Note: The title of this book has been translated into English by me for the reading comprehension of this blog's viewers as the book itself isn't available in English (yet). The original title reads Free Fall #1: Verlorene Spuren.
Bought this one on a whim because it looked interesting to me. Spoilers ahead.
Silver is a wolf from a zoo who escapes his enclosure and realizes something terrible about the world: It's being overrun by a plague, and many of his packmates have been infected. He befriends a black cat named Franky and together they leave the zoo behind in hopes of finding what remains of Silver's pack, as well to hopefully find out what exactly happened to cause this plague. On the way they pick up more friends, and Silver realizes he's immune to the disease and might end up being the key to a cure.
Overall yes, I greatly enjoyed this story. What really made it for me are the characters. Not only is Silver a very enjoyable lead, but the characters he comes across are interesting and enjoyable. I especially liked Fat Boy, a Cane Corso who takes on more of a parental role in the group, and of course Franky himself. Franky's daughter Junior Two was also cute.
The plot also kept me consistently engaged and I liked how I never really knew where it was going next. One day we'd be at the zoo with a feral packmate of Silver's, the next we're traveling the abandoned city, the next we're staying over at a Dobermann pack, the next we're at a lab looking for answers, and the next we meet a doctor named Angel who could make a potential cure. It's all very interesting. I also liked the scenes at the natural history museum.
If I do have some issues, it's firstly that some of the concepts these animals grasp, especially a wolf such as Silver, seem a bit far-fetched. I can at least buy Franky knowing about some more advanced things (e.g. how diseases and cures work, how to read maps, how to read in general) since he's a pet species, he probably picked up those things through osmosis by living among humans. But even Silver seems to have very little issue grasping concepts that should be pretty advanced for a wolf to understand. The animals in this book almost feel like little talking humans at some points because they seem to have no issues whatsoever grasping pretty much all human concepts. Even stuff like going back millions of years into the past with dinosaurs and traveling the universe doesn't seem all that alien to them after a little explanation. And that just felt like a bit much for me to grasp at times. Especially since our protagonist is a wolf, by all accounts he should be having a much harder time grasping these human concepts.
Also, despite me enjoying the section taking place that the natural history museum, the big tour the two dogs there gave our main crew did feel a tad pointless. We're given a large tour across taxidermy dioramas, dinosaur skeletons and a planetarium where we get expansive explanations about certain concepts regarding these topics, and it just felt a bit drawn-out and most of it didn't end up adding to much. Sure, we needed to retrieve the two dogs who lived at the museum, but the long tour felt a bit too pointless at times. I do like natural history museums so I did enjoy these scenes, but I don't feel the long explanations about dinosaurs and planets did much to add to the overall story going on. It felt like a bit of a detour of the plot.
Finally, Milo. I do not like him. His friendship with Junior Two was cute and all, as is his relationship with Fat Boy who takes on a paternal role to the pup, but boy, this character could be so annoying. And entitled. And he just irked me so much. Yes, I get it, it sucks how he was treated at the Dobermann pack, but that didn't mean he'd have to be such an entitled brat about everything. He was just unpleasant to read about and if Team Free Fall could lose any of its members, I'd hope it'd be Milo. The fact that Fat Boy ends up dying instead of him made me sad. Unlike Milo, Fat Boy is a character I genuinely liked.
Also I guess technically, while maybe a nitpick, I wish Franky gave his children actual names. They're just called Junior One, Junior Two and Junior Three and it feels very un-creative and almost like their father doesn't love them enough to give them actual names, when that's clearly not the case as Franky is portrayed as a caring father. Maybe they'll get names in the sequel? I don't know.
So yeah, overall a good book that kept me guessing and had some likable characters. It does have a few minor flaws, but none of them broke the book for me.
Rating: 4/5
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