Reviews - Wolfish: The Stories We Tell about Fear, Ferocity and Freedom

236 reviews for:

Wolfish: The Stories We Tell about Fear, Ferocity and Freedom

ok i actually loved this. it is not really a book about wolves, it is a book about the stories people tell ourselves about wolves, and what wolves have come to represent. there is also lots of memoir weaved in which i know lots of people hate but i loved.

so many people just don't get this book and tbh really need to work on their critical thinking skills (e.g. not understanding the point of the man on the train metaphor)...

20/4/24 dnf:
might come back to this at a later date, it's just not the vibe for me atm

aileenecole's review against another edition

1.5

this book was terrible

kangaruthie's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH: 0%

Way too meandering and full of quotes- read like a poorly edited senior thesis from a student with far too many ideas and no way to connect them all.

codercaitlin's review against another edition

2.75

informative reflective sad medium-paced

oddroad's review against another edition

2.0

challenging emotional informative reflective slow-paced

arrowheartemoji's review against another edition

2.0

i need to get a physical copy and highlight all the quoted material. it was actually wild. i saw another review mention how much was just quotes but i didn’t realize just how overbearing it was. wow. anyway. i liked the concept here and i read her lithub essay about narration and really wanted to love this but i didn’t feel that the connections she was trying to make—between her experiences of fear, sexism, fairytale, wolves, climate, environment—were actually coming across as strongly as they must have in her vision for the project. it all came together sort of meandering, and not in an artful way. like she wanted to save everything and couldn’t quite hone it right.

yoloxokotl_xolos's review against another edition

4.25

challenging informative medium-paced

Wolfish is part personal narrative, part social commentary, and part animal study of wolves and their reintroduction to the wild. If you read Once There Were Wolves and what more back story, this works very well in conversation with that novel. Berry follows her own relationship with wolves, and weaves in the history of reintroduction in the US and the fears surrounding wolves. The themes of fear, whether warranted or unwarranted, drive this story at all points and often go back to folklore and cultural norms surrounding wolves in a fascinating way. Berry does a great job using care when discussing delicate social issue and recognizing her place in a world with a very complex web of who is feared and who is worthy of feeling fear. I really enjoyed this in-depth look at wolves and their place is current society.