Rylie didn’t want to go to camp. She’s a city lover at
heart and she doesn’t want anything to do with her and the great outdoors.
Especially not when her parents are just getting rid of her so they can arrange
their divorce
But even she didn’t imagine of the threats of nature
would be being bitten by a werewolf.
Now she is slowly transforming, her appetites, her anger –
and that’s without the moon rising. She has 3 months to find a way to stop it,
or she’ll be a monster for life.
I am torn. On the one hand I have to applaud how very
human Rylie is – and not just Rylie, everyone. She’s a teenaged girl going through
some terrible times with her family and has been dumped in summer camp,
basically to get rid of her while her parents try to sort through their lives.
In addition to resenting being kicked off to the middle of nowhere, Rylie is an
urbanite. She doesn’t like the countryside, not even a little.
Rylie is not a happy young woman. On top of that she’s also turning into a
werewolf which comes with its own set of complications and problems
And it shows – she’s a surly teenager who is kind of
surly. This generally leaves me jumping between two stances: irritated with
Rylie because she’s not perfect, she’s angry and she doesn’t always act
perfectly because of it. Or angry with the people around Rylie for the somtimes
unfair way they treat her, because they’re also not perfect and they’re
generally trying (especially the camp counsellor).
I have to say that neither stances nor the story makes me
especially particularly like her but that’s not a criticism on the character.
She is a very real character, a very human character and, like many people who
are going through a difficult time, she’s not especially likeable. And that’s
fine – she’s is a very good character with interesting points and character
growth. And it’s her very normal humanity that makes her slow transition into becoming
a werewolf and all that means all the more powerful and meaningful.
I can’t say the same for the development of any other
character, sadly. This is a book that is very focused on Rylie but there’s no
connection or real humanisation of anyone else. The figures at camp are pretty
much small parts. She has a guide to the ways of the werewolf in the guise of
Seth – but all he is his the uber-hot purveyor of arcane knowledge. There’s a
sinister guy who is sinister and an ending that should be really twisting and
surprising but fails to be because none of these characters were developed in a
meaningful manner. Ending with “Oh look X is a werewolf!” isn’t all that
shocking or surprising or meaningful because I know next to nothing about X and
have been given no real reason to care about them.
I think the biggest hole in this book is the treatment of
women which is just plain awful. I think it stands out all the more because Rylie
is such a real character, imperfect but good, trying her best but sometimes
falling shirt and is generally very relatable. There are two other female
characters in the book who aren’t terrible – but end up with a terrible fate or
being terrible so the whole not making them awful people feels less like
character development but more to try and make their endings shocking or a
twist or meaningful. Other than that we have a full posse of Mean Girls who are
just ridiculously awful and Rylie’s mother who exists repeatedly for Rylie to
say how much she prefers her dad. On top of that Rylie makes a point that all
her friends are male because of the terrible terribleness that is the female
gender and we have a cameo appearance by one of Rylie’s friends girlfriends
(and girlfriends are treated as threats on par with a zombie apocalypse) who is
a complete caricature of awful. It’s a parade of awfulness, sadly.
Inclusion wise, Seth is a Black man and probably the
second most prominent character after Rylie. He isn’t exactly well developed
but I don’t think anyone is. There’s also a brief appearance by Seth’s brother,
Able. There are no LGBT characters
I find myself divided on this book. When telling the
story of Rylie, her emotions, her slow change into a werewolf, the changes in
her as she grows and changes- that’s an
excellent story with an excellent and very real character. That is a good
story. But once you involve any of the other characters it all becomes a little
shaky – the interactions are all a little convoluted or contrived or just cliché
and the characters pretty much cardboard cut outs. And, sadly, the plot beyond
Rylie’s change pretty much evolves around other werewolves and werewolf hunters
which really need those other characters to matter
This book introduced Rylie and that was clearly the
purpose – but she’s the only technicolour character surrounded by a monochrome
setting and greyscale secondary characters.
