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3.93 AVERAGE
3.93 AVERAGE
*4.75 stars*
So tempted to give this one five stars. In my opinion, one of the shining young adult works to come out recently. We read and dissected this in class, and there's so many nuances to this book, and it was so enjoyable. All the things that the author was thinking about when writing this book really culminated to a highly enjoyable read, while also portraying a convincing monster story, and a convincing story about a boy simply growing up and attempting to establish an identity.
So tempted to give this one five stars. In my opinion, one of the shining young adult works to come out recently. We read and dissected this in class, and there's so many nuances to this book, and it was so enjoyable. All the things that the author was thinking about when writing this book really culminated to a highly enjoyable read, while also portraying a convincing monster story, and a convincing story about a boy simply growing up and attempting to establish an identity.
Some things I’d say about this book:
One of the most creative changes to the werewolf trip I’ve read… commentary on both the blessings and dangers of being a minority in society that I relate to HEAVILY
Definitely a no-plot, character driven kind of book. I really loved that overall but through the majority of it I found it a little hard to get past.
No, you never get the MC’s name.
One of the most creative changes to the werewolf trip I’ve read… commentary on both the blessings and dangers of being a minority in society that I relate to HEAVILY
Definitely a no-plot, character driven kind of book. I really loved that overall but through the majority of it I found it a little hard to get past.
No, you never get the MC’s name.
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The animal death descriptions — final straw of intentionally hitting a calf with a car and having it drag itself around — made me ill. But it’s a horror book about werewolves so I probably should have been prepared.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death
So I saw some reviews hating on this book and came into it suspecting the worst, but in all honesty I really enjoyed it. Mongrels does for werewolves what 1987's schlock film The Lost Boys did for vampires, updating the traditional folklore for a modern setting. It is exhilarating, fast-paced, and admittedly very campy. But by embracing the story's sillier aspects and never taking things all that seriously, Jones won me over quickly. He doesn't play anything close to the chest, just lays it all out there: we've got werewolves, they're doing werewolf stuff. Enjoy! You could read it as a metaphor for growing up, anticipating and entering and navigating puberty and becoming an adult—you could, but you definitely don't have to. And that's the kind of symbolism I like. I do dock a few points because in the interest of building an atmospheric mood the author sacrifices clarity and so there are sections where figuring out what is going on, in a literal sense, becomes difficult. But at its best, Mongrels reads like a Palahniuk novel (one of his earlier, better ones): a gimmicky leitmotif, a repeated verbal tic, some gore and extremely fringe subject matter.
4 stars out of 5. A popcorn movie in book form.
4 stars out of 5. A popcorn movie in book form.
I dunno, it just hit the spot. It has a lot in common with Night of the Living Rez, in a way. Coming of age, dirt poor, trauma and trailers and violence and family, the south, and petty crime, and learning to live in your skin. But also werewolves.
Up front, let me say two things. First, I am a huge fan of werewolves and second, I am a huge fan of Stephen Graham Jones. I believe he is a criminally underrated author. Now that you know these things, let me tell you about this book.
This story is a masterpiece, an absolutely gut-wrenching and beautiful tale of a boy and his family of werewolves. His grandfather is old and only sometimes truly lucid, constantly regaling the family, and most particularly the narrator, with stories of his exploits as a werewolf. As it turns out, these tales are true and after an incident, the narrator, his uncle Darren, and aunt Libby hit the road. That’s the werewolf way, you know?
Mongrels is part supernatural horror, part coming of age adventure, and part commentary on the way they world treats people who are different and underprivileged. You become truly invested in this family and the courses their lives take. I am consistently awed by Jones’ writing and storytelling, filled with rich characters, stunning language, and brilliant pacing. Mongrels is equally visceral and beautiful, a balance Jones excels at. I genuinely can’t recommend this book enough to everyone.
This story is a masterpiece, an absolutely gut-wrenching and beautiful tale of a boy and his family of werewolves. His grandfather is old and only sometimes truly lucid, constantly regaling the family, and most particularly the narrator, with stories of his exploits as a werewolf. As it turns out, these tales are true and after an incident, the narrator, his uncle Darren, and aunt Libby hit the road. That’s the werewolf way, you know?
Mongrels is part supernatural horror, part coming of age adventure, and part commentary on the way they world treats people who are different and underprivileged. You become truly invested in this family and the courses their lives take. I am consistently awed by Jones’ writing and storytelling, filled with rich characters, stunning language, and brilliant pacing. Mongrels is equally visceral and beautiful, a balance Jones excels at. I genuinely can’t recommend this book enough to everyone.
(full review on my blog here: http://shelfstalker.weebly.com/shelf-stalker/mongrels-stephen-graham-jones)
There’s nothing new to say about werewolves. Silver bullets, pentagrams on the palm, sudden urges for rare steak, howling, full moon transformations, bloodthirsty beasts rampaging about. We’ve seen it all, right?
Well, think again. As Jones, veteran speculative fiction writer, shows, there’s plenty more to tell, plenty more waiting to burst through to the surface. And some of what we think we know might need to be rewritten.
Of course you don’t believe in werewolves, right? Why would you? But maybe all those stories your grandpa told you weren’t just stories. Maybe he wasn’t just going senile when he talked about shifting and chasing after chickens, coming home bloody-jawed but satisfied. You always kept him talking because it seemed to make him happy, but what happens when all those stories turn out to be true?
Mongrels follows a young unnamed narrator and his aunt Libby and uncle Darren across the southern United States. They don’t have much except for each other and their secret: theirs is a family of wolves. Our narrator is a late bloomer and might never turn into a wolf, though he desperately wants to become a werewolf in order to fit into his little family. He sure as hell doesn’t think he’ll ever fit in anywhere else. In that sense, this is a coming-of-age story more than any other type of story. It’s a boy trying to figure out who he is, where he fits in the world, and dealing with his family and more embarrassingly, his body.
If there really are werewolves wandering around in the twenty-first century, I suspect they fit more into Jones’s model. Moving around a lot, staying away from other people, doing odd jobs, getting mixed up with the cops a little too frequently. Our narrator and his family try to stay out of trouble, but it seems to find them anyways. Finding out that he is a werewolf is really just the beginning. The rest of the book is finding out how to deal with it and keep it all a secret.
The book is really about finding a way to be comfortable with who you are and who your family is, and then being proud of it, even if you can’t share it with the world. What is it that Libby and Darren are really running away from every time they move on? Every time they cause enough trouble so that they have to move on? Wolves don’t seem able to form lasting attachments, but there sure are wounds in their past that cut deep and haven’t healed yet.
In true Jones fashion, this book gets crazy, this book gets weird (werewolves are valuable for something I bet you’ll never guess), but mostly, this book gets under your skin—in a good way. Like how werewolf hair sucks back in, it’ll get inside of you and leave pieces of itself behind.
There’s nothing new to say about werewolves. Silver bullets, pentagrams on the palm, sudden urges for rare steak, howling, full moon transformations, bloodthirsty beasts rampaging about. We’ve seen it all, right?
Well, think again. As Jones, veteran speculative fiction writer, shows, there’s plenty more to tell, plenty more waiting to burst through to the surface. And some of what we think we know might need to be rewritten.
Of course you don’t believe in werewolves, right? Why would you? But maybe all those stories your grandpa told you weren’t just stories. Maybe he wasn’t just going senile when he talked about shifting and chasing after chickens, coming home bloody-jawed but satisfied. You always kept him talking because it seemed to make him happy, but what happens when all those stories turn out to be true?
Mongrels follows a young unnamed narrator and his aunt Libby and uncle Darren across the southern United States. They don’t have much except for each other and their secret: theirs is a family of wolves. Our narrator is a late bloomer and might never turn into a wolf, though he desperately wants to become a werewolf in order to fit into his little family. He sure as hell doesn’t think he’ll ever fit in anywhere else. In that sense, this is a coming-of-age story more than any other type of story. It’s a boy trying to figure out who he is, where he fits in the world, and dealing with his family and more embarrassingly, his body.
If there really are werewolves wandering around in the twenty-first century, I suspect they fit more into Jones’s model. Moving around a lot, staying away from other people, doing odd jobs, getting mixed up with the cops a little too frequently. Our narrator and his family try to stay out of trouble, but it seems to find them anyways. Finding out that he is a werewolf is really just the beginning. The rest of the book is finding out how to deal with it and keep it all a secret.
The book is really about finding a way to be comfortable with who you are and who your family is, and then being proud of it, even if you can’t share it with the world. What is it that Libby and Darren are really running away from every time they move on? Every time they cause enough trouble so that they have to move on? Wolves don’t seem able to form lasting attachments, but there sure are wounds in their past that cut deep and haven’t healed yet.
In true Jones fashion, this book gets crazy, this book gets weird (werewolves are valuable for something I bet you’ll never guess), but mostly, this book gets under your skin—in a good way. Like how werewolf hair sucks back in, it’ll get inside of you and leave pieces of itself behind.
Such an interesting take on werewolves! I feel like it has a metaphor of childhood and how your circumstances shape so much and affect you. It’s incredibly character focused with a lot of backstory and mundane tasks. It didn’t bother me though. I really found our character and his circumstances interesting. I would’ve liked for things to app up a bit more in the end but overall I enjoyed it!
This was pretty sweet and had a much more positive ending than I was expecting.