Book Review: Simon Thorn and the Wolf's Den by Aimée Carter (Simon Thorn #1)

I picked up the German edition of this to practice the language. Let's take a look-see. Spoilers ahead.

Simon Thorn is a boy who grows up an outsider, being able to talk to animals. But when one day he is whisked away on a grand adventure, his life changes. He learns that he is an Animalgam, a human-animal shapeshifter, and becomes involved in a war between good and evil as he learns of this new secret world.

Overall this was a very exciting book, filled to the bring with interesting lore and world-building, neat characters and a lot of action scenes. I was thoroughly invested for most of it even if there are quite a few exposition dumps about this new world Simon falls into as he learns about the Animalgams and their past and culture at their school.

Speaking of, that's something I was a bit disappointed by. A large part of the book takes place in an Animalgam school hidden away in Central Park Zoo, however despite this there aren't a lot of classes we see him partake in. There's definitely a few exposition dumps here and there for him to fall into, but wouldn't it have been fun to get into the whole magical shapeshifter school aspect a bit more? It's not bad, just a bit disappointing since it's a huge setting of the book.

I do have to admit that the characters are generally a bit basic and predictable, but I generally still like them enough and they're not poorly written, either. Just don't expect an amazing thoroughly in-depth cast. Most of them are rather standard with their personalities and arcs. 

That said, what did annoy me was how blatantly obvious it was from the start who the main villain was going to be. Orion is Simon's grandfather, and while Simon initially trusts him it's just so blatantly obvious in the text that he's evil from the very first moment we meet him that it's not a big twist by the end. Heck, even before he's introduced we are given a bad impression of him with Simon's mother and uncle trying desperately to keep him away from his grandfather. Wouldn't it have been cool if Orion's villainy had been even just a bit more subtle? To the point we could wonder alongside Simon who the real bad guy was? Instead of it being blatantly obvious for the audience while Simon keeps happily trusting his grandfather until it's too late.

Overall still I had a good time reading this book though! Few minor gripes here and there, but it was an exciting read. I look forward to book two.

Rating: 4/5