by Rory Power
First published 2019
Hetty watches her world shrink behind the fence at Raxter School for Girls. Eighteen months have passed since quarantine began. The Tox arrived first for the teachers, killing them one by one. Then it spread to the students, twisting their bodies into something unrecognizable. The girls huddle inside the school grounds on their isolated island. Beyond the fence, the Tox has transformed the woods into something deadly. They wait for the promised cure while the infection creeps into everything around them. When Byatt disappears, Hetty faces an impossible choice. She can stay safe within the quarantine boundaries or venture into the contaminated wilderness to search for her friend. Hetty chooses Byatt. She breaks through the fence and enters the toxic landscape outside. What she discovers there reveals secrets about Raxter that shatter everything she believed about their situation.
Genres: science-fiction, dystopia, horror, thriller
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, suspenseful
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Raxter School for Girls, Tox
Period: Eighteen Months
357 pages · Hardcover · Delacorte Press
Content warnings: body-horror, graphic-violence, medical-trauma