Wolf xenofiction...I can't ever read enough of it. Spoilers ahead!
Narrated by a magpie named Maggie, we get to see the rise of a wolf pack near Yellowstone, led by a ginormous silver-blue male named Blue Boy. From here on they have to deal with hunters and strife within the pack, with all wolves just wanting one thing: survival.
I think this was just a decent book. I'd hoped to really love it because wolf xenofiction is one of my favorite niche genres to read, but this one didn't fully deliver if you ask me. Honestly, I was kind of more invested in our narrator, Maggie, than any of the wolf pack shenanigans going on. Why is this? Mostly because the wolf characters were just...rather dull or one-note. I can't even really name one trait of characters like Blue Boy and his packmates.
The only characters outside of Maggie I found myself invested in were Blue Boy's son, Lamar, who has a rather different worldview than his father, and his brother (whose name I forgot). But even they're not super memorable, just more rounded by this book's standards. They're just a bit different from the bland rest of the cast, which sets them apart.
But, again, Maggie was the best character. Despite her not doing much in the story outside of narrating it, I rooted for her because we were reading from her POV. Any care I had for the featured wolf pack only stems from Maggie caring for them, not from them actually being well-written and rounded characters.
I also found the name system to be a bit weird. Like, I don't mind wolves with human names as much as I know some readers do, but it was a bit weird that our main we follow is named Blue Boy. How do wolves know what a boy is? And even if they do, he's a fully grown adult. Blue Man would be more accurate, though I think just "Blue" would've been the best.
The other names were mostly fine but again the wolves and animals in general all seem to know the names of the locations they're in. As in, the human names. The states, Yellowstone Park, Lamar Valley, etc. That just...doesn't feel like information animal characters would know in a world where they cannot talk to humans. I think it'd have been smarter to have the animals make up their own names for the places. It could still take place in these real-life locations, just with animal names. And maybe include a list in the back of what real place names the animal names correspond to if you insist.
Overall this wasn't a bad book, but I expected a lot more from it. Flat characters outside two or three, weird naming conventions and it didn't keep me engaged enough throughout it.
Rating: 3/5
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