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Brandon M. Herbert

Auteur van Walking Wolf Road

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Walking Wolf Road (2014) 15 exemplaren

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I was given this book to review through the Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Fanatics R2R for an honest review, thank you.

Jimmy Walker’s step-father has once again uprooted the family and moved them to a small town in Colorado. Over-weight, insecure and depressed, Jimmy feels aimless and alienated from everyone. His life takes a sudden drastic turn when he is viciously bitten by a strange creature during the Full Moon.

Unexplainable transformations start to happen to Jimmy and his dreams are haunted by a white wolf. Jimmy is soon sought out by Fen a fellow student, and given information about the changes that leave Jimmy thinking Fen and Fen’s friends are crazy. But the bizarre changes happening to Jimmy aren’t stopping and he fears he is losing his sanity.



The changes that happened to Jimmy as he grew more aware of his wolf were fascinating. It happened like I imagined something like it would happen and I liked how the author went into depth and slowly revealed what was happening to Jimmy. I’d imagine the majority of people would act just like Jimmy did if they were bitten by something strange. You’d possibly think you had rabies, but then weird things start happening to all your senses, your body starts changing and to top it off some person tells you that you’re changing into a mythological creature. One you’re afraid, but don’t want to admit it. Two you’re probably in a lot of pain. Three, the bodily changes are leaving you confused about what’s happening. Four, strange people who confront you or act like they know what is going on are getting on your nerves. And five the dreams and visions make you think you’re going crazy.

Except at the start of the story, the author did a good job of indicating at the very beginning of a new paragraph if Jimmy was having a vision or dream. I had problems identifying dream or waking scenes if they weren’t spaced out with extra lines between the paragraphs or didn’t use italics. My preference is to have either a few blank lines separate something like the dreams and visions from waking life. And the author did a better job of indicating the separateness the further we get into the book. I loved the little wolf paw prints separating some sections, those were cute.

One thing I wish was that there could have been a much different tone set between the dream state and the waking state. I liked how the dream state was usually written, but I would have liked the waking state to feel more concrete, more real. We are told, rather than shown, Jimmy’s state of mind and his feelings rather than feeling them ourselves. I really wanted to get into Jimmy’s emotions, but the way the author wrote the story I was kept at a distance. I wanted to really feel Jimmy’s horror at the changes happening and his anxiety and his fears and Jimmy’s strong feelings of insecurity, of being unwanted by anyone. Instead the emotions were conveyed on an intellectual level but not at a gut or heart level. One of the times I felt strong emotion is the significant event that surrounds Fen about half way through the book. That was heart-wrenching. If the author had shown those kinds of feelings instead of telling of emotions, then this book would have been a lot better. I also felt more emotion when Jimmy found his Dad and all that happened around that time. Since I felt more emotion coming from those scenes, it makes me wonder if the author did really lose a close friend or have to ever find a ‘lost’ parent. Anyway, I think my main disappointment is the distance from Jimmy’s feelings. However the author did do a good job of describing the environment and scenery where emotion wasn’t necessary. Not overly done or under-described.

The relationship between Jimmy and his younger brother Jacob, or Jake, is very touching and heartwarming. The author did a good job of showing us how close the two brothers were and how protective of Jimmy is of Jake.

What I found interesting was that the author gradually revealed to us that Jimmy was bisexual. He had feelings for both Fen and Loki. I don’t think I’ve read a YA book before where a teenage guy realized he was bisexual. I was surprised and happy the author brought it up in the story. It wasn’t made a big deal, but the fact that Jimmy was in love with two of his pack mates plays an important part of the story.

The author slowly reveals to us the history of werewolves and what it means to be a werewolf through the dreams, visions and through the teachings of Fen. Fen is intelligent, but also closed off. We slowly learn more about him throughout the book. In the end, I felt sorry for Fen, he was a wolf that had lost his way and was handling things the best that he knew how.

Jimmy’s other two pack mates are Loki, the Beta and Geri, the Omega. Of course there is the high school bully, Jack and his sidekicks Malcolm and Bo. The author did a good job of showing us the personalities of the other characters through Jimmy’s eyes. We eventually meet more people tied to Jimmy’s biological father’s side that help Jimmy grow further on his journey. The characters in the story were not perfect, everyone was flawed, but most of the characters grew and some regressed. The character development was well done.

Walking Wolf Road was filled with the mythology of werewolves, Shamanism, and philosophy. All of this hit exactly the right spot for me. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Even though the background of the book was centered around high school, it wasn’t really about high school, it went beyond that. I suppose the story could end where it did, but there are some lines that indicate that the story could continue on. I for one would be very happy to be pulled back into this world again. My only complaint is that I’d like to have the feelings shown more, rather than told. I’d really like to feel what Jimmy feels. I would like to give this book, 5 stars, but because of this one major issue about the book, I can only give 4 stars. However, I’d recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a YA paranormal book laden with unique wolf mythology and spiritualism and has a male MC who is not overly whiny. This is a book that I would read again and I would read a sequel if the author ever decided to write one.


… (meer)
 
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Penumbra1 | Oct 11, 2022 |

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Werken
1
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15
Populariteit
#708,120
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½ 4.7
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1
ISBNs
3