I will read any wolf xenofiction I come across and this is no exception. Let's read Ana's story. Spoilers ahead.
Ana is a young she-wolf whose family and pack gets killed by a villainous group of wolves, the Shadow Killer Pack. Ana grows up alone and soon befriends a male named Yamcha, who ends up becoming her mate. But the wolves of the Shadow Killer pack are still trying to find and kill Ana, to eliminate the last of her bloodline.
Okay, so let's get some technicals out of the way first. This book is technically not one single book, but three. The cover I used is for the omnibus, but technically Ana's Journey is a series consisting of three separate books. The book can also be bought separately and the omnibus version is harder to find (at least to me). But while these are three separate books, I will be reviewing the story as if it were one. For one, this is because I read the series in one fell swoop, and for another this because, while technically three separate books, it very much feels like one singular story.
Most book series that have separate installments will usually follow some kind of common story structure and while part of a bigger whole, usually one distinct part of the tale will be told in a separate installment. That's not the case for this series. While it's technically three books, it feels much more like three parts of the same story because of how it is structured. This does not feel like three separate installments when reading. So that's why I'll be tackling the series as if it were a single book, because it's simply structured as one.
And I gotta say, I'm not too impressed with what I read. At first I thought maybe this was the result of a young author, but the author of this book was born in 1989. So any of the failings of this book isn't because the author is young. These books were published in the 2010s, by the way.
My main issue with the books is that this really does feel like a first draft. The story is rife with punctuation, grammar and formatting errors. And it's not a one-off, either, this is consistent throughout the three books in the series. It doesn't really improve, either. So this book definitely needed a few more edits and drafts before going into publishing. And if the author has difficulty with doing this herself for whatever reason, get beta readers or editors. They can help with things like this. Because right now I paid money for what is essentially a very rough and unpolished product.
Another gripe I have is that the characters aren't all that amazing. Ana is a pretty bland protagonist and you can probably guess where her arc is going. While this book is called Ana's Journey, she doesn't go on much of a journey herself. Most of it just kind of happens to her; she's not a very proactive protagonist until the last book. The other characters aren't very well-developed either and most of them fall into one of two categories: good or evil. There's not a whole lot of personality to them beyond that.
Batista also tends to physically describe characters in really elaborate ways which doesn't work for me. It's like the story will suddenly come to a halt to give the reader a detailed description of what each new character we comes across looks like. I don't mind more elaborate character descriptions (heck I'm partial to writing them myself in my own works), but I think they need to be delivered to the reader in unobtrusive ways. The way I do it is by basically sprinkling in little bits of physical description throughout the story, instead of dumping it on the reader all at once. It doesn't feel subtle at all and legit brings the story to a halt.
That said, I didn't hate this story, despite my harsh review. I just think it needed a couple of extra revisions and drafts before publishing. But there are good elements. I do like the overall story, even if it is pretty predictable as far as wolf stories go (evil pack who must be stopped). But the overall idea of the story is fine and the same goes for the characters. I do think that if this had been a more polished book it could've gotten a higher rating from me.
Also, finally I just want to say how I do think this should've been one book. I've already talked about how the story is structured before, but legit putting these three separate books together as one feels like one book, so I think that's how it also should've been published in the first place. The story does end with a semi-open ending, but the book three ending is a good point to leave the story off on. So that's where normally a first installment of a series would end, with a conclusion but also the possibility for the continuation of the story. So I think that this book as a whole should've been book one in the series, and from there any hypothetical future stories could've been future books.
The separate three books are very short anyways (together coming to about 100 pages total), so it's not like there's much to publishing them separately. Also, I am sad to say that, while this story does end with a semi-open ending, there seemingly have been no future installments since book three. Which was published in 2016, so I'm unsure if we'll ever get a conclusive ending to the story. While book three does end with one of the main underlings of the bad guys being defeated, the overall Shadow Killer Pack is still out there and my presumption is that their demise is the end goal of the series. I just doubt we'll see it since there have been no updates for so long. Maybe the story will be rebooted? Who knows.
So while I have been harsh on this book/these books in this review I just want to make it clear I did not hate it, nor do I have anything against the author. I genuinely hope she keeps writing and improving her craft. I just think that this story, the way it is presented to me as I bought it, is not finished and needed more drafts and edits. Especially since the author is asking people's money for what is essentially an unfinished product.
And I just want to get the point across that a few typos in a book usually don't bother me, especially when they're an indie. But this book didn't just have a few errors, there was multiple in every chapter. Which is just not good for a product you're asking money for. Again, I genuinely hope Batista keeps writing and improving her craft, but this did not feel like a complete product.
Rating: 2.5/5
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