skygiants | (no subject)

Laura's Wolf is a werewolf romance novel written by a friend, so I am not a hundred percent objective in this review; on the other hand I am generally a super hard sell on werewolf romance tropes (alphas! obligatory pack dominance dynamics! UGH WHY) so perhaps this balances out my partiality?

Anyway: I enjoyed it a lot! Excellent airplane read, except for the part when we hit turbulence and I could not stop myself from thinking, "well, if this plane crashes and I am found with a Kindle frozen to a werewolf sex scene clutched in my cold dead hands, I suppose that will be some kind of karmic justice for my life as I have chosen to lead it."

Laura's Wolf, first in the series WEREWOLF MARINES (does what it says on the tin!) is about a werewolf veteran named Roy with PTSD and an ex-con-artist named Laura with different PTSD. When Laura meets Roy, he is on the run from a shady government agency, has been homeless for a few months, and is living in her dad's garage cabin.

LAURA: So ... you're a werewolf. Any ... irresistible compulsions to bay at the moon or go savage young ladies in the woods at night ....?
ROY: Actually, the biggest problem right now is that I don't seem to be able to tolerate bright lights and loud noises and light-up screens anymore, which makes me SUPER UNEMPLOYABLE. :(

I loved this! I love that the werewolf stuff is as much about disability and access concerns as it is about magic werewolf superpowers, and is really well tied into Roy's PTSD and the fact that reintegrating into civilian life was always going to be hard anyway, werewolf stuff or not. (There are definitely some magic werewolf superpowers involved too, of course.)

In general I enjoy the majority of the werewolf mythology stuff in the novel, which is clearly chosen to emphasize TEAMS and FRIENDSHIP and AVOID SKETCHY GENDER STUFF LIKE THE PLAGUE. I feel like it's been so long since I've read a werewolf story that didn't instantly put my hackles up! And I like the relationship, which as it builds becomes very much about mutual liking and respect and earned trust.

In fact I only have two real quibbles. The first is just generally a frequent romance novel quibble of mine, which is the thing with INSTANT SUPER MEGA ATTRACTION BETWEEN TWO HOT PEOPLE. (Laura is plus-sized and therefore less conventionally hot to outside eyes perhaps -- which is a fact I appreciate, by the way! -- but the first time Roy sees her he is still like "OH WOW WHAT A HOTTIE I WISH WE COULD MAKE OUT RIGHT AWAY," so the point still stands.) But this is such a requirement of the genre that I can't really complain about it, even though my personal preference is ALWAYS for romance where the participants first look at their Designated Love Interest and are like "...uh, they're OK, I guess?"

The only other thing is that -- with apologies to the author -- I just cannot believe that any human being naturally smells like lemon meringue pie.

Crossposts: http://bookelfe.livejournal.com/377185.html

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

aberration

I just want to say re: planes I'm happy to know other people think this way, because now that you can have electronic devices on as the plane's landing I've had thoughts like "okay if I'm going to die listening to a song on my phone it probably shouldn't be this one."

From:

skygiants

"CALL ME MAYBE." YES. IT'S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN.

From:

aberration

IT'S GOIN' DOWN- nopenopenope

From:

rmc28

Heh. I read this recently too, and I really enjoyed it (so much so I read it AGAIN a few weeks later, which I only do with stuff I genuinely enjoy). I don't know who the author is, but you're the second person I follow on dreamwidth to mention knowing who they are, so maybe they are an unknown known ...

The first person was the one who prompted me to buy it, saying "I don't normally like werewolf romances, but this one was by a friend and good", and as I do have a soft spot for werewolf romances even with their dodgy tropes, I was like GIMME NOW.

I wanted to like that Laura was supposedly plus-sized. But as Roy didn't seem to notice, I found her angsting about her body triggered the same irritated reaction as the way certain women I know go on and on and on about their terrible fatness while being far thinner than me.

I did really like the disability and access and reacclimation to civilian life concerns, and what felt like realistic post-war trauma rather than the usual romance trope of slightly manpainy ex-SEAL whose problems are all solved when he finds the Right Woman. I liked that love didn't solve all.

I really liked that the book didn't end with the defeat of the Big Bad in usual Big Climax To Story way, but went on to show people reacting to that defeat and their own actions in it.

I'm very much looking forward to the next instalment.

From:

skygiants

I am not surprised but glad to hear it also works well for people who do generally love werewolf romances! I think it does a good job keeping the fun id bits of the tropes and ditching the awful ones.

I also suuuuper liked that love did not solve all, and that the fact that they were part of a supernatural world now did not mean that they did not also have to live in the real world! PEOPLE STILL NEED JOBS. And, like, apartments. And happy werewolf communes are not a great solution for everyone. I'm looking forward to the next one, too!

From:

rmc28

In case you missed it, the next book is now out. It's called Prisoner, and it's the first of a trilogy about Roy's friend DJ, and it is FREE on Amazon at the moment, and I inhaled it last night and this morning and it is BETTER than Laura's Wolf.

Also I linked to this review of yours in my boosting of both books because I haven't got around to writing one of my own :-)

From:

skygiants

Yes! I just read it and really liked it, so I'll be reviewing it sometime soon. :)

From:

kate_nepveu

I got stuck on the instant lust, mostly the way it was described; I'll go back when I'm feeling more in the mood to write that off as genre furniture.

From:

skygiants

"Genre furniture" is I think a good way to describe it.

From:

minutia_r

I feel like it's been so long since I've read a werewolf story that didn't instantly put my hackles up!

I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE

From:

skygiants

HAHAHAHA THAT WASN'T EVEN ON PURPOSE

From:

genarti

HAHAHAHA I WAS WONDERING IF IT WAS.

From:

skygiants

Subconscious brilliance, is what it was.

From:

kaberett

ADDED TO TO-READ LIST.

From:

skygiants

:D I hope you enjoy it!

From:

lacewood

This sounds fun, is it only available in ebook? That's all Amazon/Google have been able to give me.

And haha yes, I wish insta-lust wasn't such a romance genre requirement. I mean, it's okay sometimes! But when it's every single time... some variety would be nice, guys? Maybe some of us have... slightly different IDs/kinks that would also like to be catered to...? :

From:

kate_nepveu

Yes, ebook only.

From:

lacewood

Thanks for the heads up! Sadly Amazon won't sell the ebook to my region, so I guess I won't be able to check this out, sigh.

From:

kate_nepveu

Ugh, bummer.

From:

genarti

My understanding is that the way she published it means it's up exclusively on Amazon for the first three months, but after that the ebook will go up on other platforms. I couldn't tell you where or precisely when, though.

From:

skygiants

I KNOW. I am always so happy when I get romantic narratives about average or kinda funny-lookin' people ... I mean, I'm sure overwhelming insta-lust does happen to some people, but it's so much less interesting!

From:

luzula

Ha, your reaction to this book was very similar to mine! I, too, am not a fan of instant super-hot attraction (but I enjoyed that the werewolf bits were not about sketchy dominance stuff).

But I almost never read romance books so I don't really know the tropes of the genre. In fact, the last romance book I read was Cotillion about a year ago, which I adored and which very much did not do the instant attraction thing.

Edited Date: 2014-04-23 09:14 am (UTC)

From:

skygiants

I've read more romance in the past couple years than I ever did previously -- curious about the genre, and, I mean, it's interesting! I've started to think of it almost like strict-form poetry; the tropes/rules/conventions are much more restrictive than in any other genre, so it's interesting to see how people work around them and when and where they decide to break them.

COTILLION AND ITS UTTER LACK OF INSTA-ROMANCE ARE SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS.