphic body horror version of Lord of the Flies. while 99% of the cast are indeed women, mostly teenagers, i would argue this fact by itself doesn't make a book feminist; and there's no similarity between this and William Golding's debut besides both taking place on an island. also, despite not having finished the book, i dare say Rory Power's girls are too civilized, given the title, the premise and the fact they've been starving, sick and deformed for two winters (this book doesn't start at the beginning of the isolation as that classic does). they respect the rules in most circumstances, even though there are only two adults left; that's insane.

as for the w/w relationship, it comes out of nowhere: there's no build-up, no tension, no yearning, no nothing. the mc quickly comes to conclusions that are never shown on page. their feelings and personalities are so underdeveloped i was led to believe that the protagonist's love interest actually liked the other girl in their trio who goes missing and that her spiteful behavior towards the mc was out of  jealousy, not due to repressed feelings LoL i guess that would be too much real drama for such a boring book. regardless, instead of the it's-always-been-you trope, the romance would make much more sense if it were a love triangle or an enemies-to-lovers with a slow burn to justify it.

although i tried very hard to give a shit about the characters, i failed. or this book failed me, its "wilder" girls making me yawn, its body horror aesthetic less effective than it could've been on screen. the author forgot at some point that the reader needs to know these girls and see their supposed strong bond in order to care about what happens to them. the story could end with all of them dead, for all i care. i kept reading up until now for the mystery surrounding the whole situation, and i guess i could finish just to hate on it as i've done in the past, but so many reviews warn about an open ending —which, in a book this superficial, screams lazy writing— and i don't want to start 2024 with a one-star read that could've been at least two. perhaps i'll be missing out on an interesting discussion on girlhood, but i doubt it.