Charlotte Kersten

Year published: 2021

Category: YA fantasy

Representation: Two Wild Ones are lesbians who develop a tentative relationship (very minor element), one Wild One is a trans girl (only mentioned very briefly once)

Summary:  Meet the Wild Ones: girls who have been hurt, abandoned, and betrayed all their lives. It all began with Paheli, who was once betrayed by her mother and sold to a man in exchange for a favor. When Paheli escapes, she runs headlong into a boy with stars in his eyes. This boy, as battered as she is, tosses Paheli a box of stars before disappearing.

With the stars, Paheli gains access to the Between, a place of pure magic and mystery. Now, Paheli collects girls like herself and these Wild Ones use their magic to travel the world, helping the hopeless and saving others from the fates they suffered.

Then Paheli and the Wild Ones learn that the boy who gave them the stars, Taraana, is in danger. He’s on the run from powerful forces within the world of magic. But if Taraana is no longer safe and free, neither are the Wild Ones. And that…is a fate the Wild Ones refuse to accept. Ever again.

My thoughts: While this book’s premise is very unique and a lot of things about it are imaginative and vibrant, there are a lot of things about it that just didn’t work for me. To a certain extent, I think part of the problem might very well be that I am just not the target demographic. The fact that The Wild Ones is YA is very apparent, especially in how it goes about delivering its feminist messages. I found its attempts to be shallow, especially when it came to the short segments of the book that were devoted solely to such messages: ladies, did you ever notice that our body parts are slurs? That when men argue with us, they insult our sex lives? Have you heard the phrase “rape is a four letter word” before? And the snippet about kintsugi is very similar to a popular post floating around on Tumblr. So I might just say that the exploration of themes is just a little too simplistic for an adult reader. On the other hand, though, I’ve read other YA books on similar difficult topics that engage with them in ways that I found to be deep, nuanced and challenging.

While I adore the idea of a Magical Girl Squad, a found family of girl survivors of color, I also think that the premise could have been executed much more strongly. A central problem is that there are a LOT of Wild Ones and most of them don’t get any characterization at all. The only two girls who truly get any amount of characterization and play a meaningful role in the story are Valentina and Paheli. There are also little poem snapshots of each Wild One’s past life in their Book of Memories. As a whole, these poems did not strike me as very successful either. I hope that my meaning comes across when I describe them as being either too Rupi Kaur-y for my tastes or too impenetrably flowery for me to actually be sure what the intended message is.

The plot is very repetitive as well. The Wild Ones travel to a new city, exchange diamonds for money, get food and then track down a person who infodumps at them about the Between. My final big critique is that a great deal of the story’s focus is on the developing romance between Paheli and Taraana, which I was initially on board with but ended up feeling far too instalove-y for me. I also feel like the focus on romance takes away a lot of time that could have been focused on fleshing out the Wild Ones and their relationships.

That being said, I’m still walking away from this book feeling quite charmed. I’ve seen complaints about the writing style, but I found it to be pretty fun and quirky overall, at least when it wasn’t trying to be poetic in an overwrought way. There are lots of fourth wall breaks and banter between the teenage characters that feel sort of silly and immature, but for me, at least, the overall effect was endearing.

While the globe-trotting made for a repetitive plot, I really enjoyed hearing about each city and its culture and history. And the food descriptions were amazing!! Azad definitely shines when it comes to lush, vibrant details and descriptions like these. Finally, while I do think that the themes and characterization could have been a lot stronger, I still fundamentally love the idea of magic that helps girls find a safe place to stay while they heal and gives them limitless resources that they can use to explore and help others. There’s a one-off mention of them using their diamonds to fund shelters and counseling programs for girls all over the world and I love this – I just wish that such elements had more focus and were explored in-depth throughout.

Year published: 2021

Category: YA fantasy

CW: (found here)

• Child trafficking
• Rape, implied
• Suicide
• Forced pregnancy
• Genital mutilation mentioned
• Murder of a child
• Torture mentioned
• Drowning

Representation: Two Wild Ones are lesbians who develop a tentative relationship (very minor element), one Wild One is a trans girl (only mentioned very briefly once)

Summary: 

Meet the Wild Ones: girls who have been hurt, abandoned, and betrayed all their lives. It all began with Paheli, who was once betrayed by her mother and sold to a man in exchange for a favor. When Paheli escapes, she runs headlong into a boy with stars in his eyes. This boy, as battered as she is, tosses Paheli a box of stars before disappearing.

With the stars, Paheli gains access to the Between, a place of pure magic and mystery. Now, Paheli collects girls like herself and these Wild Ones use their magic to travel the world, helping the hopeless and saving others from the fates they suffered.

Then Paheli and the Wild Ones learn that the boy who gave them the stars, Taraana, is in danger. He’s on the run from powerful forces within the world of magic. But if Taraana is no longer safe and free, neither are the Wild Ones. And that…is a fate the Wild Ones refuse to accept. Ever again.

My thoughts:

While this book’s premise is very unique and a lot of things about it are imaginative and vibrant, there are a lot of things about it that just didn’t work for me. To a certain extent, I think part of the problem might very well be that I am just not the target demographic. The fact that The Wild Ones is YA is very apparent, especially in how it goes about delivering its feminist messages. I found its attempts to be shallow, especially when it came to the short segments of the book that were devoted solely to such messages: ladies, did you ever notice that our body parts are slurs? That when men argue with us, they insult our sex lives? Have you heard the phrase “rape is a four letter word” before? And the snippet about kintsugi is very similar to a popular post floating around on Tumblr. So I might just say that the exploration of themes is just a little too simplistic for an adult reader. On the other hand, though, I’ve read other YA books on similar difficult topics that engage with them in ways that I found to be deep, nuanced and challenging.

While I adore the idea of a Magical Girl Squad, a found family of girl survivors of color, I also think that the premise could have been executed much more strongly. A central problem is that there are a LOT of Wild Ones and most of them don’t get any characterization at all. The only two girls who truly get any amount of characterization and play a meaningful role in the story are Valentina and Paheli. There are also little poem snapshots of each Wild One’s past life in their Book of Memories. As a whole, these poems did not strike me as very successful either. I hope that my meaning comes across when I describe them as being either too Rupi Kaur-y for my tastes or too impenetrably flowery for me to actually be sure what the intended message is.

The plot is very repetitive as well. The Wild Ones travel to a new city, exchange diamonds for money, get food and then track down a person who infodumps at them about the Between. My final big critique is that a great deal of the story’s focus is on the developing romance between Paheli and Taraana, which I was initially on board with but ended up feeling far too instalove-y for me. I also feel like the focus on romance takes away a lot of time that could have been focused on fleshing out the Wild Ones and their relationships.

That being said, I’m still walking away from this book feeling quite charmed. I’ve seen complaints about the writing style, but I found it to be pretty fun and quirky overall, at least when it wasn’t trying to be poetic in an overwrought way. There are lots of fourth wall breaks and banter between the teenage characters that feel sort of silly and immature, but for me, at least, the overall effect was endearing.

While the globe-trotting made for a repetitive plot, I really enjoyed hearing about each city and its culture and history. And the food descriptions were amazing!! Azad definitely shines when it comes to lush, vibrant details and descriptions like these. Finally, while I do think that the themes and characterization could have been a lot stronger, I still fundamentally love the idea of magic that helps girls find a safe place to stay while they heal and gives them limitless resources that they can use to explore and help others. There’s a one-off mention of them using their diamonds to fund shelters and counseling programs for girls all over the world and I love this – I just wish that such elements had more focus and were explored in-depth throughout.