Impulse buy, but it looks neat. Spoilers ahead.
Ox lives in the town of Green Creek with his mother, having had a difficult childhood with a father who walked out on him. One day, a new family known as the Bennetts settle next-door and Ox pretty much instantly develops a strong bond with their youngest, a boy named Joe. Soon Ox learns their secret: The Bennetts are actually werewolves. Ox becomes a part of their pack, but he soon learns the danger that occurs outside of Green Creek, where an evil werewolf is dead-set on becoming Alpha of the Bennett werewolves, which would mean he'd have to take out both Joe and his father, Thomas.
Interesting book, interesting premise, and overall I had a great time reading it. It's not as action-oriented as I'd expected; rather it's mostly about the many characters and their relationships. Which are usually really well-written and I'm glad the author manages to balance a pretty large cast rather well. Most characters are still very distinct and I never really had a hard time who was who. The book also has a few devastating emotional moments and deaths, which were all well-handled.
I was also really surprised by the twist that, while Joe is out of town for three years, Ox somewhat unintentionally becomes the new Alpha of the people and werewolves of his pack who stayed behind. Which was a neat rise to power to see, after he's been put down a lot throughout the story. It's also kind of unheard of for a human (he's not a werewolf yet at this point) to be an Alpha.
However, I also have some negatives. One, the relationship between Joe and Ox at first feels a little...awkward. There's basically a form of Twilight imprinting going on here, however in this case it's Joe who, at the age of ten/eleven (can't remember which one exactly), imprints on Ox by giving him a special token (a wolf statue). From this moment on their fates are pretty much entwined and while there is still free choice (unlike in Twilight) they do obviously both very much care for one another.
Thing is, Joe gives Ox this statue when Ox is sixteen. So like, there's a five-six year age gap. And they don't get romantic at first, but Ox's first romantic feelings towards Joe start developing when Joe is seventeen, and Ox is already in his twenties. So like, not only is there an age gap, but Joe is also still underage at this point. So it isn't exactly flattering to portray your main character (who we're supposed to like in this case) as being into Joe already? I know nothing really happens between them until Joe is also in his twenties, but Ox is definitely already crushing on Joe when he's seventeen. So like, uncomfortable. Also I never really cared for those whole imprinting-esque scenarios, just always feels kind of like the two have less of a choice and less like they care for one another because they have a genuine connection, more so because fate is guiding it.
Also, that aside, I really got more of a brotherly vibe between the two early on until it suddenly becomes romantic from Ox's side kind of out of nowhere. This is when Joe is seventeen, like mentioned before, and when Ox tells Joe's father about his feelings Thomas doesn't even really seem to care that Joe is underage when twenty-something old Ox is clearly crushing on him. Also the whole "waiting to get romantically/sexually involved someone until they're no longer underage" also kind of reads as a red flag to me, even if Ox never takes advantage of his relationship with Joe at this point.
That aside, even discounting this, Joe just kinda treats Ox like shit throughout the later portions of the book. Leaves him behind for three years with pretty much no communication, causing Ox to have to do everything for himself and worrying like crazy for his friend who might be dead. And then of course Ox also becomes Alpha and he has to learn how to handle that by himself because Thomas and Joe are both gone.
Second, Richard Collins. He's our main villain, an evil werewolf who kidnapped and tortured Joe as a very young kid, and is now once again trying to take both him and Thomas out in order to become Alpha. Sorry but...I kind of hate this villain. And not because he's evil (well, that, too), but because he's just so boring and underdeveloped. We're given some information on that his pack was killed and that drove his need for revenge, but like, there's just so little to the guy? He's also barely even in the book. He's mostly mentioned in passing and only physically appears in like two-three scenes and he's then killed in the end with no more room to explore his character unless the next books give us flashbacks. For a book that's so good at writing characters and making them all pretty distinct and pretty unique, this sure is a boring one-note letdown of a main villain.
So yeah, overall a book I was definitely invested in and I do want to keep reading the sequels. I do have my issues with the main relationship featured, however (for the various reasons I mentioned) and a very forgettable villain. That said, I do genuinely love the characters (Gordo especially), Ox's rise to power and the fact that there's a whole lot of LGBT+ representation here.
Rating: 4/5
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