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A review by laelyn
Wolfsong by TJ Klune
2.0
Oh how excited I was to dive into Klune's werewolf series! I absolutely adored his latest standalones so I felt like he's the perfect author fit for me. Sadly, this turned out to just not be the book for me, and noone is sadder about this than me. It's not at all a bad book and I can absolutely see why it has so many fans, but I guess I'm just not as much into werewolves as I thought I am.
"Wolfsong" tells the story of Ox, a simple dude in a simple town with a horrible dad, an amazing mum and a set of new neighbours that are a little peculiar to say the least. The new family comes with a ten year old boy called Joe who immediately clings to Ox like they are meant for each other. Spoiler alert: They are.
This is probably one of the big things that made me uncomfortable from the get go. Ox is 16 or 17 when they meet, Joe is 10, which is a big age gap when you're this young. And yet, noone including his own family seem to mind that little Joe has now more or less imprinted on his future boyfriend. Sure, nothing happens between them until Joe is 17, but he's basically been a possessively jealous little thing from day 1, effectively punishing Ox for having dates and relationships. He literally tells him he had a hard time not killing the people Ox liked, not tearing him apart to be able to taste him, not marking him all over so noone would ever touch him again. I know a lot of people are into this kind of primal, obsessive romance behaviour but dear god I wanted to send him to therapy. This is not how I like my werewolves. Ox and Joe also more or less grew up as brothers after meeting very young, with Joe's father calling Ox his son in all but blood, so... I don't know. It just didn't feel romantic at all to me, and I might just not like the whole Mates thing. I find it a little creepy.
I quite liked the family dynamics and how welcoming the pack was to Ox, and I enjoyed the larger world building around the different packs, the Omegas, the witches. I especially enjoyed Gordo as a character, he might be my favorite. But because this is primarily a romance (and one I didn't enjoy for the aforementioned reasons), all the other plot points kind of fall flat., There are big battles, but in the end, they're mostly there to further the romance. The pacing is rather slow too, so I was honestly a little bored and wanted to skip entire pages at some points. This is not helped by the choice of writing style - while I liked Ox' voice and I really enjoyed him as a character, too, it was a bit tiresome to read.
So this is a very unpopular opinion and I by now way am saying this is a bad book, but well. It's just definitely not for me and there are too many themes and tropes I simply don't enjoy or make me uncomfortable within the narrative and the characters and their relationships so I can't give this more than 2 stars. You should probably ignore my review if you're into those very themes and tropes though.
Many thanks to Pan Macmillan, Tor and Netgalley for the arc!
"Wolfsong" tells the story of Ox, a simple dude in a simple town with a horrible dad, an amazing mum and a set of new neighbours that are a little peculiar to say the least. The new family comes with a ten year old boy called Joe who immediately clings to Ox like they are meant for each other. Spoiler alert: They are.
This is probably one of the big things that made me uncomfortable from the get go. Ox is 16 or 17 when they meet, Joe is 10, which is a big age gap when you're this young. And yet, noone including his own family seem to mind that little Joe has now more or less imprinted on his future boyfriend. Sure, nothing happens between them until Joe is 17, but he's basically been a possessively jealous little thing from day 1, effectively punishing Ox for having dates and relationships. He literally tells him he had a hard time not killing the people Ox liked, not tearing him apart to be able to taste him, not marking him all over so noone would ever touch him again. I know a lot of people are into this kind of primal, obsessive romance behaviour but dear god I wanted to send him to therapy. This is not how I like my werewolves. Ox and Joe also more or less grew up as brothers after meeting very young, with Joe's father calling Ox his son in all but blood, so... I don't know. It just didn't feel romantic at all to me, and I might just not like the whole Mates thing. I find it a little creepy.
I quite liked the family dynamics and how welcoming the pack was to Ox, and I enjoyed the larger world building around the different packs, the Omegas, the witches. I especially enjoyed Gordo as a character, he might be my favorite. But because this is primarily a romance (and one I didn't enjoy for the aforementioned reasons), all the other plot points kind of fall flat., There are big battles, but in the end, they're mostly there to further the romance. The pacing is rather slow too, so I was honestly a little bored and wanted to skip entire pages at some points. This is not helped by the choice of writing style - while I liked Ox' voice and I really enjoyed him as a character, too, it was a bit tiresome to read.
So this is a very unpopular opinion and I by now way am saying this is a bad book, but well. It's just definitely not for me and there are too many themes and tropes I simply don't enjoy or make me uncomfortable within the narrative and the characters and their relationships so I can't give this more than 2 stars. You should probably ignore my review if you're into those very themes and tropes though.
Many thanks to Pan Macmillan, Tor and Netgalley for the arc!