A review by tamtamslibrary
Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

A story about wildness—about all the definitions of it from humans to animals to nature. The author does a fantastic job of creating a setting, from sentence structure to character building to sensory details. It is emotional—you’ll feel sad, enraged, confused, and sad again, but there is a rightness set by the end. 

****Check the trigger warnings before reading****

I’ll put my favorite quote, that gave me chills reading, below. I think it really encompasses the entirety of the novel’s message.


Favorite quote:
“Do you think it can ever be?” he asks me softly. “Bred out of a creature?”
“The wild?” . . . “It happened to us, I think,” I murmur. “Most days I think we couldn’t be farther from it, that it was slowly bred from us until we became more like machines than animals.”
“And the other days?” he asks.
“On the other days,” I say slowly, “I think I will go mad with the wildness.” (Page 131)
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