The Wolves of Winter

No, no, and no.

The writing is borderline unbearable, the dialogue is awful, the main character's voice is unconvincing. Τhe premise of the book is laughably bad. Overdone, and possibly offensive towards half the countries of our world. I mean, Dystopia has been done to death. Let's get over it and move on.

3.5 stars
This review can also be found on my blog.

I tend to enjoy plague dystopians, but this one was a little different in that it didn't really focus on the illness itself. It did feel a little different, a little more realistic than most: the “end of the world” really came through a culmination of believable factors rather than one big bad thing. The Wolves of Winter follows one family who has escaped to the great white north in the aftermath of society's downfall. They are almost entirely cut off from humanity, and live like survivalists until the day a Mysterious Stranger happens by.

Snow is the quietest kind of weather.

As much as I enjoyed this, a lot of it was a bit heavy-handed. The twists are hinted to generously, and are easy to see coming. Lynn's grief for her father felt overdone and less than genuine. It certainly had its place, but I often felt more annoyed by the repeated references to his death rather than feeling sympathetic or saddened. Aside from Lynn, her parents, and Jeryl, the other characters all sort of blurred together for me. Jax, Ramsay, and Ken didn't feel like they had much in the way of personality other than just being men – Jax was really only easy to tell apart as the outsider.

My stomach stirred like I was hungry. But I wasn't hungry. I didn't like the feeling.

I will say that I did like Lynn, but she was sort of the stereotypical one-of-the-boys-and-stubborn-as-nails heroine. My favorite character was probably Jeryl, just because he felt the most lifelike. Thinking about it, though, pretty much all the characters were kind of stereotypes in their own way. The plot itself is also kind of formulaic and I didn't really end up getting caught by surprise much, although I wasn't able to predict all of the details and thus was interested in finding out “the truth” alongside Lynn.

“And nothing can happen more beautiful than death,” Walt Whitman says. Fucking liar.

Overall: this wasn't anything groundbreaking, but it was a fun read and I wouldn't be opposed to picking up more by this author!

First off, I love this cover. Second, I am somewhat amused that Canadian dystopias always blame the US for the end of the world. It's always, always, because the US decided to be stupid. I can't blame them. It's perfectly realistic. But it is slightly amusing. In the case of The Wolves of Winter, the US carried its War on Terror too far and started nuclear war. It's unclear how widespread the nuclear winter is; the book is based in the Canadian Yukon where it's already cold. There's a brief mention of farmers farther south, so there is still some warmth somewhere. What really did humanity in, though, was the Asian flu. There's rumor that it was a biological weapon deployed by the US, that then escaped their control, but no one's really sure.

Lynn - Gwendolynn - lives in a small compound in the Yukon with her mother, brother, uncle, and uncle's ward. (The son of his best friend - I'm inclined to believe he's actually the son of the uncle's lover, but nothing was actually verified.) The only other human they've seen in years is their scumbag neighbor who occasionally steals deer out of Lynn's traps.

Until one day, while out hunting, Lynn comes across the mysterious Jax and his husky, Wolf. She brings him home for food and to tend his wound, and while her family is initially very wary of him, he starts to fit in. And then, of course, the brown stuff hits the fan.

I really enjoyed Lynn and her family. In flashbacks we see them before the flu, before they had to be survivors. I got the feeling her father always saw this coming, and was preparing her for it long before it actually happened. Lynn's memories of her father are particularly vivid and help to explain exactly how she's become who she is now.

I really enjoyed this book and read it in a single sitting, but I really like dystopias and winter settings. Ultimately, it's a pretty average nuclear winter dystopia.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.