Wolfsong by TJ Klune and The Trouble With Werewolf Books

Here’s the thing: Werewolves are probably one of my favorite mythical creatures, but finding werewolf books that are not icky is so, so hard. Usually there’s a growly alpha (or two) who won’t let the main girl do a thing, and the main girl’s entire personality is either senseless brat or poor little itty bitty maiden. There’s an excessive amount of body liquids and just…sniffing. 

None of that is what I’m looking for in werewolf stories. I love the found family, the silliness and goofiness, and yes, maybe a little bit of that protectiveness and possessiveness, sure, but mainly it’s the devotion, loyalty, plus with the ability to “sense” someone’s emotions, maybe some healthy relationships, no? Apparently not.

And after some googling, I found a recommendation for Wolfsong on reddit, which, if you didn’t know, is a pretty good place for weirdly specific recs. I’ve heard of TJ Klune before, but was never really interested in their books because, well… look, it’s not like I’m vehemently against cozy books, but if I see one recommended as that too many times, I might not read it. Cozy usually means boring (in my experience!), and I find the type of coziness I like in a wide variety of books (ehm, Asunder, *cough* read it *cough*).

But anyway, I checked out the free sample of Wolfsong and I absolutely loved it. From the writing style, to the main character, I was itching to read the whole thing immediately. So I bought the book. 

This story is about Ox, whose father left when he was around twelve and was in general a pretty awful man. Ox lives a normal life after that, helped along by his mother and a kindly but gruff mechanic and his crew. And then a family moves into the house at the end of his street, and their youngest member, Joe, gets obsessed with Ox. They all practically adopt him and his mother, and later it turns out they’re werewolves, and that Joe is actually his mate. Everything is great for a few years, but then tragedy strikes, Joe has to leave, and Ox is left to pick up the pieces for three years before Joe finally returns. 

(All of this is in the official synopsis, by the way, and you would expect it to be just background info, but it makes up for like 60 to 70% of the book.)

And for the first, I don’t know, maybe 30 to 40%, I loved it! I loved it so much that I looked up fan art, and where I could buy the physical copies of the whole series. 

But then after (spoiler?) Ox’s mom and Thomas get killed, everything starts being so repetitive. Ox has the same conversation with every single character (and there are many) several times. And I understand that in real life, we do need to talk things out ad nauseam sometimes, because that’s how we work, and that’s how we process things, but in a book everything should be in the service of telling a good, coherent story. Repeating conversations (even line for line sometimes) is equal to showing the reader every time the characters go to the bathroom or brush their teeth. It’s boring and unnecessary. 

It doesn’t help that the writing style in itself is quite repetitive as well, which isn’t noticeable until that point, but then quickly becomes the only thing you can focus on. It’s stuff like this: 

“I heard a noise. A loud noise. A noise that I could not ignore. A noise that was blue and yellow. A noise that said packpackpack.”

Or things like: 

“I’ll finish him off. 

Later. 

Maybe. 

If I’m feeling generous. If my anger becomes… less. 

For now, though. 

For now I will leave him. 

Laying there. 

In the dirt. 

Like trash. 

Which he already is anyway.”

And yes, there’s a line break after every sentence. 

To me, this sort of prose reads very much like what I used to write at 16, 17, the type of stuff I thought sounded deep. The further you go into the book, the worse it gets. Especially when our main character, Ox, is in his feels or when he becomes Alpha. 

In dialogue, everyone talks pretty much the same, in these dramatic, choppy sentences. And the dialogue is tagged mostly as: “Kelly said: “blablabla”. Carter said: “blablabla”. I said…” you can see where this is going. I don’t mind this type of writing as a rule, but you cannot overuse any literary device, otherwise it becomes jarringly repetitive. 

For example, the choppy sentences are great for emphasis, “zooming in”, etcetera! But not if you use them every single sentence, every single page, even for things that don’t need to be emphasised. Everything in moderation — this makes for a fun, dynamic read that is poetic when it needs to be, but where prose is barely noticeable when it doesn’t. 

There’s also the age gap, which just has to be mentioned, no matter how you justify it. When Ox and Joe meet, Joe is 10 and Ox is 16 (!). And sure, they don’t start anything until Joe is 17-almost-18, and Ox is a kind person without a predatory bone in his body, but it’s still so completely unnecessary and it feels wrong that 10 year old Joe is in love with Ox and actively jealous of Ox’s girlfriends/hookups. And Ox, even though he doesn’t feel the same way, still prioritizes Joe over all of his partners, always. 

Like at one point, Ox hooks up with a dude in a bathroom, and then actively showers several times so Joe doesn’t realize what happened. Does that not seem like he feels he cheated on Joe, even if he doesn’t realize? And the whole family treats this as normal!

Ox could have just as easily been with Carter or Kelly (Joe’s older brothers, same age as Ox) or Joe could have been older, even a little bit. If you want to keep Carter the same age as Ox, fine, then Kelly could have been 15, and Joe could have been 14 — still better. But Joe is a child and Ox is a teenager, it feels so wrong. (and don’t even start with “oh, they’re werewolves, it’s different, not the same as humans, lalalala”, I don’t want to hear it).

Other than that, the Bennet family did appear, at times, to be very cult-like. Like all “inner circles” (*cough* ACOTAR), the characters didn’t trust anyone outside of “family/pack”, not even to accept help, they believed they were the only ones in the right and that anyone who doesn’t enthusiastically agree with them is their enemy. 

And while I liked some things about the “pack” — how they all liked touching and physical contact, how friendly and warm they were to each other, especially since most of them were men — the culty aspects of the book along with the prose are ultimately why I wouldn’t continue this series. I really thought I would, even when issues began, at least as a comfort read, but I don’t think so. 

But, all that said, I think this would be a great book for someone out there. If you like werewolves, cozy stories with a bit of angst, found family, people just being understanding and kind to each other, then you’ll like this, at least a little. 

It’s also a series, with each Bennet brother and one more character getting their own books, and all of it is wonderfully queer, so you have to give this book points for that. I’m almost tempted to read Carter’s book, just because I loved his character, but I guess we’ll see.

Do you have any wolfy book recommendations? What are your favorites? Let me know in the comments below!

Happy reading!