Someone in a xenofiction Discord server I'm in mentioned this one. It was published fairly recently. Let's take a look. Spoilers ahead.
Wulfur and his son Runt are two rogue wolves who turned their backs on pack life. They live a life of thievery, deceit, and Wulfur is dead-set on gaining power. But this doesn't sit well with most wolves they come across, including an individual naming himself the Wise Wolf. Wulfur is also constantly mistreating his son, and Runt will slowly have to learn to decide for himself what he wants and what he believes in, rather than listening to his father's lies all the time.
This was a rather frustrating read, but I did like it a bi. There are some things about it I genuinely think it does rather well. But then there are other aspects that really turned me away from it.
This book has a POV mainly taking place from two characters: Wulfur and his son Runt (later renamed Elite). And with one of those is where one of my main issues with the book lies. While Elite is a rather enjoyable POV to follow, Wulfur's POVs are very, very hard to read.
Wulfur is basically one of the least likable characters I have come across in recent times, and the fact that he's one of our main protagonists and we're reading through his POV a lot of the time, just really put me off. Wulfur is conniving, deceiving, thieving, manipulative, homophobic, and mentally and verbally abusive. Oh, and he kills other wolves. He's basically one of the villains of the story.
Now, I'm not saying a good villain POV can't be enjoyable once in a while, but with Wulfur I never once enjoyed reading his POV chapters. They were honestly quite hard to read at times, because of how terribly he acts and also just after a while the fact that his POV starts to get repetitive. You'll know by page fifty that he is shifty and manipulative and abusive, and he always takes those types of actions when he can. So after a while you're stuck with a character who is not just not enjoyable to read, but also pretty predictable.
Elite is far more interesting, he is the one who really has an arc here. He goes from being a groveling kind of cowardly young wolf always following his father's orders, to becoming his own wolf and standing up to his abuser. He also finds love along the way, as well as loss. His story is not only the more enjoyable one to read, but also just the better written one. Elite has growth, Elite changes, Elite has more interesting and less predictable relationships to the wolves around him. Wulfur meanwhile you can clock what he'll do next pretty soon.
What I do think this book does right is some of the world-building. One of the aspects I like is when Wulfur and Elite come across a wolf pack who are following the stereotypical (long-debunked) "alpha theory", deconstructing this popular trope in wolf xenofiction. There are also some enjoyable characters outside of Elite, my favorite being Naito. The Wise Wolf is also pretty interesting.
But this book also definitely has some more problematic aspects. Of course Wulfur is a piece of shit, but that's just how he is as a character. But I do feel it's a bit of a failure on the author's part to include the harmful Bury Your Gays trope.
I was so happy when I saw that this book actually have LGBT+ characters, with Elite and Naito becoming a couple eventually. But then Naito is killed in a quite a brutal way and it just feels a bit iffy. I wouldn't be complaining if this book was full of LGBT+ characters, then one or two dying is just as likely as the many straight wolves dying. But since we only get two gay wolves and no other representation, the fact that one of these dies and the other one is left to mourn the loss alone doesn't feel like very good representation to me. It'd have been one thing if this trope had been deconstructed here (similar to how the author uses the alpha theory), but instead the author chose to blatantly use it. Which feels harmful when we have only two queer characters in the entire story.
I also am not too fond of how this book treated Arvux, the mentally disabled character. He gets treated like shit by literally everyone around him, even his family. Like, it's one thing to have a few characters be neglectful and ableist towards him, but to have literally everyone he comes across treat him like garbage for his disability just felt mean-spirited to be honest. To the point that in the end he is abandoned by his family and pack, left to fend for himself when they know very well he won't survive. It just feels cruel and while I am not mentally disabled myself (though I am neurodivergent), I don't think this is very good representation of a mentally disabled character? It wouldn't have hurt to have a few more characters actually care about Arvux.
So yeah. Mixed bag of a book. The best parts are the characters of Elite and Naito and their relationship, and some of the world-building. But then there's also he repetitive and unlikable Wulfur POVs to sit through, as well as the problematic aspects of the story. Didn't break the book or anything for me, but did make me a bi uncomfortable.
I guess I'll give this one a mid rating. I do hope the author keeps on writing and improving and will probably be picking up book two.
Rating: 3/5
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