Accidentally came across this while browsing Goodreads and you know me, I'll read any wolf xenofiction I can get my hands on. Spoilers ahead.
In this book we follow the pack of Arnaaluk, a young she-wolf, as they try to survive being terrorized by an evil wolf named Lycargus as well as humans. During this Arnaaluk is also being pursued by two rival brothers, Tulok and Kanak, who are both romantically interested in her.
Yeah, unfortunately this one wasn't it for me. It wasn't terrible, but man, it isn't great. The writing voice, the prose, was a pretty big issue for me. It's hard to describe, but it feels just not very elegant. It's not descriptive at all (most characters and locations are barely described visually or otherwise). I don't need my authors to go on paragraph-long descriptions of a character or location, but something would be nice. In this book I literally didn't even know what a lot of the wolves or locations looked like aside from vague descriptions, but nothing concrete. That aside, the prose also felt dry and dull. It didn't make me want to keep reading, it made me want to put down the book.
The characters weren't much better, either. They were horribly one note and I legit struggle to come up with any personality traits of these characters. They're barely distinct from one another.
It also doesn't help that there's not really a plot in this book, aside from the very vague "survival". A vague plot like this might work if the writing was more eloquent and the characters were strong, but since they're not this book kinda falls flat on its face here.
I also don't quite vibe with how this book is written from the POV of a colonizer pack, and how the colonized pack in question (Lycargus') is portrayed as the villains. Yes, I do get that Lycargus' wolves are brutal killers, but the only reason why they are like this is because Aarnaluk's kin in the past killed Lycargus' packmates. And yes, I know that Aarnaluk doesn't know that her pack is on stolen land throughout a lot of the book. But when Lyrcagus' does tell her the backstory, she still doesn't consider leaving the stolen territory or at least sharing? Yet we're supposed to root for this pack of wolves, who are on stolen land gained through blood and murder? I don't know, I was more on Lycargus' side here. They're the colonized pack who lost their family members and land, they have every right to be pissed at Aarnaluk's pack.
So yeah, not a great book overall. It's not terrible, I've definitely read worse, but man, I wish it were better. The characters being very bland especially really shot the story in the foot (or paw).
Note: I will not be checking out book two as it has an AI-generated cover.
Rating: 2/5
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