This one has been in my "to order and read"-list on Goodreads for over five years now, maybe more. This was back when I just added a bunch of wolf-centric xenofiction to said list, together with books like Baree, Son of Kazan, Kävik the Wolf Dog and more. So now that I've finally read it...I'm not glad that I did. This has honestly been one of my least satisfying reads this year. It just feels utterly lacking. Let's dive in, spoilers ahead.
We meet Granite, a Siberian husky puppy who at a young age runs away from his kennel and ends up being taken in by a wolf pack in the wild. From there, he struggles with fitting in among his lupine peers. Granite will have to work hard to prove himself to everyone, especially Ebony, the pack's mistrustful alpha male.
The concept sounded like something I'd really be into. Basically something along the lines of Call of the Wild but with less human stuff involved and obviously aimed at younger readers. However, the execution just really fails.
None of the characters feel like actual characters. They don't really develop or even have that much of a personality. Even our main lead just kind of exists. He has little to no personality to speak of other than "acts like a dog sometimes." Pretty much all characters' main personalities can be split up into two categories: likes the main character or doesn't. There's only two of the former category (Snowdrift and the yearling), so the rest of the pack pretty much starts to blend together due to how similar they all are. I know it's a children's book and I don't need ten-dimensional characters or anything, but at least some basic traits other than (dis)liking our protagonist would've been nice.
The story also didn't feel like it had any weight to it, probably because the characters were so damn generic. I didn't care when any of the characters, good or bad, got injured or died. The yearling died pretty soon, which is supposed to be a sad moment because they were Granite's only friend outside of Snowdrift in the pack, but there is just no impact whatsoever. I didn't feel sad, I didn't even feel anything. The story moved on pretty soon anyways, so why should the reader care?
Snowdrift also almost dies at one point and becomes blinded, but even that leaves so little impact. I first expected her to die, that that would have at least some impact on Granite's life since she was his only ally in the pack left. But it's pretty glossed over and she somehow survives the whole ordeal.
The lack of variation and personality in the characters didn't just take away from the impact of certain moments that were supposed to be emotional, but it also just made the story feel weak, boring and dull. I didn't like reading forward, despite how short the book is, simply because I didn't care for anything going on.
So is there nothing good in this? I wouldn't say that. One aspect I did particularly like is how Granite being a dog is interpreted to the wolves. Snowdrift instantly starts mothering him because he looks somewhat like a permanent puppy to her, with him being smaller and having blue eyes (as wolf pups do). Granite also tends to carry his tail high or even curled, which is obviously not done in the wolf pack, where only the highest-ranking wolves are allowed to do this. So those were definitely interesting aspects I haven't seen brought up in that many wolf/dog/wolfdog stories before.
But outside of that there really isn't much to it. I honestly think the story might've worked better if there had been actual dialogue from the wolf characters, that way they'd possibly at least get more of a personality through what they're saying. Because what we have now really isn't all that great.
Rating: 2/5
I absolutely agree with everything you've said here. I think this book would have been much improved by having the characters speak to each other - you'd have had a much better insight into what they were thinking/feeling, and got to know them better. I was also annoyed by the fact that the author clearly doesn't understand taxonomy - in the author's note she states that Canis lupus lupus is "the grey wolf", when it is specifically the European wolf. Canis lupus is the grey wolf, regardless of subspecies.
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