Reviews with content warning for Pedophilia - Mongrels

I don't know whether to call this a horror novel, a coming of age, a story about family, a werewolf story... It's all of that, and more. I love the take on werewolves in this story, and how the lore is slowly being revealed. There are really intriguing characters, people with very skewed morals. It took me a bit to get into the story, but once I did I loved it. There's this alternating of first and third person chapters in a nonlinear timeline that's sown so well together.

This isn't a traditional horror story - if it even is horror. It's quite slow paced, and it follows an unnamed narrator as he grows up and comes of age, waiting to "wolf out" in his dysfunctional werewolf family without knowing for certain that he has the gene.

I recommend this book, but be vary of the warnings!

Content Warnings

talonsontypewriters's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

This is the way werewolf stories go.
Never any proof. Just a story that keeps changing, like it’s twisting back on itself, biting its own stomach to chew the poison out.

Mongrels is a solid book: Powerfully written, well-developed, and emotionally impactful. I've read Stephen Graham Jones's writing before -- I read his short story Wait for Night not long ago -- but this is the first full-length novel of his I've read, and I'll certainly be checking out more in the future.

I'd be remiss not to mention the actual writing of Mongrels first. The prose is interesting and eloquent without ever being too much to parse, a skill I always appreciate. The writing all but flows off the page, compelling and gripping even when it strays a hair too far into "showing" over "telling" (a balance that is overall very neatly maintained). That said, the way the chapters are arranged -- always centered around the same narrator, but shifting between first- to third-person every other chapter, and with some muddling of the timeline -- can be hard to follow.

The main cast of Mongrels, the narrator and his werewolf aunt and uncle, aren't necessarily likable, but they are complex, compelling, and -- ironically -- human. Their dynamics rang true as a dysfunctional but ultimately well-meaning non-nuclear family. And on the note of them being werewolves, the worldbuilding in that regard is stellar. It's unlike any werewolf lore I've come upon in fantasy before, but every bit of it works.

It's definitely pretty brutal in terms of content, and Jones doesn't skimp on the detail in regards to violence and gore. I'll admit that I'm already a bit squeamish, especially with regards to animal death/harm, so a few scenes were enough to make my stomach turn, but that didn't make me put it down (for long, anyway). Though it can seem gratuitous, the blood and gore are never necessarily out-of-place; they add rather well to the overall plot and themes. If you're like me, you'll likely feel uncomfortable reading a lot of Mongrels -- and in my case, that only added to my enjoyment.

Messy, raw, and real, Mongrels is a coming-of-age tale unlike any other, and not entirely because of the werewolves. I don't know if it's necessarily a title I'd recommend, but it certainly is one I personally enjoyed.

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