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3.93 AVERAGE
3.93 AVERAGE
Best werewolf novel: Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones
Best werewolf short story: Wild Acre by Nathan Balingrud
Best werewolf song: Werewolf Shame by Direct Hit
Best werewolf (scene) in a movie: What We Do in the Shadows by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi
These are all true facts about werewolves.
P.S. This book rules.
Best werewolf short story: Wild Acre by Nathan Balingrud
Best werewolf song: Werewolf Shame by Direct Hit
Best werewolf (scene) in a movie: What We Do in the Shadows by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi
These are all true facts about werewolves.
P.S. This book rules.
Loved it. It's a coming of age werewolf story, but also a portrait of a family of outsiders on the fringes. It smells of truck stops, dust, rust, and denim. It's as lyrical, clever, and funny, as it is visceral and brutal. Stephen Graham Jones is a hell of a writer. A great read.
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Ugh I just love SGJ! I think SGJ absolutely excels at character work, and Mongrels was no different. I loved how the plot was between the past and present, it added a lot of depth to the story. The werewolf lore was so interesting, too! The gore was up there in intensity, but I have come to expect that with his books. This was such a fun read.
Received this in a Goodreads giveaway. It just wasn’t for me.
this is a pleasant but not great book. i really liked the way the author talked about the experience of growing up native and the ways it shapes you as a person in a fundamental way. it has really engaging writing at times and it is really easy to just power through it in a short amount of time. my only gripes are that there are moments that the character’s actions dont really make sense and it feels like a YA novel for big chunks of it. theres nothing wrong with that if you enjoy it, but it just felt to me that it was holding the book back from being Really good. like if it had used the same themes and ideas but from an adult perspective it might have been more impactful. obviously it would then be an entirely different book, but thats how it goes. overall, its a fun book from an author with an interesting perspective from a background that most authors dont share. maybe give it a shot.
note: my boyfriend says The Only Good Indians is his better book, so maybe try that out instead
note: my boyfriend says The Only Good Indians is his better book, so maybe try that out instead
A boy records the fables of his youth growing up in a family of werewolves. This is a weird little book which is intentionally grimy and grim, deromanticizing werewolves while also using them to explore intersections of culture and class. Enjoyable? not especially--I miss a certain level of idealization, and think it's possible to unpretty werewolves while maintaining some mystique (honestly, this is what the trope is all about: testing the limits of our fear/attraction to the dehumanized, messy, morbid, violent). But in premise, promising; even aspects like the dual narration, which frequently disrupts the flow, work in retrospect, adding self-presentation/-conceptualization to the conversation about culture and Otherness. This book has a lot of potential, but its plot is unremarkable and its tone missed the mark for me.
adventurous
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Another fantastic read from SGJ. I really loved the approach he took in this book, situating this family in modern society, scraping by and doing what they could to stay together and be there for one another. This was very much a human story, that happens to be about werewolves.
I will admit when I was about 70 pages in, I had no idea where this was going or why it felt so piecemeal. However, once I waded about halfway in, it all clicked and I was completely swept up in the story. I had this same reaction when I read Only Good Indians. So, lesson learned: trust that SGJ will not lead you astray, even if you're not quite sure where you're going!
I will admit when I was about 70 pages in, I had no idea where this was going or why it felt so piecemeal. However, once I waded about halfway in, it all clicked and I was completely swept up in the story. I had this same reaction when I read Only Good Indians. So, lesson learned: trust that SGJ will not lead you astray, even if you're not quite sure where you're going!
This is very much a coming-of-age story about family and life on the run/on the road and...ostensibly...about being a werewolf. But while the werewolf parts factor into everything that happens, somehow it still felt almost peripheral to the story, in a way I can't quite describe. This book is a horror novel that doesn't feel like a horror novel, a werewolf story that doesn't feel like it's about werewolves, and a coming of age story where there doesn't seem to be much actual growth. I didn't love it, but I think it will still stick with me. And having met the author, I definitely want to give more of his books a try, I think this one just felt a bit too scattered for me because of the way it was laid out. The back and forth narrative between past and present didn't work well for me, and the ending wasn't particularly satisfactory. This seemed like several short stories that were loosely put together into a book just to call it a novel.