10 YA books we can’t wait to dive into this July

Wilder Girls – Rory Power

Rory Power’s debut, Wilder Girls, is one young adult novel that’s been receiving plenty of attention this year. And even though its dark and suspenseful plot might be more fitting around Halloween, it also makes this book the perfect read for relaxing at the beach or traveling.

Wilder Girls picks up 18 months after Raxter School for Girls is put under quarantine, all thanks to a disease called the Tox. Our main character, Hetty, is one of the people stuck inside of the school — and things haven’t been easy for her. Her teachers died one after the other, and now the students are becoming infected. They’re stuck inside the walls of the school, left waiting for a cure that may never come.

Hetty becomes sick of waiting, however, when her friend Byatt goes missing. The need to find her proves stronger than the fear of what awaits Hetty outside the fence surrounding Raxter School for Girls. She ventures beyond the quarantine…but what she finds when she’s finally outside only complicates the situation further, surpassing anything she could have imagined while inside the school’s confines.

Wilder Girls hits shelves on July 9, and it’s bound to see even more attention when it does. Not only does it draw inspiration from dystopian narratives and The Lord of the Flies,  but it takes a feminist angle and offers LGBTQ+ representation to boot. How could anyone not talk about that?