Week 41 Review: The Wilderness of Girls

From Goodreads:

After being placed in foster care, Rhi is hungry for a fresh start and begins working at the Happy Valley Wildlife Preserve. While in the woods, she stumbles upon a surreal a pack of wolves guarding four feral and majestic girls. After Rhi gains their trust, they reveal that they're princesses from another land, raised by a magical prophet they call Mother—and they're convinced Rhi is their lost fifth sister.

Unsure what to believe, Rhi ushers the girls to civilization, where they're met with societal uproar and scrutiny, dubbed by the ravenous media and true crime junkies as "The Wild Girls of Happy Valley." Desperate to return to their kingdom, the girls look to Rhi for help. Rhi knows the girls are deluded, but at the same time she's drawn in by their boldness and authenticity—traits she is afraid she has lost within herself. And when Rhi witnesses strange phenomena she can't quite explain, the line between fantasy and reality grows blurry.

As the hunt for answers intensifies, Rhi must make a decision that will change the course of her life and the lives of her Wild Girls forever.

My Review:
This was such a fantastic read! The synopsis sounded really intriguing, were these girls actually these princesses, or was the guy they called Mother crazy? Set in a backdrop of these wild girls now in society, and all the rules, written and unwritten, the social mores, and the misogyny, yeah, I loved it! 

I didn't realize right away, but this book is narrated by all of these girls, and a few others, plus a few transcripts, and book excerpts that came together to furnish the full picture. To see how each girl was struggling with their new life, loved it! 

We know something happened with Rhi, and her stepbrother. We knew she didn't want to go back to her dad and stepmother. Adding in the trigger warnings, and I had a good idea of what had happened, but it still hurt, finding out all the details, that she'd been through that. 

There are some unanswered questions at the end of this book, about if it was really real, who Mother was, and how they ended up with him. But that just added to the atmosphere of this book, where those questions had been lingering since the beginning! So I really enjoyed where we left these characters.  

Loved reading this book and I'd love to read more by Madeline Claire Franklin! 

Author: Madeline Claire Franklin
Read: October 11th, 2024 
Source: NetGalley 
Reason Why: Sounded really good, and it's a SAC 2024 Book! 
Publisher: Dreamscape Select
Published: June 11th 2024

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars