Book Review: Ramblefoot by Ken Kaufman

 

I will read any and all wolf xenofiction, I guess. Spoilers ahead.

Raspail is a young wolf who grows up in his pack, where he never quite seems to fit in. One day he loses his voice after an attack by a packmate, and is banished from the pack for a crime he didn't commit. Raspail is now a ramblefoot, a lone wolf, and meets up with a group of other ramblefoots. Eventually he regains his voice and starts to partake in more and more heroic feats, becoming a bit of a leader to all the loners. But then it turns out his former pack, and thus his love interest, are in danger. Raspail will now have to be the true leader he was born to be in order to save them.

Just a rather boring read if you ask me. It had quite a few errors throughout (punctuation, name inconsistencies, etc.) which made it look unprofessional. 

I also thought Raspail was a genuine snorefest of a main character. He feels like a walking "nobody wolf who grows into a powerful leader" trope with little to no exceptions that really set him apart. The fact that he has a raven friend is supposed to make him unique, but irl wolf-raven cooperation is very common so it didn't feel unique at all. I guess I thought it was unique that Raspail was non-speaking for a while, but the author was too lazy to commit to this disability fully by having Raspail eventually talk again.

I guess there's two elements I liked in this story: Hagi and Repetto. They were pretty fun and interesting characters, honestly the only ones of the bunch because I found the rest of the cast to be a boring uninteresting snorefest. Thankfully Hagi and Repetto do have a lot of page-time, but even they weren't enough to keep me hooked to this story.  

Another element I really didn't like is how weirdly adamant this book is at incest between adopted siblings not being weird. Like it will try to excuse itself so many times by saying that Raspail having a crush on his sister isn't weird because they're adopted. But hey, guess what, even if they're not related by blood, they're still family. He was still raised by her parents alongside her as if he was one of her siblings. Just because they're not related doesn't make it super weird that he has a crush on his adopted sibling.

It'd have been one thing if (for example) they'd met later in life or whatever (still weird but less so), but as is they are still family and siblings on all levels except blood. And the story will constantly hammer home the point of "oh no, it's not weird, they're not related" but it doesn't work. They're siblings. Honestly it feels kinda invalidating to real adopted people to say that adoption means you're basically not family anyways. Weird message to send.

The book also is clearly meant for adults, as it has mature topics, jokes and moments, but honestly the story itself didn't feel very mature to me. Honestly these "adult" moments felt more tacked-on and like the author was trying to be edgy, rather than the book genuinely telling a compelling, complex and meaningful adult story. 

So yeah, I think about this one the less I like it, honestly. I don't think it's totally worthless, so it still gets more than one star, but I also don't think it's good and it doesn't get a recommendation from me. 

 2/5