Wilder Girls

 Wilder Girls by Rory Power                                                   Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction

(from Amazon)  It's been eighteen months since the Raxter School for Girls was put under quarantine. Since the Tox hit and pulled Hetty's life out from under her.It started slow. First the teachers died one by one. Then it began to infect the students, turning their bodies strange and foreign. Now, cut off from the rest of the world and left to fend for themselves on their island   home, the girls don't dare wander outside the school's fence, where the Tox has made the woods wild and dangerous. They wait for the cure they were promised as the Tox seeps into everything.  But when Byatt goes missing, Hetty will do anything to find her, even if it means breaking quarantine and braving the horrors that lie beyond the fence. And when she does, Hetty learns that there's more to their story, to their life at Raxter, than she could have ever thought true.

(My Review)  Students at a secluded private school are quarantined because they are starting to suffer horrific physical changes.  Being isolated on an island, the government sends them supplies to keep alive, but they are sending them barely enough to keep alive.  When her friend goes missing, Hetty goes searching for her and learns things are not quite as they seem.  I thought this story was creative and interesting.

Bright Young Women

 Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll                               Mystery Thriller/Historical Fiction

(from Amazon)  January 1978. A serial killer has terrorized women across the Pacific Northwest, but his existence couldn’t be further from the minds of the vibrant young women at the top sorority on Florida State University’s campus in Tallahassee. Tonight is a night of promise, excitement, and desire, but Pamela Schumacher, president of the sorority, makes the unpopular decision to stay home—a decision that unwittingly saves her life. Startled awake at 3 a.m. by a strange sound, she makes the fateful decision to investigate. What she finds behind the door is a scene of implausible violence—two of her sisters dead; two others, maimed. Over the next few days, Pamela is thrust into a terrifying mystery inspired by the crime that’s captivated public interest for more than four decades.  On the other side of the country, Tina Cannon has found peace in Seattle after years of hardship. A chance encounter brings twenty-five-year-old Ruth Wachowsky into her life, a young woman with painful secrets of her own, and the two form an instant connection. When Ruth goes missing from Lake Sammamish State Park in broad daylight, surrounded by thousands of beachgoers on a beautiful summer day, Tina devotes herself to finding out what happened to her. When she hears about the tragedy in Tallahassee, she knows it’s the man the papers refer to as the All-American Sex Killer. Determined to make him answer for what he did to Ruth, she travels to Florida on a collision course with Pamela—and one last impending tragedy.  Bright Young Women is the story about two women from opposite sides of the country who become sisters in their fervent pursuit of the truth. It proposes a new narrative inspired by evidence that’s been glossed over for decades in favor of more salable headlines—that the so-called brilliant and charismatic serial killer from Seattle was far more average than the countless books, movies, and primetime specials have led us to believe, and that it was the women whose lives he cut short who were the exceptional ones.

(My Review)  Wow!  This book at times, hard to read, but so good.  There is such a interest in true crime, and a fascination with serial killers.  I know that I am guilty of watching/reading my share of true crime books/documentaries.  However, it was after watching a Netflix series on Jeffrey Dahmer, that I started to feel uncomfortable with my fascination - it was focused on the victims.  After watching, I felt very different about viewing this genre as "entertainment".  It is hard to focus on them without thinking about how the survivors and victim's families feel.  I think that is what I found so intriguing about this book.  It follows the survivors of the target of a serial killer.  In the book, it was interesting how the author points out how the language around the suspect is so positive, as opposed to how the victims are treated.