sunshinestark 's review for:

Howl by Shaun David Hutchinson

3.0

---

The content warnings at the beginning of this book should be taken very seriously. Howl is a story about a boy suffering in the aftermath of being attacked by a monster and Virgil’s trauma could be easily mistaken for sexual assault at a glance. His memories of it are likely to trigger some who read it. Having the story unfold this way was an interesting choice paired with Virgil’s fear he would become a monster himself and while I enjoyed parts, I’m not sure it worked for me as a whole. Perhaps that’s due to how strongly it mirrored PTSD from sexual assault which hit a little too close to home. Aside from that, I liked Virgil’s friendship with Astrid and Tripp, which really kept me going even through the harder parts, and I found the writing style compelling - I will definitely be checking out other books by this author.