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quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
While hiking, Rhi discovers four young women living wild and guarded by wolves. The girls tell her that they are lost princesses raised by a man called Mother.
Shocked, Rhi takes them to hospital, all the while haunted by memories of her family trauma. Surely, the girls have been abducted, misled or abused? Yet she can see a bond between them that blurs fantasy and reality.
As media hysteria surrounding the young women grows, Rhi comes to a decision that will change all of their lives forever.
16-year-old Eden Chase lives with her cold father and hyper-critical step-mother Vera in a very nice house near New York. For all the material privilege, it’s a miserable life. Vera insists that she watches the calories and she is constantly treading on eggshells around her controlling father. Other than the housekeeper, Mariya, the only person who shows her any kindness is her step-brother Kevin, but she hasn’t seen him since she stayed with him in Harlem the previous summer and he’s currently studying overseas.
When Eden’s father is arrested for financial crime, she is taken in by her Uncle Jimmy who works as a park ranger in Happy Valley, a small town in up state New York. Seeing a chance for reinvention, she calls herself Rhi but can’t quite bring herself to fully engage in high school life. That all changes when she takes a weekend job helping her uncle in the park and stumbles on a teenage girl - Sunder - caught in a bear trap, surrounded by her three sisters - Oblivienne, Verity and Epiphanie. All four girls have been living wild in the forest, brought there when they were infants and cared for by a man they call Mother. They have a tight bond, in part because Mother taught them that they are actually princesses from the kingdom of Leutheria, destined to return there one day through a portal, but only after they find the missing fifth princess.
Brought to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation, Rhi is one of the few people the girls appear willing to trust and she, in turn, feels a bond with them, not least because she witnesses them do things that defy ready explanation. As the FBI investigate and the media clamour to learn more about the so-called Wild Girls of Happy Valley - it’s discovered that far from being a princess, Verity was kidnapped from Happy Valley and has a mother and twin sister waiting for her. Forced to question everything they believed, the girls struggle to adjust to the modern world, especially as the more they learn, the more it strains their bond and the more Rhi is forced to confront things she has always tried to keep hidden …
Madeline Claire Franklin’s debut YA novel maintains a satisfying ambiguity between its contemporary and fantasy elements in a way that’s mature without feeling like a cop out. Character-driven, it deals sensitively with the difficult topic of abuse (trigger warning for cannibalism) and combines it with themes of found family and survivorship. This is one of the strongest YA debuts I’ve read and I look forward to reading Franklin’s next book.
Written in a close third person perspective (mainly for Eden but sometimes from the other Wild Girls) interspersed by emails from Eden/Rhi to her step-brother, this is first and foremost a character-driven novel. I found the writing to be sensitive and although I guessed at the trauma suppressed by Eden/Rhi that is more because I have read enough fiction to be able to guess more than anything that is unduly telegraphed. I completely believed in Rhi’s feeling of kinship with the Wild Girls and - most importantly - why she wants to believe in what they are telling her, even though she is sure that it could not be. I also believed in the way she views her father and step-mother, together with the way she keeps her well-meaning Uncle Jimmy at a slight distance.
The Wild Girls are drawn broadly but still in a way that makes them feel plausible. I enjoyed the formal, slightly strained speech patterns that they have with each other and Franklin does well at showing the love they share, even as they are forced to confront the possibility that Mother lied to them. I was particularly impressed with how Franklin uses Oblivienne to highlight how distressing this is while also maintaining the ambiguity around whether the girls are in fact princesses with magical powers. Also well done is how Franklin touches on the media brouhaha that emerges from events like this as other people seek to use the girls for their own ends (I especially liked the pointed remark about Reddit).
This is not a book that answers all the questions it raises. Normally that is something that would irritate me, but providing answers is not the point here. It’s about how you find the strength to keep going and Franklin writes in a way that allows you to decide on the resolution that works for you.
All in all, mature, sensitive and beautifully written, I think this is one of the best YA debuts I’ve read in years and I’m really interested to see what Franklin writes next.
The Verdict:
Madeline Claire Franklin’s debut YA novel maintains a satisfying ambiguity between its contemporary and fantasy elements in a way that’s mature without feeling like a cop out. Character-driven, it deals sensitively with the difficult topic of abuse (trigger warning for cannibalism) and combines it with themes of found family and survivorship. This is one of the strongest YA debuts I’ve read and I look forward to reading Franklin’s next book.
THE WILDERNESS OF GIRLS was released in the United Kingdom on 2 January 2025. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.
While hiking, Rhi discovers four young women living wild and guarded by wolves. The girls tell her that they are lost princesses raised by a man called Mother.
Shocked, Rhi takes them to hospital, all the while haunted by memories of her family trauma. Surely, the girls have been abducted, misled or abused? Yet she can see a bond between them that blurs fantasy and reality.
As media hysteria surrounding the young women grows, Rhi comes to a decision that will change all of their lives forever.
16-year-old Eden Chase lives with her cold father and hyper-critical step-mother Vera in a very nice house near New York. For all the material privilege, it’s a miserable life. Vera insists that she watches the calories and she is constantly treading on eggshells around her controlling father. Other than the housekeeper, Mariya, the only person who shows her any kindness is her step-brother Kevin, but she hasn’t seen him since she stayed with him in Harlem the previous summer and he’s currently studying overseas.
When Eden’s father is arrested for financial crime, she is taken in by her Uncle Jimmy who works as a park ranger in Happy Valley, a small town in up state New York. Seeing a chance for reinvention, she calls herself Rhi but can’t quite bring herself to fully engage in high school life. That all changes when she takes a weekend job helping her uncle in the park and stumbles on a teenage girl - Sunder - caught in a bear trap, surrounded by her three sisters - Oblivienne, Verity and Epiphanie. All four girls have been living wild in the forest, brought there when they were infants and cared for by a man they call Mother. They have a tight bond, in part because Mother taught them that they are actually princesses from the kingdom of Leutheria, destined to return there one day through a portal, but only after they find the missing fifth princess.
Brought to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation, Rhi is one of the few people the girls appear willing to trust and she, in turn, feels a bond with them, not least because she witnesses them do things that defy ready explanation. As the FBI investigate and the media clamour to learn more about the so-called Wild Girls of Happy Valley - it’s discovered that far from being a princess, Verity was kidnapped from Happy Valley and has a mother and twin sister waiting for her. Forced to question everything they believed, the girls struggle to adjust to the modern world, especially as the more they learn, the more it strains their bond and the more Rhi is forced to confront things she has always tried to keep hidden …
Madeline Claire Franklin’s debut YA novel maintains a satisfying ambiguity between its contemporary and fantasy elements in a way that’s mature without feeling like a cop out. Character-driven, it deals sensitively with the difficult topic of abuse (trigger warning for cannibalism) and combines it with themes of found family and survivorship. This is one of the strongest YA debuts I’ve read and I look forward to reading Franklin’s next book.
Written in a close third person perspective (mainly for Eden but sometimes from the other Wild Girls) interspersed by emails from Eden/Rhi to her step-brother, this is first and foremost a character-driven novel. I found the writing to be sensitive and although I guessed at the trauma suppressed by Eden/Rhi that is more because I have read enough fiction to be able to guess more than anything that is unduly telegraphed. I completely believed in Rhi’s feeling of kinship with the Wild Girls and - most importantly - why she wants to believe in what they are telling her, even though she is sure that it could not be. I also believed in the way she views her father and step-mother, together with the way she keeps her well-meaning Uncle Jimmy at a slight distance.
The Wild Girls are drawn broadly but still in a way that makes them feel plausible. I enjoyed the formal, slightly strained speech patterns that they have with each other and Franklin does well at showing the love they share, even as they are forced to confront the possibility that Mother lied to them. I was particularly impressed with how Franklin uses Oblivienne to highlight how distressing this is while also maintaining the ambiguity around whether the girls are in fact princesses with magical powers. Also well done is how Franklin touches on the media brouhaha that emerges from events like this as other people seek to use the girls for their own ends (I especially liked the pointed remark about Reddit).
This is not a book that answers all the questions it raises. Normally that is something that would irritate me, but providing answers is not the point here. It’s about how you find the strength to keep going and Franklin writes in a way that allows you to decide on the resolution that works for you.
All in all, mature, sensitive and beautifully written, I think this is one of the best YA debuts I’ve read in years and I’m really interested to see what Franklin writes next.
The Verdict:
Madeline Claire Franklin’s debut YA novel maintains a satisfying ambiguity between its contemporary and fantasy elements in a way that’s mature without feeling like a cop out. Character-driven, it deals sensitively with the difficult topic of abuse (trigger warning for cannibalism) and combines it with themes of found family and survivorship. This is one of the strongest YA debuts I’ve read and I look forward to reading Franklin’s next book.
THE WILDERNESS OF GIRLS was released in the United Kingdom on 2 January 2025. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.
