A review by weathersreadsgarbage
Werewolves of Chernobyl by K.A. Merikan, L.A. Witt

dark funny hopeful lighthearted fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

 
Fucking… so where do I start? Do I mention I’ve had this book since before the war started and felt weird about reading it because of said war? Like is that problematic? I don’t know. I like werewolves and I was curious.

I have never so valiantly been forced to fight for my life before. Everything below this is a spoiler and like I don’t care even with spoilers there’s so much that’s missed. It’s an experience and you need to take that ride.

My first concern is that lore in my erotic werewolf fiction is a lot to figure out. Bodarks are a single sex species basically right? And they come from wolves. So the Bodarks fuck lady wolves (do they fuck guy wolves???). The Bodarks also fuck Quinn. Anyway my point is one of these acts is probably bestiality but like which one? I don’t know! I don’t fucking know which one!

Also Quinn is remarkably laid back about a lot of things very quickly. We are all monster fuckers but the chain of events from feeding a giant wolf a Snickers to being tossed out a three story window and being spit roasted by werewolves who think the USSR is still a thing is… a bit harder to swallow than werewolf cum. But not for Quinn who’s taking knots and being a marriage counselor from day one. I like Quinn even if he might be enthusiastic about bestiality (again, haven’t made up my mind). You’d think he’d be a useless twink who can’t function or something but none of the authors involved seem inclined to go for easy generalizations even if they did specifically world build with the intent to break me.

I also like Dima and Nazar. They suit my favorite werewolf trope which is when wolves are batshit insane and enthusiastic about their beloved dumb human. There’s a lot of lore between the two of them and more knotting. Quinn has to teach them about feelings like some kind of pornographic Sesame Street.

The thing that has broken me as a human being is that it sucked me in. I read it very studiously while taking everything seriously until around the 80% mark in which it dawned on me what I had been reading and had an existential crisis and a 20 minute text breakdown with my best friend.

What does it mean for me that I enjoyed every second while also saying “every new sentence immediately becomes the new most insane thing I’ve ever read”? How do I just live with that knowledge? Who even am I?

And like if it’s not bestiality for Bodarks to mate with lady wolves does that make it kinda like sexual slavery? Cause they’re very much treated like dogs except fuckable. The implications of this is starting to make me feel like that one picture of Ben Affleck smoking.

I feel forever changed, like this journey has marked me in some way. People will put distance between themselves and me but not know why they have that instinctive aversion. But I’ll know. The stain on my soul will never be scrubbed away.