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A review by kitvaria_sarene
Hold the Dark by William Giraldi
2.0
This is a really disturbing book.
It was not at all what I expected - and not in a good way.
The blurb let me think it was about a pack of wolves taking children - and a wolf expert who looks into things. I did expect it to be grim and bloody, but not the way it was.
First of, the wolves had hardly a big part - they felt more like the backdrop in a theater.
Then the characters were just so unbelievable and unlikable. All of them. Instead of a "sciency" thriller about wolves I got to read about disturning, sick people. I get that humans are the bigger monsters than wolves. I get that there is "a wolf" in us all. But that was just over the top - and felt like gore for the sake of it - and it didn't look like a "Layman" book....
Synopsis and why I thought it just so bad:
His friend kills more than 10 people with a machine gun, untill he himself is killed - without any understandable reason, besides describing the gore in detail.
When the husband finally finds his sister - he has sex with the woman who murdered his son, and flees with her into the tundra, where they live in an old hunting iglo their father had built years back, where they live "happily ever after" with her being pregnant again (sure, this time it will work out better - away from civilization...), and the whole village helps them, by not speaking with the police, letting the body of an old lady who fell victim to the husband dissappear and bringing them tools to build a new, bigger iglo.
BTW - the wolves are almost starved - that's why they took those two children who vanished first - but the husband of course finds enough food to feed them through the last month(s) of winter, with the supplies left in the iglo years before, and a pack or two left by their mother and what he can hunt....
I have no idea what the point of the book should be, or how I should feel now - really I just think "Okaaayyyyy...?" and that's that.
One star for Alaska and the descriptions of the cold, the snow and how to live there.
Otherwise the only good thing I could find was that is really short....
It was not at all what I expected - and not in a good way.
The blurb let me think it was about a pack of wolves taking children - and a wolf expert who looks into things. I did expect it to be grim and bloody, but not the way it was.
First of, the wolves had hardly a big part - they felt more like the backdrop in a theater.
Then the characters were just so unbelievable and unlikable. All of them. Instead of a "sciency" thriller about wolves I got to read about disturning, sick people. I get that humans are the bigger monsters than wolves. I get that there is "a wolf" in us all. But that was just over the top - and felt like gore for the sake of it - and it didn't look like a "Layman" book....
Synopsis and why I thought it just so bad:
Spoiler
The woman who murdered her child is the sister of her husband, who comes home from war and goes on a killing spree looking for her. He wants to find her first - and in order to do that he kills whomever gets in the way -including two police officers. (That would not bring way more police down onto their track surely...)His friend kills more than 10 people with a machine gun, untill he himself is killed - without any understandable reason, besides describing the gore in detail.
When the husband finally finds his sister - he has sex with the woman who murdered his son, and flees with her into the tundra, where they live in an old hunting iglo their father had built years back, where they live "happily ever after" with her being pregnant again (sure, this time it will work out better - away from civilization...), and the whole village helps them, by not speaking with the police, letting the body of an old lady who fell victim to the husband dissappear and bringing them tools to build a new, bigger iglo.
BTW - the wolves are almost starved - that's why they took those two children who vanished first - but the husband of course finds enough food to feed them through the last month(s) of winter, with the supplies left in the iglo years before, and a pack or two left by their mother and what he can hunt....
I have no idea what the point of the book should be, or how I should feel now - really I just think "Okaaayyyyy...?" and that's that.
One star for Alaska and the descriptions of the cold, the snow and how to live there.
Otherwise the only good thing I could find was that is really short....