Book Review: Adopted by Wolves: The Complete Story by Stephanie Poole

 

Another wolf xenofiction, spoilers ahead!

This book contains two stories, one titled Adopted by Wolves and one called The Next Generation. Both stories follow a set of young wolves. In the first book, a wolf is orphaned and are adopted by another pack. In the sequel story, Accalia's pups are now facing their own troubles.

I once again have to admit that I did not know going in that this book was written when the author was very young. So, again, I'll apply my usual standards for books published independently by such a young author: not holding it to my normal high standards.

And this book has quite a bit of good about it. A large cast of characters, intimidating villains, not one but two stories, a large world, etc. I definitely applaud Poole for her creativity here and hope that she writes more like this in the future! Her works have a lot of potential and with some extra practice I believe she has the makings of a really good author. There's also some neatly-drawn illustrations in the book.

If there were some things I'd suggest she'd work on, it'd mostly be the characters, because they were not super memorable. They all have unique names most of which I cannot remember, but this is mostly because of the fact that they don't really have distinct personalities or traits (except for the villains being evil). And there's a large cast of characters across both stories, so one might end up becoming a bit confused with who is who because of the large number of characters and the fact that they're not super distinct.

Another thing I think could've been handled better is the character descriptions. Poole clearly loves describing her characters' appearances, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's just that how they were often inserted into the writing in a way which didn't work, becoming a bit distracting. 

Overall though I had a good time reading these stories and I was invested in what was going on! I definitely hope that Poole continues to improve her writing (and drawing) craft and publishes more in the future.

Rating: 3/5