I just finished reading the 2013 novel, Little Wolves, by Thomas Maltman. After reading, I scoped out the reviews on Amazon and was completely surprised by 2 things:
- the very low number of reviews on Amazon for a book that is 3 years old (only 132 at the time of writing this post)
- all of the 4-5 star reviews
For me, this book ranks a solid 2 stars. It is full of inconsistencies that disjoint and disrupt the flow of the story, starting with the title itself. Little Wolves surprisingly has nothing to do with Wolves.
While it started out heavy with action (a murder-suicide), the momentum of the book quickly transitioned into a muddled collection of memories, flashbacks, references to Beowulf, random tall tales Clara remembered from her father, references to darker character histories that were never fully explained, random references to Werewolves and Wolf People, a broad parade of one-and-done characters who add nothing to the plot, all while limping along with the actual story. It was like a high school student’s book bag exploded and the contents of every book combined in random quantities to create Little Wolves.
Writing this review, it has become apparent that the WHO and the WHAT of this book wasn’t obviously clear. Who was the main character? Clara? Seth? Grizz? Was the book about a murder-suicide and what drove a young man to commit such a heinous crime? Was it about Clara’s search for her family history? Was it a thriller about a very messed up small town that held violent secrets that everyone knew about but kept hidden?
The extent of the secrets the characters hold is never fully fleshed out and none of the character’s stories ever fleshed out into a whole tale, not to mention the endless characters parading through this book. I couldn’t figure out why Clara’s father was obsessed with werewolf stories and keeping any information about her mother completely secret, why her husband was obsessed with seeing the Devil and what it brought to the story, why Seth did what he did, why Lee was consistently described as mentally slow but never demonstrated this trait at any point in the book, why Clara couldn’t ever find the lone mountain the city of “Lone Mountain” was named after. Little Wolves would have been a much stronger tale with fewer characters whose back stories, relationships and purpose were more clearly defined.
To give you an idea of just how muddled this book was, I kept expecting Clair to turn into a werewolf. Spoiler alert…she didn’t. Bummer. Overall, this book was a bust for me and I couldn’t strongly recommend it to anyone.
The weekend wasn’t a total HopsnLit bust, however. After trying one for the first time this weekend, I can definitely recommend a Bellini. Unlike Little Wolves which was dark, deep and violent and left me in a funky mood, Bellini’s are crisp, refreshing and light, and left me in a very cheerful disposition.
Until next time, happy reading.
Cheers!
Hops & Lit 