“Some days it’s fine. Others it nearly breaks me. The emptiness of the horizon, and the hunger in my body, and how will we ever survive this if we can’t survive each other? “We’re gonna make it. Tell me we’re gonna make it.” – 3.5/5 stars!

Attention! This book contains: quarantine, black bears, blind eyes, a fresh orange, the Tox, gun shooting, snow, limited food supplies, blonde braids, forbidden kisses, face masks, the woods, a cure and wild girls.

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.

I had very high expectations for this book. The cover is absolutely beautiful and I was so drawn to the synopsis… but it was a flop to me. To be fair, I was really into the beginning and I loved how wild the girls were, but the rest of the story didn’t meet my expectations. I personally didn’t like the course the book took, and the explanation the author gave for their sickness felt off and rushed. And that ending…? That ruined it for me.

I would not classify this a horror novel, but it has some creepy and eerie elements in it. That was definitely my favorite part of the book: the atmosphere. Still, I would like it better if the story was focused solely on the school and woods. Also, I really liked that the story was not focused on romance! That was a breath of fresh air.

The story itself had so much potential to become a really cool book. I’m so sad, I really wanted to love this!