Book Review: Wolf Road by Alice Roberts

 

 I will read any book with a wolf in it, it seems. So here's another one! Spoilers ahead.

Tuuli is a prehistoric girl who has recently come of age. She lives in her tribe as they make their way to the Summer Camp. Along the way Tuuli and her cousin Wren meet a stranger unlike anyone they have ever met: A Neanderthal boy named Andar. They manage to form an unusual friendship. But then Tuuli's tribe discovers Andar, and things will change forever.

This was overall a quite enjoyable read. It had a lot of good elements, however I'd be lying if I said this was a particularly memorable book. What it does well, it does well, but it's also not a lot more than that.

One of the best elements of the book are the characters. Not all of them are equally developed, but the bond between Tuuli, Wren and Andar is really the highlight of the book and these are also quite well-written characters. Especially Tuuli and Andar are lovely characters and I quickly found myself getting attached to them. Tuuli also has a nice friendship with her adopted wolf pup, Lupa.

The story also has a nice pace to it (despite there being a lot of traveling and hunting things never got stale or boring) and I was especially devastated by the climax, which includes a devastating loss that causes Tuuli to turn her back on her tribe. It was written rather effectively and I like how the author handled things, even if it was a bit hard to read.

What I do think is kind of a criticism is that this book is pretty light on plot. It's mostly just events happening, but there's, at least so far, not a whole lot of an actual storyline going on. In this book it's mostly several things (mostly hunts and meetings with Andar) happening alongside the journey, but there doesn't seem to be much of a bigger goal to be going on, at least not right now. Things do get more interesting when Andar is discovered by the tribe, but again it's still pretty light on plot and is mostly just stuff happening to our main characters. Tuuli doesn't seem to have a real goal other than keeping Andar safe for most of the story. She does seem to have a more proactive goal in book two, as she's going to look for the Neanderthals. But that doesn't negate the fact that book one doesn't have much of a plot and is largely just a series of events happening to our characters without much of a overarching goal. 

I also thought Lupa the wolf was a bit underutilized. Since she's on the cover and in the title I expected her to play a slightly larger role in the story (similar to Wolf in Wolf Brother/Chronicles of Ancient Darkness). Not really a complaint or anything but as a massive wolf lover it is always a bit disappointing when a book heavily advertises a wolf and then said wolf doesn't play a huge role in the story. Lupa is certainly there, it's not like she's absent, but she doesn't have a lot of agency or personality or do a whole lot that's relevant to the story. She's just kind of there to be the pet to the main character and that's it.

One thing I did really like is how this book is completely devoid of sexism. I've read a lot of books about prehistory in recent years (fiction and non-fiction alike) and pretty much all of the fictional ones are sexist towards women in some way or another. But in this book the women are held in the same regard as men. They lead, they hunt, they participate in tribe life just as much as the men do. Which was a real breath of fresh air compared to all the sexism in this genre I've had to read the past few years.

Overall this was a pretty solid book. Not the most memorable one I've ever read, but it has very good characters and character relationships and the climax is rather effective. 

Rating: 3.5/5