If you've read my reviews of the movies of this series on the companion movie/series review blog, you'll know I'm not very fond of them. So let's review this book adaptation of the first movie. Spoilers ahead.
In wolf society, it is a no-go for a wolf of the high alpha rank to be partners with a lowly omega wolf. Humphrey is such an omega, and he has the hots for his friend Kate, a strong alpha who is next in line to lead the pack. But when conflict with another pack arises and Kate and Humphrey are both taken away from their home by humans, it is a race against the clock for them to get home before a war breaks out.
Pretty much as bad as the movie, I'd say. Of course, the movie does also have the rather bad visual aspect which this book does not (seriously, the animation has not aged very well and the designs are just weird) but this book has its own bad elements, most notably being some very cringe-worthy lines which were absent in the movie. Like, does the reader really need exclamations from the narrator like "these berries were gross!" when Humphrey is eating some bad berries. Can the reader really not infer from him spitting them out that they're bad? I get that this is aimed at younger readers, but children aren't stupid. Give them some credit. And lines like this appear a few times in the book.
Otherwise the book pretty much follows the movie's plot, though there's a few small changes here and there. And like with the movie, it's just a very generic Romeo and Juliet story based on archaic long-debunked wolf theories. The whole core of the plot, Humphrey's and Kate's romance, doesn't even really work for me because I don't feel any real romance between these characters. Also, any connection there is at all is formed because they have to work together due to circumstances. It's not because they're going out of their way to spend time together and get to know one another better. They have to go on this journey and just happen to fall in love along the way, but this makes their connection feel not very genuine.
Contrast this to Lilly and Garth, another alpha-and-omega. They have less of a presence than Humphrey and Kate, but their connection feels more genuine because they're just spending time together and helping one another because they want to. Nothing in the plot is forcing them to do this with one another, it's just because they genuinely grow a close friendship which eventually blossoms into a romance. No outside circumstances forcing them to interact, just two wolves genuinely getting to know one another. But of course their romance is much more on the sides in favor of Kate and Humphrey's rather forced romance.
The conflict with the Eastern Pack is a bit generic but it works well enough. Honestly out of the entire book this is probably the plot element that works the best, since it gives a ticking clock for Kate and Humphrey to get home, and it also ties directly into Kate's and Humphrey's connections to other wolves, because it's their family and friends that might die if they don't make it home.
Of course, Humphrey endlessly goofing around on their journey does make the ticking clock feel a bit less urgent (I get that he's an omega, but surely he still recognizes a threat when Kate tells him about it, I at least hope he's not that heartless), but the setup works well enough. Tony is also a pretty threatening antagonist and I do like, while acting selflishly, he's motivated by doing well for his pack. He's not just a one-dimensional villain.
I do kind of wish that they went more into his past with Winston, because the novel (unlike the movie) reveals that they were childhood friends. This could add more drama to their friendship being torn apart due to the circumstances, but instead it's just said in a throwaway line and never really delved into much.
Of course, like I said before, this book still uses the very long-debunked dominance alpha-beta-omega wolf theory for the wolf packs, which just feels so outdated even back when this book and the movie came out. But worse yet, the appendix of this book (a non-fiction section with information on real-life wolves) reveals that the author of the book very well knew that wolf packs do not function in the way dominance theory proposes, meaning presumably the movie crew knew as well. And they still chose to go along with it because, why exactly?
It just makes them come off like they don't care about the subject their movie/book is about because they don't care to keep up with research. It's not like you can't tell a forbidden romance story with wolves with how a more realistic functioning pack would work, or maybe they could've just made up something completely fictional if they want to throw realism out the window anyways. But it just always really irks me when someone purposefully goes out of their way to misrepresent wolves with outdated theories like this, especially since dominance theory has had a lot of negative real-life consequences.
Overall this book just feels like the movie. Bland, forgettable. I will give it credit for the good setup of the pack war conflict, Tony as an antagonist and the Lilly-Garth romance, but the main focus plot with Kate and Humphrey is predictable and boring, with some very unfunny comic relief thrown in here and there.
Rating: 1.5/5
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