Another one that's been on my to-read shelf for a while. Spoilers ahead!
Misha and his brother Bratan are two wolfdogs born in the Chernobyl exclusion zone where they have to work hard to grow strong and survive, especially after the death of their mother. From here on out they have to fend for themselves, which isn't easy with other wildlife such as brown bears, wolves and wild dogs roaming near. Especially one she-wolf, Cross-face, seems to love taunting and threatening the brothers. Will they survive?
Overall I had a good time reading this book. It's definitely got plenty of moments of action to keep the reader engaged and even the more mellow chapters from the wolfdog's POV I found genuinely interesting. Life for Misha and his family is tough, and every day is a battle to survive, even if there is no physical fighting taking place.
The book itself was mostly fine. I do have some criticisms, though. One is that I didn't find the characters to be particularly interesting. We read mostly from Misha's POV, but also partially through Zoya's (his mother), Natasha (Zoya's former owner), an old woman who lives in the woods, and a few more one-offs. Thing is, none of these characters I can particularly get into. Especially Misha, who is our primary protagonist, just kind of feels like a pretty standard character. He's not totally flat or anything, but there wasn't much in his arc which I couldn't predict. Of course he'd eventually defeat Cross-face and even become leader of a pack for a while. Of course he eventually ends up as a pet. Of course he eventually ends up meeting Natasha. There's just not a lot here which I couldn't guess beforehand. Which is kind of a problem, especially for your main main character.
I also felt no connection to Natasha's part of the story. She's basically a young girl when she adopts Zoya and is forced to leave her behind after the nuclear disaster. After that she grows up and seems to struggle with herself a bit, until in the end she's united with Misha, whom she figures out is Zoya's son. They all live happily ever after. Again, I did not care for Natasha as a character (unlike Misha, who while basic, I at least found myself rooting for) and the ending is predictable as hell. Her storyline also barely feels like it connects to Misha's, except at the beginning and very end. The other chapters of her I couldn't really get into because they took me out of the main story at hand; Misha's struggle to survive.
That said, this isn't a bad book. It's got plenty of interesting ideas and I do like some of the characters (such as Bratan and Cross-face), even if they're not amazing or very deep. There's also plenty of battles and perilous scene in here to keep the reader engaged. Also, I really wouldn't recommend this book for very young readers. While not technically inappropriate for them, there's a lot of death involved, so it might be a bit overwhelming or depressing for them. Even a lot of good characters end up biting the dust, sometimes in quite brutal ways.
So still a good book. Just don't expect amazing characters going in and you'll have to sit through the pretty boring Natasha chapters to get to the good stuff. Also if you're looking for something like The Call of the Wild, this is definitely more juvenile and anthropomorphized, just to let you know.
Rating: 3.5/5
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