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anothercurleyhairbooklover's review against another edition
4.0
Brutal, harsh, good. Reminiscent of Interview with a Vampire.
spiritismus's review against another edition
4.0
Wow - I didn't expect to love this book so much since my love/hate relationship with part 1 of the series! Part 2 is so much better. Tallulah comes across as a lot more genuine character and she struggles with the monster in her on a much more relatable level. It was definitely a wise decision to give the lead character emotions, which Jake lacked. I almost read this book in one go, I just needed to know what happend next.
angielisle's review against another edition
4.0
Modern Gothic Lit at it's best! This book is not to be confused with the degenerated bodice-rippers that dub themselves Gothic Romance. Talulla Demetriou is one fierce bitch! Glen Duncan ups the ante with sex and violence that casually moves the story forward. He continues to examine the issues of morality versus primitive animal instinct, taking it one step further with his exploration of the roles of men and women (both wulf and human). I'm looking forward to the third installment of this trilogy.
I received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads (but I would've bought it anyway. No self-respecting bibliophile leaves a trilogy incomplete).
I received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads (but I would've bought it anyway. No self-respecting bibliophile leaves a trilogy incomplete).
chriswolak's review against another edition
2.0
Talulla Rising is book two in Glen Ducan's The Last Werewolf trilogy. The first book, The Last Werewolf, came out in 2011 to much fanfare. I didn't think it lived up to the hype, but I still think it's a book that horror fans might like to check out. It's certainly nowhere near the literary heights of horror classics like Dracula or Frankenstein, but it does bring a grown-up werewolf to the contemporary literary scene.
Let me start with what I liked about Talulla Rising:
I like the world Duncan has created, even if I don't always admire how he executes the story. It's a world where werewolves and vampires are physically repellant to one another. Most humans seem oblivious to the monsters in their midst, but a small paramilitary organization is out to capture or kill them. Vampires get "vampire burnout" from living forever and not being able to eat real food or have sex or walk in the sunshine: vampires are depressives,"centuries of no sunlight. Seasonal Affective Disorder on a massive scale." Werewolves live about 400 years and even Jake Marlowe from book one was ready to be done with it after only 200 years of eating, shagging, and walking in the sunshine. There is some good, dark humor throughout the story.
Jake's advice to Talullah that she keep reading will tug at the heart and library card of most bibliophiles: "Literature is humanity's broad-minded alter-ego, with room in its heart even for monsters, even for you. It's humanity without the judgement. Trust me, it'll help." She thinks of his words after noticing the pages of Moll Flanders fluttering on the table near an open window. How can anyone not appreciate that sentiment or image?
Duncan also won me over with the idea of species sympathy: "a feeling of accommodating something you never imagined you'd have room for. At the time I'd thought: that's what God wants us to do, find room for each other the way He finds room for Everything." Least you think this book has gone soft or religious, the sprouting of Talulla's species sympathy gets its energy from a moment in the past when she secretly sniffed her best friend's recently worn underwear.
This species sympathy is part of a huge shift that's underway in Talullah Rising and which I'm assuming will play out in book three, By Blood We Live (click here to read a NYT interview where Duncan mentions the title).
Overall, however, Talulla Rising lands a bit lower on my rating scale than did its predecessor, The Last Werewolf.
There's some poor, uneven writing throughout, particularly in the first 100 pages or so when it seems that Duncan was still looking for Talulla's voice. In the beginning she sounds exactly like Jake Marlowe (the last werewolf character of book one) and even uses male slang to describe her own masturbatory act. I've never heard a woman say she "jerked off." Perhaps it's a British thing.
I'd need to give the book a second reading to sort out the vast array of sexual violence and stereotypes about women, men, rape, and motherhood (there's lots of angst about motherhood). In short it seems that Talullah's voracious female libido has to be counterbalanced by rape, prostitution, domestic violence, and/or the pornographic subjugation of women. It's like feminism never happened. I'm all for a healthy libido and it would be refreshing to see a woman character have one that can stand on its own.
Another sexual device that I found offensive is Talulla's teasing speculation about not if, but when she'll have sex with another woman. Sure, Jake Marlowe had sex with a few guys over the 200 year span of his werewolf existence, but this hint of woman-on-woman sex came off like a cheap Hollywood ploy designed to keep some people watching (or reading).
And speaking of characters, don't get me started on Mr. Walker. He's a walking, talking, plastic stereotype and the plot twist regarding him toward the end, with the help of the babysitter, is a cheap deus ex machina.
I had a hard time suspending my disbelief with the non-supernatural aspects of this novel. I'm hoping book three will rely less on stereotypes and cheap tricks and have more species sympathy.
If you really liked The Last Werewolf, you'll no doubt want to rush out to your local bookstore and pick up Talulla Rising. If you thought The Last Werewolf was just so-so, I recommend you check it out of the library. If you didn't like The Last Werewolf, I imagine you'd like the follow-up even less so, but you never know.
Let me start with what I liked about Talulla Rising:
I like the world Duncan has created, even if I don't always admire how he executes the story. It's a world where werewolves and vampires are physically repellant to one another. Most humans seem oblivious to the monsters in their midst, but a small paramilitary organization is out to capture or kill them. Vampires get "vampire burnout" from living forever and not being able to eat real food or have sex or walk in the sunshine: vampires are depressives,"centuries of no sunlight. Seasonal Affective Disorder on a massive scale." Werewolves live about 400 years and even Jake Marlowe from book one was ready to be done with it after only 200 years of eating, shagging, and walking in the sunshine. There is some good, dark humor throughout the story.
Jake's advice to Talullah that she keep reading will tug at the heart and library card of most bibliophiles: "Literature is humanity's broad-minded alter-ego, with room in its heart even for monsters, even for you. It's humanity without the judgement. Trust me, it'll help." She thinks of his words after noticing the pages of Moll Flanders fluttering on the table near an open window. How can anyone not appreciate that sentiment or image?
Duncan also won me over with the idea of species sympathy: "a feeling of accommodating something you never imagined you'd have room for. At the time I'd thought: that's what God wants us to do, find room for each other the way He finds room for Everything." Least you think this book has gone soft or religious, the sprouting of Talulla's species sympathy gets its energy from a moment in the past when she secretly sniffed her best friend's recently worn underwear.
This species sympathy is part of a huge shift that's underway in Talullah Rising and which I'm assuming will play out in book three, By Blood We Live (click here to read a NYT interview where Duncan mentions the title).
Overall, however, Talulla Rising lands a bit lower on my rating scale than did its predecessor, The Last Werewolf.
There's some poor, uneven writing throughout, particularly in the first 100 pages or so when it seems that Duncan was still looking for Talulla's voice. In the beginning she sounds exactly like Jake Marlowe (the last werewolf character of book one) and even uses male slang to describe her own masturbatory act. I've never heard a woman say she "jerked off." Perhaps it's a British thing.
I'd need to give the book a second reading to sort out the vast array of sexual violence and stereotypes about women, men, rape, and motherhood (there's lots of angst about motherhood). In short it seems that Talullah's voracious female libido has to be counterbalanced by rape, prostitution, domestic violence, and/or the pornographic subjugation of women. It's like feminism never happened. I'm all for a healthy libido and it would be refreshing to see a woman character have one that can stand on its own.
Another sexual device that I found offensive is Talulla's teasing speculation about not if, but when she'll have sex with another woman. Sure, Jake Marlowe had sex with a few guys over the 200 year span of his werewolf existence, but this hint of woman-on-woman sex came off like a cheap Hollywood ploy designed to keep some people watching (or reading).
And speaking of characters, don't get me started on Mr. Walker. He's a walking, talking, plastic stereotype and the plot twist regarding him toward the end, with the help of the babysitter, is a cheap deus ex machina.
I had a hard time suspending my disbelief with the non-supernatural aspects of this novel. I'm hoping book three will rely less on stereotypes and cheap tricks and have more species sympathy.
If you really liked The Last Werewolf, you'll no doubt want to rush out to your local bookstore and pick up Talulla Rising. If you thought The Last Werewolf was just so-so, I recommend you check it out of the library. If you didn't like The Last Werewolf, I imagine you'd like the follow-up even less so, but you never know.
grandlarsony's review against another edition
3.0
Again, werewolves (and vampires) aren't really my cup of tea, but there is something about The Last Werewolf series that I like. I enjoyed Tallula Rising more than The Last Werewolf, maybe because of the female narration. If you like werewolf sex and descriptions of humans being eaten, then this book is for you.
gerhard's review against another edition
5.0
Superb sequel to The Last Werewolf is liberally drenched in violence and sex. Typical middle-novel syndrome in that the ending is a bit muted as it set-ups number three. However, what pushes this to the front of the, er, pack is Duncan's intensely descriptive prose. This is shaping up to be a classic horror trilogy in the making.
rycrafty's review against another edition
4.0
I really want to stop reading this series with this book, because it ends in a good place. It is getting hard to take the endless stream of terrible, awful things happening to these characters.
loram's review against another edition
4.0
I read The Last Werewolf about a year before this second book of the series and really enjoyed it, so when the sequels came on sale, I had to have them.
It didn't take long for me to start getting involved in the story. Tallulah is pregnant. The pregnancy from Hell is exacerbated by the wulf foetus clawing from inside and by the need to hide from those who are adamant about hunting the last werewolves to extinction as well as vampires.
The writing is very good, which is part of the reason I enjoyed the first book so much. This story has a strong sexual element, not like romance graphic porn but more gritty with a matter of fact approach to being a werewolf does things to the libido and off-camera sex.
I can't say I enjoyed it as much as the first book. I think I basically didn't like Talullah and her depressive attitude towards life, the universe and everything. Parts of the later story became hard for me to visualise and muddled.
Having said that, the last quarter or so of the book was high action and had some interesting twists, some of which set it up for the third book. 3.5 stars, rounded to 4 for GR.
It didn't take long for me to start getting involved in the story. Tallulah is pregnant. The pregnancy from Hell is exacerbated by the wulf foetus clawing from inside and by the need to hide from those who are adamant about hunting the last werewolves to extinction as well as vampires.
The writing is very good, which is part of the reason I enjoyed the first book so much. This story has a strong sexual element, not like romance graphic porn but more gritty with a matter of fact approach to being a werewolf does things to the libido and off-camera sex.
I can't say I enjoyed it as much as the first book. I think I basically didn't like Talullah and her depressive attitude towards life, the universe and everything. Parts of the later story became hard for me to visualise and muddled.
Having said that, the last quarter or so of the book was high action and had some interesting twists, some of which set it up for the third book. 3.5 stars, rounded to 4 for GR.
johnmarlowe's review against another edition
3.0
I can’t quite pinpoint why I didn’t like this one as much as “The Last Werewolf”, but there it is. I’ll still read every werewolf book that Glen Duncan puts out and it looks like there’s a planned 3rd book with the last two lines of this book indicating it.
I liked the author’s style of getting into the character of a female werewolf. Talulla was a likeable character, and mother, and monster. I know that some readers will think the sex was too graphic or pornographic, but I think it fit the story. I thought that this book was not as language dense as his first one. I remember looking up so many words I didn’t know in the first one and there weren’t as many in this book, although I was even lazier in not looking them up. Glen sure can use obscure words in his novels. And, some of his sentences make you go “What did he just say??”.
I don’t know of course, but I’m guessing Werewolf Novel Three will be about Talulla’s two twin kids, Zoe and Lorcan. Based on how many people have read this book on Shelfari though, it’s possible Glen Duncan won’t write any more of these. I hope he does, as it’s been a good ride reading about his werewolves and vampires. (Note, I’m wrong, he’s writing the third book now)
I liked the author’s style of getting into the character of a female werewolf. Talulla was a likeable character, and mother, and monster. I know that some readers will think the sex was too graphic or pornographic, but I think it fit the story. I thought that this book was not as language dense as his first one. I remember looking up so many words I didn’t know in the first one and there weren’t as many in this book, although I was even lazier in not looking them up. Glen sure can use obscure words in his novels. And, some of his sentences make you go “What did he just say??”.
I don’t know of course, but I’m guessing Werewolf Novel Three will be about Talulla’s two twin kids, Zoe and Lorcan. Based on how many people have read this book on Shelfari though, it’s possible Glen Duncan won’t write any more of these. I hope he does, as it’s been a good ride reading about his werewolves and vampires. (Note, I’m wrong, he’s writing the third book now)
jweaverjones's review against another edition
3.0
didn't like it as much as the last werewolf. 2 1/2 stars.