everyone. I'm Robbie Donan and this is Sarah Finazas, the podcast for fans of everything. Welcome. Today, I'm joined by a patient, a boy to talk about Wilder Girls by Rory Power, a new YA horror novel.
We loved the book and it was a really fun discussion. We talk about the beautiful and intricate prose, the nuanced relationship between the three main characters, and our feelings about the ending of the story. It was a great chat as always with Paige on a discussion. I'm here, again, with Paige, the boy to talk about books.
Paige, how are you? I'm good. I'm excited. Yeah, we're talking about why or why I just I just practiced this and I still wilder girls by Rory Power is our book, book book book book book for this episode.
Synopsis, a group of teenage girls are trapped, quarantined on an island after some sort of some sort of virus sickness, called the talk says kind of started mutating them and or killing them, a lot of flies ish, certainly. That's I think a me that's the comparison in their blur, but I would definitely agree with that. YA horror, I would say, probably thriller, horror, thriller. Yeah, I heard it classified as like body horror.
Absolutely. Yeah. That's in there. There's there's there's a lot of icky.
I would say more of a more thriller elements than stuff like the Mercilist, where I feel like the Mercilist was just like straight horror, like not as much of the thrill and mystery aspects of it, where this had a lot more of the like intrigue, I guess. I think I would I think it had a good mix of of everything that you want in horror. I think it had it had it had it had the kind it had the mystery for sure. It had the tension that you're looking for in a thriller.
It has a lot of the, I don't know, ambiance and environmental and kind of moody feelings of general, like of horror, like the feeling of horror, not necessarily the genre horror, but of just feeling kind of like dread of just the kind of anxiety, writing around with you as you're reading this, you're like, Oh, no, all of this is going to be bad. Everything. This is all bad. Everything's bad.
Something bad is happening. Something bad has happened, et cetera, et cetera. How do you feel? Did you like it?
I really liked it. Yeah. I'm curious what your thoughts were too, because as I was reading this, I'm just like, Oh, my gosh, I feel like there hasn't been a book that we've both been over the moon about in a while, like, and I'm wondering if this is the one I'm wondering if we both really enjoyed this one, or if your thoughts are different? No, I really enjoyed it.
It's really good. It's very good. It's, it's very impressive, especially as a debut novel, I think this is the first, first book. Is it really?
Oh, wow. It really read like, like, the writing, the pros were very like seasoned. And I said to Matt while I was reading it, I just went, this is a book that I feel like I should study, like the things that she did with like tone and pacing and repetition. And it was written in like a first person past tense, wasn't it?
But it felt very like active present tense, which I thought was really impressive. It does a lot really well. It manages, it bites, it takes a big bite, you know, it has, it feels like the premise itself is very, very simple. And I think that's a strength in the fact that it is simply, hey, there's a girls, a school for girls, I don't know if it really reforms school, like a boarding school.
Yeah, it seemed like some of them were sent there because they were problem kids, but other people were sent there maybe as like a status sort of thing, like, oh, like this beautiful island boarding school for girls, like, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I think it's purposely vague about everything that's happened in the past before the talks, because frankly, everything happened before the talks barely matters anymore. It is, it is post, it is also not, it's not post apocalyptic, even though it definitely calls that in a question at times, you're not necessarily, you know, they're told they're living under quarantine, but everything are told is you have to take the great assault because one, the two girls, the narrate are both unreliable simply because they're people. And then they're also being told a lot of information that is lies or not true, or like, or, you know, half-roofs or whatever.
And it's, but really the premise is girls on an island trying to survive in the face of this illness, whatever it is. But it is, it spins out into a lot more than that simple premise. It's really a, like, and I think that it's like, I'm trying to, I was thinking about this as we're leading up to record. And I'm like, how do I try to encompass what this book is telling us?
Like, what is the message? What is this about? And I don't think it's about any one particular thing. I think it is about a lot of stuff that, and I think it manages to really encompass, you know, I think the question of control, the question of friendship and relationships and romance between the three main characters.
It talks about, I don't know, environmental apocalypse and all that. Global warming, I did not expect global warming to come up. And then it did. And I went, yeah, we got to protect this Earth.
This is, this is some bad stuff. Yeah, it's very bad. And, you know, and it does more than that, even. It is, it kind of goes in a lot of different places, but it's, it feels very, what is the good word I'm looking for?
Like, no, I don't know, bespoke. It feels very crafted. It feels very purposeful. Yeah, I agree with you there.
There's like a, it, it, there's something about this book that just feels really different. Like, there's something, I don't know, I think bespoke is not a bad word. Like, it's, it's very finely crafted. Whenever, I always have to remind myself that, like, this was not the first draft of this book, like, it did not probably come out looking this way.
And so I wonder, I wonder what a first draft of this looked like. I wonder how much she whittled away at the story and how many rough drafts or revisions she went through, because it is really just like finely crafted. I also, I love, like, it's not that the characters don't have morals because they do, but I love how gray everything was both in, like, kind of the color scheme that she painted of the rocks and the sea and the fog and everything is gray. But also morally, there isn't like a clear, you see people doing bad things, but it was hard for me to find a clear bad guy.
I mean, it had mistress at the end. I was just like, oh, gosh. But at the same time, yes, she turned out to be a villain, but everyone really was convicted on that they were trying so hard to do the right thing and, like, protect people in the way that they thought was right, and that was interesting. I mean, I think that's, it's the market of any good antagonist in anything.
It's not necessarily, oh, they're, they are the bad person. So they do bad things and they, they try and hurt people. Well, no, in the real world, people don't just aren't, they don't go, oh, I'm a villain. I'm going to do bad stuff.
No, they have self-interest in heart. They, they think they're the hero. They think they're doing the right thing for whatever reason, either it's to protect themselves or protect their family or to ensure a, a wider philosophy, a worldview. They think it's the right one and they're going to ensure that it succeeds and they don't think, oh, this is the bad thing to do who cares.
They, they go, oh, this is the right thing to do. Sure, some people might get hurt, but ultimately this is better. This is more important than them or they're hurt. And they'll get over it or they don't matter.
Certainly there's people who are cold and unepathatic and don't care about other people, but ultimately they still think about, I'm a hero. I'm doing the right thing. And I think in this book in particular, every character is like that. And I think it is very portrayed as all these people are doing whatever they can to scratch and claw and just survive that.
And that, that it is kind of the mission statement very early on the book. They're, they're told stay on the island and try and survive, survive as long as you can until help comes. And it, I think the book starts in a perfect place. I, we were talking about how it's a fast read and it's relatively short.
That is not a complaint on my part. I, I don't want a book to drag on. I don't want to re preamble. I, you know, people talk about don't write parallocks.
And that's, and I don't think they mean, oh, you don't, you can't write set. You can't write things that set up a plot. They mean if it's not important, don't write it. Right.
And everything in this is important. It starts as things are falling. It's been like it starts 18 months after they've kind of been quarantined and abandoned. And there is no, oh, let's spend half the book building up to the point where the talks breaks out and then we are at the point where the book starts.
Well, why is that? Why would that need to be written? It doesn't because by starting right when the interesting stuff happens, you are, you are, I don't know, compelled to pull through this book. It is, I read it in like two settings.
I was also sick when I was reading it. So it put me in a very specific frame of mind. That I think was appropriate. Um, I don't know, there's, there's no waste in it.
And I think that just that speaks to the bespoke nature of it. You ask about how many rough drafts are, I don't know. Uh, that's an interesting thing. I think, you know, when you think about people's first novels, usually their first novels is something that's been sitting inside them for a very long time.
And eventually you get it to a point where you're like, okay, I'm going to release it now, but I, I don't, it feels like this was labored over. It feels like there's a lot of specific choices, not just in general plot sense, but also in word choice and structure and the way that the, we are bounced back and forth between the two perspectives that were never given a third. We're never, I was really expecting for us to get Reese in there at some point, but it never happens. And I was, as soon as I realized that it switched perspectives, I'm like, oh, it's going to switch between the three girls.
That makes sense. And I'm just realizing that now it, I mean, headies like focus, even though we get like romance and stuff, like with her and Reese, it's, it's her focus is I need to find my best friend. It's, it's really not as much the romance or the attraction, although I think that was such a good, like part of the story and the relationship building. Um, but it almost makes sense that, uh, that Reese, it's made a point in the book so many times to say how Reese felt left out and how she wasn't, she was kind of like an add-in to the group.
She never quite fit in with the two of them. Like she always kind of felt like an extra. And so that, that I feel like is almost an interesting symbolism to leave her thoughts out of it, you know, right? Then she is, she is the kind of physically dominant one.
And I think that putting her outside of the out of our, out of our reckoning, basically, we don't really know what she's thinking at any one point. I think it makes her feel more like a force of nature about of this, this very powerful, but unpredictable girl who at first seems cold. And then you understand, when you begin to understand her feelings a little bit more, um, you kind of, I think what you said is correct. I think, including her from our, from our view, basically, we can't see her thoughts like we can with heady or by it.
Thank you for saying by its name first, because I could not figure out how to say that out loud. I assume it's just why it would be. Okay, great. That's my approach.
I was like, Brian, why, but like I figured out, I was going to ask you before we started recording. And that's why I made the choice. I'm like, she's very focused on her best, right? Well, it's, I think they're, they're all there.
And I think it is, they're, they are, I think the choices of names, I think, is even important in this. And like, because it feels, this book feels otherworldly. It feels like a dream at times, if dreamlike, um, and it bounces back and forth between this kind of brutal reality that they live in, where everyone is hungry all the time, where they fight and claw over every last bit of food, and they are worried about the monsters outside of their walls. And then also this, these moments of very, like, of delicate and soft and, and emotional resonance, especially in, in primarily with the three-yearls or the three, these three characters here, as we kind of learn this weird dynamic that they, they are in where, you know, they're, they're bunk bed, where, you know, by and heady sleep on the bottom bunk together and Reese is on the top by herself.
And this kind of weird, this weird feeling out of their relationship and how, you know, when we first see that, you know, heady, that first time we see heady fake being asleep. And she hears by andries talk about stuff without purposely excluding her from this conversation. They don't want her to know and her feelings about that and how, like, how she is, how every kind of every small bit of intimacy and closeness is just as important as that orange that they fight for and how that is constant, that is on her mind just as much as the food. And like, she's, she's at a certain point, heady doesn't eat, you know, she stops eating because she feels guilty about eating a chocolate bar.
Oh, my God, I, I, I loved that. I loved all the, like, it felt very real that she knows the secret and she got to have this, like, small bite of chocolate and sees all this food get thrown out. And then every time anyone eats, it's just, she feels so guilty that she's sick. I was just like, Oh, my God, like the attention to the emotions in the book.
And I just loved it. Just at that point, where I'm just like, this is a podcast where I talk about books, but all I want to do is be like, ah, it was great. It's, it's, it's, it's real intricate is the word I was looking for. It feels very intricate.
It feels like, like a, like a watch. It feels like a great father clock. It feels like lots of little tiny gears moving around in and out and moving things in and out of place. And I think it's, it's, I think I'm not without critique for it.
I think I do have some mild nitpicks that I don't, it certainly doesn't stop me from recommending it. I think it's, it's really, really good. Um, I think I don't know why I feel like at a certain point calling things. I think we have this discussion every time, but the, like calling this a YA book feels, I don't almost dismissively like, like, I'm, like, what point do we just stop using YA?
Cause it, like at certain point, like, it's just everything. It is just, it's just a book. It's not, I don't know why it's supposed to only mean the age group that, that the characters are, like that, that's the only thing that it's really, and I think it just people look down on it. Cause they're like, Oh, it's books for teens.
They can't be important. They can't do things. And it's like, it's all of those people shut up. Exactly.
And I think it's my larger problem with genre is, is genre in categorization in general, it just becomes marketing at a certain point. It's not about the quality of the, cause this book, I feel like is, it is, I don't know, like, I would not even call, I would call this bordering on literary fiction at a certain point. There is certainly elements of horror in it, but it is also just as well crafted and not, it's not, I don't, I don't know. I want to see this win, like horror awards.
I want to see it win, uh, like literary fiction. I want it to be considered serious, like a real book and not just dismissed as like some kind of genre fiction, because I feel like it is that good, it is that. And I think the pros itself, the pros, I think is the strongest, the strongest part of this book. I don't, I think there's some, some minor plotting issues I would pick at.
Um, I think the pros is so strong. Yeah, they were stunning. Like if the way that this book is written, it's just, I don't, I loved, um, so I was reading the hardcover and there were all of these big spaces and you were probably reading the Kindle version, uh, where did you, was it formatted the same way where it would be like kind of like a big gap in thoughts and then it would come back in. Uh, I wish I had, I wish I had bookmarked it where it would like describe a room or a dream and then it would have like a giant pause in the text and then just say the word like awake, like, and start describing the new environment that she was in, but there were like these really large gaps in the type setting, like purposefully.
So you kind of like feel a little disoriented and it was very cool. I don't think there was ever, it was all just normal, uh, page breaks and, and, uh, like, uh, I don't know what the underscore is basically dividing this graph, but it's not, there's no big gaps in space or anything like that. Interesting. I'll have to text you a picture of what I'm talking about because it's, it was so interesting.
It was just even like the artistry with the formatting of the book was cool. I mean, I think that, yeah, I mean, that's the thing you digital books, they just don't, it is one thing I miss about when I'm reading a digital book is very much there is, there are conscious choices about when you're formatting a physical book and how you lay it out. And you can make those choices in a physical book. You can't do it as easily in a digital book, even though you could, but there's, there's like, there's a lot of space in the bio chapters, but it's never like big, it's just mostly because they're very short paragraphs and, you know, there's a lot of breaks, but it's never a big gaps of space.
Yeah, it was, yeah, it was, it was cool, especially in her chapters because she's like in and out of consciousness so frequently. Uh, oh, Teddy, poor Teddy Teddy didn't do so hot. No, Teddy didn't do so great with the, the talks. No, this book is in very brutal.
Yeah, which is one of the one thing that I was unsure about how you would feel about considering how you mentioned, how you talked about the merciless. I mean, it did, the thing is I really liked the merciless too. It's just like sometimes I'll like be reading these books and be like, oh, man, why do I feel nauseous? That doesn't make sense.
I guess I'm going to keep reading and then my stomach will be in like knots. And I'm just like, huh, what a crazy happenstance that I like, I was trying to make dinner last night and I'm just like, you know, I can't even look at that chicken right now. So this is on you, Matt. I can't, I can't.
So yeah, I think it affects me, but I can't stop reading. Like I like just it's like, it was, I don't know, like, I don't mind it. If the story is worth it, I guess. I mean, I don't, it is never, it is never, I think that there is a fine line.
I think everyone has, it probably is different for every person, but, you know, some people are gourhounds where they can take anything and it means, and they could just bring it, bring it on. I can just watch a horror movie or read a horror book over and over again. Does it, how much war is there? It doesn't bother me.
It doesn't affect me. I'm able to disconnect that. Body horror in particular is my favorite of, like, if you're talking about gore, because it is the one thing that challenges me. It is the one thing that I still find upsetting at times.
Like I can watch most horror, straight horror story, like if I watch a Jason movie and he chops one and a half of the machete does not bother me at all. I don't even think twice about it. Giant splashes, blood, guts, whatever, doesn't bother me at all. But body horror, the way that it presents that juxtaposition of, of identity, of, of your, your, your body.
And how you look is, is so, so important and formative about your, your construction of self. You, and especially as you get older, you are, and you kind of get used to your body, you know, when you're a teenager. And then like these are teenagers. So there's also a element of like the talks hit them as they hit puberty.
And that kind of added a layer of, you know, your body changing as you hit, you hit your teens. And there's even like they, she even talks about the girls stop having their periods because of the, of the talks that change them. And like, and that's it, that is like all those, like small details had up and, and add to a substantial change to a person and how a human is supposed to work, how your body is supposed to work. And it, I think it's because of that fact, because of how it relates to how you think of what, who you are, that it still affects me so strongly.
Like I watch Cronenberg movies, they still bother me at a fundamental level. I love them for the most part, but they still bother me. Like the fly or, or, why can I think of the most, the biggest movie? I can't think of the name, has James Wood, what James Wood's in it as a television.
You don't page, you know, you've never seen this movie. Cronenberg. You're going to say it. I'm like, oh, yeah, I've seen that.
I think you guys video, video drum is the movie I'm thinking. OK, no, I have not, you would not enjoy video drum. I'll tell you that page. It's a, it's a weird ass movie, but it is definitely a form of the body, hard work to me.
And this, because the way she describes how these, these girls have mutated, how they're, they have second spines emerging from their skin or, or poor heady and her eye and how they are, it erupts occasionally and it just, it oozes constantly. She's wiping it all the time. It's just constantly oozing and they stitch it shut and I'm all the time. I'm like, oh, it just makes you feel like that is not what's supposed to happen, that it feels so inhuman.
It is as inhuman as you can get. And, you know, they talk about the crab. Oh, yeah. At times.
And it makes you remember, like crabs are not, you know, most arthropods or whatever. They are so distinct from humanity. Like if you look at a cow, you can reckon like in his fur and as big eyes and it, like it moves and it breathes like us and it gives milk and it gives birth and it's recognizable as something related to us. You look at a crab, it looks like a weird alien.
That is true. That's, I mean, crabs look very different. They have, they have, they're hard claws and stalky eyes. And like, what that's, how is that?
Like, it's so distant from us. And every time these girls start adding, they have something new that like her eye is like, heady is frankly one of the luckier girls. I did really like the way it sounds strange to say I liked the way that everything was described. And I liked the way that she peppered in all the details about the mutations.
Like I felt like we got more and more little details as the story went on, instead of it just being like an info dump of gross details. You know what I mean? Where it felt very intentional, the way that it was like paced out. And I felt like it made the pictures of them that I have created in my mind, like continue to change throughout the story.
Like I, yeah, but also at any point in time, not to, I feel like you were getting to a point and then I cut you off. But did you think that they were going to like get and wield like powers at any time? I thought about it, but I think this book is not, I think I would, I certainly within the realm of possibility, but after a certain point, I think largely after she went to after pi, it went to the lab and what happened to what's the space boy? Oh, Teddy, or Teddy, that poor Teddy after what happened to him.
And after, you know, after we get the first couple interviews with the scientist lady, um, I'm pretty much dismissed that I'm pretty much went. I, I certainly don't expect it. And I probably would be, I probably would be a little disappointed at a certain point because I feel like this book is certainly, it is not about, it is not about, it is about drawing victory from despair. It is not from like achieving some kind of physical dominance over, uh, over any one or anything.
Like frankly, everything that happens is basically a degradation of physical dominance. There is, there is every attempt by any of the characters to control the situation fail at every step. There is never any one point. It's, it is things fall apart again.
It is, there is no, you know, they have a loose semblance of order to start in the book of a vague of, yes, these girls are the boat girls, these girls are on watch. And there's this hierarchy of the headmistress and, and, and down the line. But all we are seeing is that kind of leadership fall apart as the book continues. The nature is getting wilder and wilder and more powerful.
And by the end, a massive talks fueled bear has been destroying the building. It is just just, and they don't try and save anyone. No, I wanted to ask you about that as well. Yeah.
They abandon all the girls. They, when at the end the bear is running through and they, and theoretically Reese knows away off the island, she knows where there's a boat and heady and Reese believe they could have taken more girls with them. But at this point, they have been betrayed over and over and over again. This is not about saving people.
It is about saving yourself and your group and that is in your, and your friends or your, I don't even know if I'll call them girlfriends. They're, they're, they have a sort of romantic relationship, but it is so complicated that I hesitate to put any kind of label on it other than friends. And like even that, I think is challenged at multiple points. If they're even friends, like they are bonded, but are they friends?
I don't know. And I don't think would they be friends if this wasn't happening? If the world wasn't falling, if their world wasn't falling apart, they were friends before the talks happened, but it certainly made them, I think, latch closer onto each other. Right.
I mean, that's what I mean. I mean, like they would be friends, but would they be this close where they're willing, where they are like risking each other's lives and constantly willing to sacrifice for each other, like literally both of them are, are willing to die for the other. Like multiple times do almost die because of what they're going through. And I think that is like getting for them, getting superpowers, that would be, it feels like it feels like that is what we were kind of programmed about like mutation, the X-Men kind of thing where you go, oh, yeah, they got him random mutation and suddenly they can teleport or they have laser eyes, or they could shape shift.
And like, I can't think of the name of the book we read with the electric shock. Oh, the power, wasn't it? Yeah, power. Like that is, I think that book is kind of that same kind of like, oh, it's, yeah, there, you'll get a mutation and you will have some new ability.
And this, there is no, they, there is not a single benefit to any of their mutations. This is, it is all negative and horrible. Yeah. And I thought at the beginning of the book, I thought that that's where we were going.
I thought we were going X-Men direction where there's a girl with gills. I thought that that was going to come into play somehow and be useful. I was curious about what the second spine meant and like what, like, if any power that could represent what it would be. And yeah, as we went through the, I almost think that was kind of cool that from the media that's out there, you do see mutations and you think powers like X-Men.
And going through the book, it was just not that story. Just kind of like how I feel like with this sort of book, you also think that you're going to have a some sort of supervillain, like, ah, yes, the island was all set up by this corporation to test this product or something to make soldiers for war. And it wasn't that that's, that's not, it was all not black and white. It was very nuanced and it surprised me, surprised me a lot.
Because I went in with, with some expectations of like a teen, teens getting superpowers kind of book. Yeah. I think I also saw a review somewhere that likened this to X-Men. And now that I've read it, I'm like, how?
It is. There are certainly like among the X-Men's like stories, there are some that are focused on people who have, you know, who get new powers, but the new powers are useless for detrimental to their life. Like they have those stories, but largely it is not about that. If it's about Wolverine and Cyclops and, and, and, and Nightfrawler and the Steak and Professor X and Magneto, who have these incredible amazing powers and they look like normal people and there's no, you know, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're conflicts are ones of, you know, of any kind of afflicted minority group where, you know, they are a threat to humanity.
Et cetera, but it's not about, Oh, you know, the Morlocks, I think are a closer comparison, which are the mutants that live under the, live in the sewers of New York City because they look weird. Like there's one that just looks like a little frog man and he has real little powers. He just looks like a frog man and you can't really live with most humans anymore. Even though it stretches credulity at a certain point in the marble universe when there's so many people who look weird and have powers, but that's a separate issue.
Um, I think the, the fact, the, the each have all these powers and powers, meaning, yeah, they have a silver hand that makes that, so their hand is basically useless. It just has weird scales on it. Another girl has a second spine and that doesn't, it just causes her pain once in a while. And that's like, it's a, the, the realism of like, of, of mutation with radiation and, and, uh, real life chemicals.
It's never, oh, you get powers. No, it's no, you get cancer. No, you, you get some deformity. It doesn't, it's not sexy.
It's terrible. And I think what you said about there is no overarching plot of like, oh, we're gonna use these girls for whatever. It's not like, oh, there's weird stuff happening on this island. Let's try and figure out what it is.
But it is at largely still a medical issue. It is a problem with if this gets out, it will kill humanity. Yeah, but so do you think we, we never really got clarity on if the head mistress knowingly kind of led the girls into this? She said to Hedy, like that, oh, well, I knew there was some stuff going on, but I didn't know that it would affect you girls.
And Hedy assumes that's a lie. I don't, I kind of like not knowing, but I think that's my, my largest complaint about the book and it's still very minor. I think I don't think it really affects my opinion of the book as a whole. It is the fact that we learned there's a parasite involved.
I don't, I don't think I need to know that. I don't think I want to, I don't think I wanted to know really what caused the talks. I just, you could have said something came out of the ground from, from a global warming, it gets spread through flowers and crabs into people. I don't need to know that there's some giant worm in people and the girl rips it out.
Like, I think that's a very good image. Like, that's powerful imagery of like someone literally ripping out, like this awful thing out of their body. Yeah, but I kind of would be happy or not knowing. I think, I think you, I think I agree with you.
I don't want to know if I don't really care if I know what the head, if the head misters is in on it or not. I think frankly, like she's obviously taking some sort of medicine that is stopping it from happening. That's my, I think that's what is implied with the sores around their mouths, the yellow, the yellow sores. I think so.
I assume that's what I took that she, they are taking her and the other teachers were taking some sort of weird medicine that would give them sores and, but it also won't keep them from getting the talks whenever it kills the parasite. Basically, I'm guessing it was that it's some sort of anti parasite medicine that also is somewhat detrimental to your own body. It's my guess. I don't.
That's a good guess. But I mean, I like that they doesn't spell it out. It doesn't say it just says, oh, yeah, she has sores, yellow, weird yellow sores around their mouths. And, and I just go, okay, I assume that's, oh, they are taking the military slipping them something that keeps the parasite from taking hold of them so that they can still be in communication and take control and take control and that's a really interesting theory because I was assuming, I think, along with the, the protagonists, both of them, that it was an age thing that was like only going to affect, but that's not true because it affected Reese's dad.
And it affected, I mean, we can tell it's contagious just from the kids. Like Teddy is not a teenage girl and he got it like immediately. So yeah, you're right. It had to have been something, something else.
I mean, and I mean, it's, it has that, you know, it has that kind of feeling of, I think I also, I think I would be, I think of the happier advice. We didn't know necessarily what's going on outside at all. Like, I like, I like the lab stuff, frankly, the lab stuff on the island. So it doesn't really mean anything to me, but it's more like the, you know, I sort of want to get a little bit of information from outside.
Like, Oh yeah, your parents think you're dead. I kind of don't, I don't want to know about the outside world at all. I kind of, I like the idea of that they're so isolated and they get visited by this boat that has these people on it and they just give them the shipment and then they leave and we don't know how, how the outside world is. And I sort of, but you have to do it that way, I think, because they have a jet coming into bomb the island.
And if there's a jet coming in a bomb the island, yeah, the military, obviously still in power and still has control. And I like, I briefly had the idea of like, oh, like the thought. I mean, there is, I don't think I, okay, I'm going to ask you this question page that connects to this. Do, okay, it's a two-part question.
One, do you think this could support a sequel and two, do you want one? I, oh gosh, the writing was so good. And I feel like if there was a sequel, I would definitely read it. Do I feel like it could support a sequel?
I think a sequel would probably take away a lot of the mystery and explain things that felt like they were purposely left to our imagination. And I don't know what the sequel would be. Would it be another, would it be whoever survived on the island? If anybody, would it be, are three girls somehow getting the safety?
Cause I, I kind of liked how that was left. Like, did they survive? Did they not survive? You decide sort of thing.
So no, I don't know that I think a sequel could be made, but I don't think that it would be necessary. And it feels like a really solid standalone. So it feels like it would be a lot of information that we don't necessarily need. Yes, I, I largely agree with you.
I, I, although there is, I don't know, there's often, whenever something's very successful, obviously there's always a temptation to, to write something up. We'll also market itself like, oh, it's a sequel to Wilder Girls. Yeah. And also like, that's, you know, I could be wrong.
I keep saying like, I don't know how they're going to do another season of the good place because where are they going to go from here? And they keep making seasons and they're great. So I think one thing they announced that this next one, yeah, but I said that on like the season, season one, I was like, what are you going to do now? We know it's not a good place.
And they just, so very different things. But yeah, there could be a sequel with this would be kind of set in the same universe, but different characters or maybe, or distant time jump where we're following one of these three girls and the mystery is what happened to them after they got off the island and something maybe they are put into position of power themselves and they are in control of where talks is, you know, it could be post apocalyptic where talks has they spread the talks or who knows, you could do it. I think there's, there's a lot of places you could take it. I largely think this works best as a standalone thing that lead that mystery, that a lot of the mysteries unanswered, even though I think most, I think most of the mysteries to me, I think are vaguely answered, not necessarily.
We're not giving concrete details, a lot of stuff, but I think, aside from if they make it at the end, I think most of the, you know, the big mystery, like, I don't really need to know what the talks is large, like, I don't need a specific answer is about this is not science fiction. This is, you know, I don't need some kind of very distinct scientific explanation of, Oh, the talks works like this. And this is how it spread. And this is why the Navy did this and et cetera, et cetera.
I'm like, I don't, it doesn't matter. This is not the book, this book is not about that, you know, it is about these girls and their relationship and how they, how they survive, how they live through this calamity and how they struggle and how they deal with losing everything and not even, not even necessarily like, like the, we see Reece struggles so much with her father's death, or what, at least in his disappearance, when he comes back, she still has affection for him, even though he's just a giant swamp thing. He's a big plant monster. But the other girls themselves, they're like, they are, I think that's the heartbreaking thing is, I think we realize it much before, well, before they do, at least had a particular where like, she, they're all like, they're holding out hope that they're going to get rescued and that there's going to, they're going to find a cure and that their family's going to welcome back with open arms.
And I think early on, I was like, there's, you guys, it's just sad because you know, none of that is going to happen. I don't, I never, I don't think I ever held out any hope that there'd be a cure in this book. This book is not, it would be, it would have surprised the hell out of me if suddenly in the last three chapters, Oh, there's a cure. Well, but I didn't think, I thought if there was a cure, it would come at a very high cost.
And I wasn't sure what that cost would be, whether it would be like, you know, they're, they don't have their personalities anymore. They're, you know, like something, like, they're sure they don't have a virus, but they're, they're not themselves anymore. I, and I didn't think it was going to go in that direction. But I think I knew if there was a cure, something was going to be taken away as well as the virus.
We kind of got a hint of that sort of. We did at the end where it was like, oh, but, but also was that, was that because the talks was gone? Or was that because she had lost so much blood and was dying, like, are you talking about, uh, riot at the beach when they find her? Yeah.
Yeah. She's alive, but she's also like out of it. And, you know, she's lost the parasite and she's gotten some kind of gas that, you know, theoretically would kill her. But maybe she didn't, they theorize her.
She survived because she was without the parasite. And because she ripped it out in time, it didn't really kill her. But it also, the parasite somehow like her personality with it. But we don't really know any of that.
She's just kind of comatose. Yeah. She's a kind of weird stasis and we don't really know what that is. But I think that is, I feel like that's very appropriate.
Like they have, over this 18 months, they have become kind of, the talks has become a part of them. It has become like the way their bodies look now, identifies them just as much as that is their person. Their personality is, oh, I'm the girl with one eye. Oh, I'm the girl with the weird hand.
I'm the girl that, you know, their, their weird mutation has come to identify them and they lose that parasite. They lose the talks. They lose themselves. They, you know, I feel like it's a very appropriate that, that, uh, by it doesn't come out of it.
You know, at least not see, you know, you know, who knows what happens. Um, but I think that's, again, something I don't really need to answer. I'm totally cool with it being your day. They're, they're, there's a, they're in a boat on, on the ocean and they don't, they can't, the, the shore, no matter how far they go, it just stays the same distance away.
And, you know, one of the reasons like, Oh, there's the tides coming in, we might as well just wait it out. And that's, but that's the story of them. That's like, Oh, wow, you're right. That is an interesting way to look at that.
They're just waiting out. Yeah, wait it out. Um, there's, and like, I think we were getting out earlier. There, this book is solely, I mean, we get a little bit of flashback here and there and a little bit of like, Hey, this is how I used to be.
We got a little bit of that, but mostly the book doesn't concern itself with what happened prior to the talks. It is all about how their lives are now and how they, all their, like, their identities prior to the talks are kind of gone. You know, they, they, they are and anything that like even Reese, she is still connected to her life in the past by her father. Like, Oh yeah, my dad's still out there.
I know he is. And then I think that's what we see when her, she's, we see her struggle so much. We see her like, it's not even just, Oh, it's my dad and he's dead. You know, I think it's probably part of it, but I think it's also my connection to life prior to this.
He was a concrete real thing that I could remember about my prior life, about life that was normal and happy. And as long as he's alive, there's still a possibility of that. I can still reach it. I can still touch it and then he dies.
It's killed. Uh, and she loses that too. She's lost. It's not just, she's lost her father.
She's lost her connection to our past life through a normal life. And maybe, you know, she had some, I feel like she's recent in particular. And one, we don't see Reese's thoughts. So it's hard to say for sure.
But it feels like very much like Reese is still holding out that kind of hope that, Oh, my dad will be okay. And then we'll get to come back to the cure and everything can go back to normal. Oh, yeah, especially, I mean, even that scene where they went back to her house, that I feel like if that would have been from Reese's perspective, it would have been heartbreaking. But what we see of Reese, except for the moments where she's like visibly like kind of falling apart, she's kind of like that hard shell, seems like strong and that like keeping her feelings to herself.
And it all comes out in aggression. And I think if we would have seen that whole section through her perspective, it would have been really like more heartbreaking because it was already emotional. But I think it would have been like just so sad. It would have been so sad if it would have been inside her head during that whole ordeal.
I mean, the book itself is kind of just heartbreaking heartened. Yeah, it's it's really, really not melancholy is not a good enough word. I mean, melancholy is not sad enough. It is just it is kind of destroying.
It is it is like erosion here. You're kind of watching erosion in fast forward. You're watching these girls just kind of like lose themselves over and over and over again. And and I think that's it's like I think that's the best horror and body horror for that matter is that connection itself and that loss of self and that like not just loss of my hand.
It is like loss of my humanity and they are losing it ounce by ounce. It's just being ripped from them because of what they have to do to live. And like we talked about earlier about them leaving all those girls behind to get eaten by a bear or whatever is out there. All the animals are carnivorous all of a sudden.
The deer are suddenly angry carnivorous monsters. There's nothing that's happy. There's everything on that island is now out for blood. And I think there is it's not just oh that's sad.
It just it feels like you're like you could feel you can feel them just losing every bit of themselves throughout this book and it and it's I don't know. It's but I don't want to discount how like a kingly beautiful it is at the same time. Yeah. I mean it's it's gorgeous and it's it's just it's it's really impressive how something so like use the word somber and then it was you had landed on a different one but like how something so grim and deteriorating can just be worded so beautifully like all of the imagery even the way that she just like put everything together in a way where it was like grotesque and beautiful and then sad and then gross again.
Like it was very well balanced and it's it's very much that that combination and it's not an easy thing to do. It is is very difficult to like the book I've been revising. I was revising recently is has a lot of body art in it and it is a constant tenuous push pool of what do you describe? What do you not describe?
How do you what what tenor and tone do you want to establish with this this terrible terrible thing but you don't it if you push it too far it becomes absurd and it does it kind of is counter to what you actually want. You want to use this you know in in in this book she has these moments where you know you want to connect that loss of humanity with how the their mutations affect them and don't like what you're talking about earlier page about how them how she doesn't ever put too much detail on you at any one time. It is all it's a little eat out you know a little bit here there about the details of the mutations and how they get worse and worse and worse but we're never we're never flooded with it because you can get desensitized to it if you get too much of it early on or too much at any one time you it doesn't mean anything anymore because you're just like oh it's another moment of someone's body exploding or whatever it didn't it doesn't mean anything it's like a slasher movie where you're just like oh I've seen so much violence it doesn't it becomes slapstick it becomes funny because it's just absurd like the it's like mining python in the black knight when they start chopping off arms and legs and what fountains a blood shoot out and you're just like okay he's obviously fine with it so it's this doesn't mean anything anymore it's now it's funny and I think that that delicacy and the intricacy of it is incredibly impressive and what you said earlier about feel like I should study this yeah I feel like this is a book I'm going to read I will read this and look at it closely because I feel like it can teach something to writers in particular I think this book is great I think there's some minor minor plot stuff I have a little bit of problems here and there about like motivation of get like I think my my one sticking point was her willingly they take that canister back to the school and I'm immediately like throw it over that's not come on come on but I you know at certain point these people these girls are thinking straight and there's terrible things are happening and they just had to kill one of their own because you know she is obviously not with them anymore and like there's there's all these these crazy things happening every day if things are falling apart so ultimately I can kind of go and I can forgive it you know there's always those kind of moments in when literally everyone is losing their minds because of that she hasn't eaten in what three days of that point it's something awful it's like it's just a calamitous combination some all iteration there I don't know I think this book is really good and I wholeheartedly suggest we have read it yet you should and frankly this is one of those books where it I really also like it because it can't you can't really spoil it I think there's there is amount of mystery that but I don't think it rides on them like at the end of the day I was not really reading it to get answers you know I think that there is a glut of mystery box kind of television for sure and books as well where people are like it's just like hey empty cliff fingers empty cliff fingers empty cliff fingers and you get around that and make substantive art by writing your strong characters and I don't really care about the mystery of the talks and who's why is the Navy doing this and etc etc I care about heading I care about buy it I care about really so I want to see what happens to them I want to see how they deal with each other in the relationship and how they are able to stay together you know and it doesn't really matter the process of it is so beautiful and the pros are so strong it doesn't really matter what oh I know it ends doesn't that doesn't matter who cares how it ends the impact of every step along the way it's just important you know there's those like those little moments where they're lying in bed and and heady is just like laying there in the dark or the quiet and bundled up next to her friends and her contemplating life is just as impactful to me in this in this as you know that they're running through the woods away from some terrible monster oh absolutely yeah the quiet moments like really shine in this book like it's a 10 out of 10 like I personally would have been upset if anyone would have spoiled it for me because I read it with that I have no idea what's gonna happen I don't know how this is gonna end how could this end like what what's going on here like I think the mystery elements could have been spoiled a little bit but I wouldn't have wanted to know that it ended with them in a boat like and not necessarily a cliffhanger but that very open-ended is this a book where everybody dies in the end like well we don't know you don't know like I mean I think that it feels very much like an anti-cliffer it feels it feels like the end of the mist Stephen King novella which I don't like I have not read but I mean it's it's good it is it is the movie that I don't like the movie simply because they give the movie a concrete ending I think I like the story because it is again is an open-ended kind of anti-cliff hanger where like the mist the story is there is a group of people in a small town they are in a grocery store and then a mist descends and then in the mist there are monsters and the monsters are indescribable there and they are weird terrible things that aren't recognizable as any creature alive and they don't know why the mist arrives and they don't know what it is all they know is if they go out into it they get eaten and so it becomes a very tense tense kind of a combination of personalities inside the grocery store and but we at the end of that there is no ending it's never explained what the mist is really it's vague like very much like the talks or it's like it's this sort of and I think this ending where it's like oh she's not I kind of went back and forth about this and I'm like do I want them to live did I want them to what I feel like it's more appropriate if they don't live you know and I feel like no I think keeping all the characters alive in this tenuous state I feel like is perfect ultimately yeah it's kind of what I ultimately landed on it's very much like no I really like this ending I think in this I think our discussions come kind of elucidate that for me I'm trying to think of something else you haven't touched on I could talk about a lot of there's a lot of smaller details in this that are you know I think I can talk about forever it has a lot of stuff in like I feel like it's very dense as well we talked about it's relatively short it's very dense I feel like it has a lot of a lot of intent yeah it didn't feel like a short read you know I think there's an anticipation when oh it's a short book for it to be like I breezed through reading it but it wasn't a breezy kind of book like it you know this isn't I mean I guess depending on what you want to be consuming I was about to say it's not your weekend beach book but it could be you can read what you want on the beach I'm not here to make rules but but no it's packed with a lot of like information and feelings and scary deer and bears you know yeah I am waiting I have a feeling that this will be a movie at some point I think so too I feel like I if not a major motion picture I feel like a Netflix mini series like my gosh Netflix has been buying up so many books like this I feel like this could be like a one-season multi like long episode mm-hmm yeah yeah mini series it would work really well she's apparently already a story consultant for TV adaptations so oh well there you go I want to be that hard and I'll tell you it's easy to say oh get out of shape whenever I get a one-star review on a book but this book got a one-star review I don't know who these people are these are monsters or monster one star I don't I don't understand do they not finish the book or maybe everyone has different tastes well also there's like there's girls in it what are you kidding I don't I didn't read there we go but it would make me angry I mean that's totally a possibility I mean you get spam reviews though like I'm a friend who writes paranormal and fantasy and I wanted for fantasy books it was she got a one-star review because she's a woman the person didn't read it they're just like women shouldn't be writing fantasy yeah the the review bombs are yeah gross yeah water girls is great you should read it up there I'm gonna read it again probably a certain point same it's that that's it's one of those looks I'm really looking forward to her whatever she writes next same I'm gonna I'm she has a new fan two new fans exactly those are that's always that's always really nice feeling when you discover someone you're like oh I'm gonna every book they write forever I'm gonna have a new book I'm gonna get excited about I love that I love when you're like you are now one of my favorites okay she has a new book out it's coming up all right I buy I just got so excited I thought you met like no no not right now but there was an announcement like oh no this just came out but okay no this yeah this book came out let's see like literally last month so I don't think she'll have another one for a little a little while at least I think assume that it'll take more that her a little bit more time to write unless she has a bunch of books she's already have done or something but I don't know about that at all not everyone's a maniac like me it's true not everyone's a maniac that's that is the story of my life me realizing everyone it's not a maniac like me anything else you gonna add I don't think so I think I think I was sufficiently gushed about this book yeah I agree I don't have much that I could probably talk about finer details forever yeah like I feel like we could go in and like sometime next year we're like okay we're rereading it and we're gonna talk about it from like like like a needle and haystack just combing through all those details I mean there's those podcasts that do movies minute by minute yeah yeah I've done you know I've done the three hour podcast before dissecting I think for when we talked about watchmen in my comic book podcast we talked about watchmen for like two hours because there's that much to talk about I probably could do that with this book if I really if I really focused on it and like dissected it our next book now for something completely different it is I mean it's a spooky spooky spooky we are gonna be talking about hocus pocus in the all new sequel which is a book sequel to pro sequel to the hocus pocus movie focusing on a daughter of the original characters and her struggles with Halloween strife but I think just a much hocus pocus pocus was before its time I think hocus pocus no I mean I think hocus pocus would be more popular now if you was we released became a I think they're making a sequel are they making a real I like a continuous what's the word rumors about that right it never actually happens I think that this was the sequel that everyone was talking about like others gonna be a sequel to hocus pocus and it turned out to be a book not a movie but they could also it is they're making a new Lizzie Maguires so literally anything is possible any possible this is a actual sequel not just some rumor so we will actually we'll we'll read that we'll discuss it you guys come along with us if you'd like on page where could I find you and your books I'm like oh man I'm all over the internet my books are all on Amazon a couple of them are on Barnes and Noble dot-com but yeah my website has all of the information so just type in my name in the Google and come say hi I'll have a link to pages names on page where you can find links to all books and you can buy them you should buy your pages books and review them you should buy Robbie's books too also I general like they're gonna hear a after right after this they're gonna hear me say that exact same thing again so I agree yes I mean the writer of my books also agree you should buy my books and review them also if you've read them and enjoy them I'd really appreciate that um I'll do it for us today thanks for having me thanks I can do page for joining me you can find me on Twitter and my website is Robinorman dot-com links there for my podcast and a link to purchase my horror novels including my newest novel truth available now on Amazon you can read it for free with channel limited certainly encourage you to do so this shows website you so finazist dot-com you can follow our Facebook page of facebook.com slash so finazist if you like the show please give it a five so review tell your friends subscribe you know all the podcast things it helps me out helps show it up I appreciate it until next time thanks for being a fan