Wilder Girls by Rory Power
Wilder Girls by Rory Power follows three friends, Hetty, Byatt, and Reese as they attend the Raxter School for Girls on an island. While at school, a strange disease starts spreading and grotesquely killing members of the student body. After a year of battling this disease, everyone is used to the routine and changes. Hetty is chosen to leave the boarding school and get food from the mainland. She is astonished when she finds a large food supply, despite not having any food at the school, and that this devastating disease has barely affected the mainland. Hetty, Byatt, and Reese work to understand what’s happening, while battling the disease themselves.
I liked this book! I typically appreciate the characters in a book way more than the plot, but I really enjoyed both in this book. The plot built at a good pace throughout the novel, and focused on the important ideas, not too many tiny details. I never knew what was going to happen next, which kept the book from getting boring. The characters were all written and relatable, but I definitely had more questions about minor characters and the fate of the main characters at the end of the story.
-Anna
TW: Suicide
The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna (Deathless #1)
england. My decision to check out the book was an excellent one. The bombings, explosions, death, and philosophical questioning of life itself provided a great way to pass the time now in between classes and after homework. At first, the foreign names and places were difficult to pronounce in my head, but by the end of the book they were as familiar as my own. 
Yes, this is my third gay book in a row, but I fear the streak ends here. Though this book was amazing from the start, the end absolutely broke my heart. The book almost deteriorated in my hands from the tears this book caused. 
This was the culmination of all the previous books in the series, combining all the loose storylines and leading up to the climactic finale… which doesn’t happen in this book. It ends on a huge cliffhanger! I can’t complain though, since the novel was a great read. I feel that after two of her novels, I have mastered the art of reading a Libba Bray book. Everything develops slowly and sometimes the reader will feel as if the story could be told in half the amount of pages. However, it is the attention to detail that makes the story so fantastic. Each step and thought causes me to come up with wild theories that add even more layers to the plot. 
Yes, this may be too many gay books for one month, but I can’t help myself. They’re just so much better. Well, let’s get into the review. This book broke. My. Heart. How could Rainbow Rowell do this to me? She made a perfect relationship between Baz and Simon and then ripped it from me! Making their relationship weaker was probably a good move, showing the realistic ups and downs of a couple’s journey together, but it didn’t improve! Why? They were the first gay couple I had ever read in a novel and now they’re on the outs? I was broken as I read this. Absolutely broken. Though this made me very sad to read, I was happy to see all of my favorite characters again. The addition of a new main character was a little risky, but I ended up loving him, as I’m sure we all did. This was a beautifully written novel, and though it had less Simon and Baz moments I would have liked, I still loved it to death. I highly recommend the read. B+