Reviews - House of Wolves | The StoryGraph

139 reviews for:

House of Wolves

James Patterson

3.66 AVERAGE

aseel_reads's review against another edition

2.0

mysterious slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

While the leadup around the mystery was pretty captivating, actual mystery reveal was like non-existent?? So blergh at the end

Content Warnings

sfmike2000's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous dark hopeful mysterious fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

nlbogard's review against another edition

4.0

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

roelia's review against another edition

3.0

In the ‘book world’ there seems to be a lot of readers (and maybe authors) who seemingly has got a love/hate relationship with James Patterson. Has it got to do with the fact that the speed in which he manages to bring new books to market? Is it the fact that he seems to mostly collaborate with other authors (and, if rumours are to be believed, even ghost writers), instead of writing books “on his own”? Is it a quality issue or a quantity issue?

To be honest, I don’t care at all. I’ve been an avid reader of James Patterson’s since “Along Came a Spider”, the first of his “Alex Cross” series. I have lost track of that specific series, purely because I had a couple of “absent reading” years.

I still find his books (and those he co-authors with others) to be entertaining, unfussy, and pure escapism – taking it into “guilty pleasure” territory.

So, with that in mind, I saw that “House of Wolves” is the first book in a new series that he is co-authoring with Mike Lupica. Judging a book 100% on its cover (as I do with most books I read – I prefer to go in “blind”), I didn’t realise that this will be so “sports” heavy. Afterwards I did find out that Mike Lupica is a veteran sportswriter, so that may have been a tip off. BUT even though the plot revolves around an American football team (two, actually), I still enjoyed this.

The men in the Wolf family are ruthless, conniving, and disjointed. When the family matriarch is murdered (no spoilers here, it happens within the first couple of pages in the book), the greed, distrust, and mayhem just amps up to the next level.

Including the themes of sibling rivalry (with one sibling having a strong resemblance to Don Jr for me), control of the media, NFL behind-the-scenes, women in sports and influence.

If you like sport, family drama, nasty succession battles, a bad-ass female protagonist and criminal intrigue – and an effortless read, you should enjoy this one!

gn2001's review

2.75

dark tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

It's alright just not my kind of book too much reference to politics in football and not enough mystery around the killer

mikeyb111's review against another edition

5.0

This was a great book. Great story and great characters. It felt sort of quick to me, and an ending that I sort of saw from earlier in the book, but none the less it was a great story. The one thing I couldn't seem to wrap my head around was the similarities between what happened early in the book and the real life situation of Damar Hamlin. That real life incident and what happened in the book were so close to each other, and the book and incident came out literally around the same exact time. And their names—DeLavarious Harmon and Damar Hamlin. Was the book changed to reference this? So many questions! :)