More wolf xenofiction, hooray. This one I've actually trying to obtain for a while, however I ran into some issue. For one, there doesn't seem to be an ebook release for this book (which is how I'd have preferred to have read it). Secondly, I finally ordered the paperback off of Bol about six months ago but it just never ended up shipping. They kept sending me notifications with "there is an issue with your order. We'll let you know when we've shipped it". And then there was radio silence and they never ended up shipping it to me. So in the end after five months I cancelled my Bol order and just got it off of Amazon instead. I'd still have preferred to order it from Bol or get the ebook but I guess I didn't have a choice here.
Ah well, spoilers ahead.
Mala is a pure black she-wolf born into a prejudiced pack, led by her father Alric and having the ambitious male known as Hawk as its beta. Pure black wolves like Mala are said to have evil powers, and therefore her pack doesn't treat Mala very well. But when the pack is in trouble and Mala's powers start to manifest, things might end up changing forever.
This is a fine book. Really, it's fine. For what it is, a wolf xenofiction with fantasy elements, yeah, I liked it. I also admire that the author was apparently very young when she wrote this, yet it really does come across quite professionally.
I think one if this book's strongest aspects are its characters. However, I personally found Mala to be one of the lesser characters. She's fine (like the rest of this book), but she doesn't feel all that interesting to me, and honestly she doesn't even have that many POV moments and chapters despite supposedly being the main character.
No, my interest lay more so with the characters around Mala, such as her siblings Greatpaw, Ice Eyes and Star, or her father Alric and her mother Lora. And of course Hawk was an interesting character, being an antagonist in this story. Mala herself isn't bad or anything, but she didn't feel as major as I was expecting. This story is really about the pack as a whole, not just Mala.
Where I do have an issue with this book, however, is the fact that the wolves in this do not talk. Now, don't get me wrong, the inherent concept of wolf xenofiction where the animals don't talk doesn't bother me. I really enjoy books like White Fang and Kazan, for example. But what does bother me is that I think this story would've simply been told better had there been actual dialogue.
The wolves in this story, unlike in the other books I just mentioned, are heavily anthropomorphized. They have their own culture, traditions, and prejudices. They aren't just wolves with no anthro elements. That aside, this story is also a fantasy. I've read more naturalistic stories that still have the animals talk (e.g. Bambi, Watership Down), so it really couldn't have hurt to have the wolves talk here. It would've gotten their personalities across even better.
I also think that this books fall into a slight trap of doing a bit too much telling rather than showing with stuff like emotions. There'll be sentences like "Character X felt Y emotion" and I'm like, if there had been dialogue or internal dialogue from the characters this could've come across better rather than just outright stating how a character feels. Of course, some emotions can be expressed through body languages since these are animals (e.g. snarling for anger or whining for fear), but the more nuanced stuff would've probably come across better if there had been actual (internal) dialogue for these wolves.
I did think that the plot of this book was rather engaging. I liked the packs and their conflict, I liked the main pack and how its slowly falling apart due to various factors, and I liked Mala and her powers and the conflict she adds to the story.
So yeah, solid enough book, however I definitely think it could've hooked me more and been even better if the animals had talked. And I'd personally made Mala a more obvious main character in the story if I'd written this book.
Rating: 3/5
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