This one looked interesting to me. You know me at this point, I'll read anything with a wolf on the cover. Is it any good? Eh, let's see. Spoilers ahead.
In a part of the forest known as the Great Timbers lives a colony of many different animals, from raccoons to grizzlies to elk. But when one day a group of poachers arrives there, the animals start to feel unsafe. Together they formulate a plan to get rid of the poachers and protect their home for good.
It's not a horrible book, but I'd be lying if I said I really enjoyed myself here. There are some neat elements here and there. I do like Ross and Keeka as characters. The conflict itself (animals fighting poachers) felt a bit ridiculous at times, but I found the execution of the final battle to be decent enough. I also appreciated that we got some human-POV chapters so we really got to know the conflict from both sides (even though one is obviously in the wrong and one is obviously in the right).
But there's also quite a few things holding it back. For one, most of the characters are pretty bland and forgettable. Even Ross and Keeka, who I do like, both have very predictable arcs and they're not super deep or anything. Most of the human antagonists are also, like, ridiculously evil. There really is no morally gray area to be found here when it comes to the antagonists.
What does bother me though is that this book is kind of sexist. And not in an obvious way like I know some xenofictions to be, but honestly in more subtle ways. It's not like there's no female characters here, there are quite a few (though the males do outnumber them by quite a few). But it's just the fact that the female characters usually have very little personality or arcs (with Keeka being the only exception to this), the fact that they usually only exist to be love interests, and most obviously that the females (again, except for Keeka) being barred from participating in the final battle. This just annoyed me. It really doesn't feel like something that should still be happening in a book published last year (as of writing this review).
Another thing that's kinda annoying is that Keeka, the wolfdog advertised primarily on the cover, isn't even in the book for that much. She is the main reason I picked up this book to begin with, but she's really more of a side character than the other characters such as Ross and Ryan and some of the other Great Timbers inhabitants. It's not that this book has one single main character as it splits the POV between many characters, but Keeka definitely shouldn't count as a main character here and I don't think she should be so front-and-center on the cover to draw in wolf lovers like me to pick up this book.
Honestly Keeka doesn't even have that much to do with this fight other than her sympathizing for the forest animals and turning against her owner in favor of them. But like, this isn't really her battle all things considered. She has a good life as a pet and the humans overall (except for that one guy who tried to strangle her) never really wronged her. Compare that to the forest critters who definitely have everything to lose if they lose this fight and the poachers kill them all. So I don't know, I just really don't think that Keeka should've been on the cover here or at least not as front and center. She's definitely one of the POV characters here, but I wouldn't count her as one of the mains. And again, her character, while likable, is not super deep or well-written either and her arc is super predictable.
So yeah. By far not the worst xenofiction book I've ever read and I wouldn't even really classify it as "bad". I guess "average" is the best way to describe this book. It does get frustrating at times (especially the sexism) but it's not like offensive or bad to a terrible degree.
Rating: 3/5
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