Happy New Year from Colorado! In celebration, it’s time for another SPFBO review!
Lago was only a child when the shapeshifter entrusted the wolf-like mask to his care—an artifact so powerful that it could come to shape the entire world of Noss.
Now that he is coming of age, Lago is becoming ever more fearful of the ominous relic’s influence, of the empire who has scented its trail and is coming after it. Coming after him.
Aided by his best friend, an enigmatic scout, and his trusty dog, Lago seeks refuge in the vastness of the Heartpine Dome. The eighty-mile-wide structure had remained sealed for centuries, safeguarding more than mere secrets. Now that the dome’s entrails are stirring, the mysteries of the long-vanished Miscam tribes are coming to light, and the shapeshifting animal spirits are making their return.
Powers untold hide behind the blinkless eyeholes of the canid mask, powers that could tip the balance in the war. Lago is barely beginning to learn how to wield the dark visage, but he can already feel its potential.
… And he can feel a different change coming, deep in his marrow.
The Wolf of Withervale is the story of Lago. At the beginning of the book, Lago is 12… ish? He and his best friend Alaia are somewhat like outcasts in their home of Withervale. Alaia is of a race of people who grow spurs, like little nubs all over their bodies. They are widely shunned, and are basically the lowest caste, and just short of slaves. Alaia embraces the nub on her forehead rather than try and cover it up. Lago paints his nails and likes boys, which is just as abhorred as it is in parts of our own world. His dad kicks him out, and Lago is left to fend for himself, so he moves in with Alaia. One day, Lago and Alaia come into the possession of a strange wolf mask. When strange and creepy people come to Withervale asking about it, they hide it, and forget about it, until 7 years later, when the baddies come looking for it.
They (now in their late teens) take the mask and run, meeting new people and going on an adventure to keep the powerful wolf mask away from the evil empire that is after it.
Okay, there is a lot to say about this book. I didn’t not like it, but this was a tough one in the end, because this book wasn’t really written for me. I’ll expand on that in a bit.
First of all, it should be noted that this book has beautiful illustrations (also by the author) and the author made up an entire language for it. So, despite anything that didn’t work for me with it, I appreciate the work that obviously went into its creation.
I started out by listening to the audiobook, which was fine for the first quarter or so. I never really got into the narrator, and I decided to physically read the book instead. That went a little better.
My biggest problem with this book was that it shifted gears entirely at about 50% and in doing so it completely slammed the brakes on, in a way that was really off-putting for me (but may not be for others). This is not a short book, and the latter half of it read so slowly to me that it took five times the time it took to read the first half.
So, we start out with Alaia and Lago finding a mask, and then them growing up and living together for a bit, and then we have a time skip of 6 or 7 years and the bad empire is after them because they want the mask. Lago starts wearing the mask and finds out that he can see the universe in a different way. Like he can see energies and magic and things like that. They run away from Withervale and manage to get into one of the sealed domes that are found around the world. These are somewhat like large terrariums. They have their own ecosystems and flora and fauna. In the dome, they meet some new people who join them on their adventure, but the baddies start to catch up to them. From there they go north into the mountains, where they appear to lose the people chasing them, and they meet Banook, a very large man who lives alone in the mountains and who happens to be a bear shapeshifter.
For each… genus I suppose, there is a mask, and on top of that there is a ‘Nu’irg’ of each, which is somewhat like an Elder. Banook is the Nu’irg of the bears. He’s basically immortal, as long as he stays near the bears. He’s been around for thousands of years.
So, when our intrepid adventurers meet Banook, this book’s pacing comes to a screeching halt, which is the biggest problem I had with The Wolf of Withervale overall. We also start an obvious romance between Lago and Banook. You see, it’s pointed out that Lago is into big dudes several times throughout. The word ‘belly’ is used so many times in this book that my eyes started to roll every time. So, when we meet Banook and he is described as a nearly nine-foot tall man with a plump belly, well… that left no surprise to me where this was going.
So, most of the rest of the book from this point is about the romance between Lago and Banook. Banook teaches Lago to shapeshift with the mask, into a half-wolf form that they name Sterjall, which replaces ‘Lago’ for most of the rest of the book. The other characters fall into the background, the adventure becomes secondary. It’s pretty much all about how Banook and Lago fall in love, which is whatever. Lago is eighteen or twenty or so, and Banook is literally thousands of years old. Again, that’s whatever. Vampire or werewolf or whatever romances do this shit all the time. But here we have Banook picking Lago up and putting him on his lap and calling him ‘cub’ like a child. That’s where my brain record-scratched to no thank you land.
But y’all, what a lot of people who aren’t familiar don’t realize is that this is a totally normal trope in gay culture. Like, Banook is a bear. Literally (and figuratively) a fucking Bear, lol. And Lago is the cub. This just means he is the smaller, more passive person in the relationship, though it does sound a bit ickier when you don’t know that, lol. I’ve spoken to other people about this one and this aspect of it was a turn-off for more than one of us, but I’ve also spoken of it to a few gay friends of mine and they were basically like ‘oh, yeah that’s pretty normal for a lot of gay men… bears and cubs, the age difference thing, the whole enchilada… also uh… wh… what was this book called?👀’
So, this romance is really geared towards gay men. I mean it’s not going to be only gay men who enjoy it, but in my experience, it’s probably more likely. It’s definitely got a furry angle too, so, you never know! Maybe you’ll like it. Maybe you won’t. You won’t know until you try, right?
All told, the plot outside the romance was good, I’d be interested in seeing where it ends up. The romance is absolutely not going to be for everyone, like I said. It was not for me, and not for Esme, but it has an audience for sure. The pacing really needs some work in my opinion. This book could have been significantly shorter and the plot could have been much tighter. All told, I’d give The Wolf of Withervale a 6.5/10 stars.
superstardrifter 