Early Review – Wolfsong (Green Creek, Book 1) by T.J. Klune (4/5 stars)
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Paranormal
Length: 528 pages
Publisher: Tor Books
Release Date: July 4, 2023
ASIN: B0BBCJ3VCV
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Green Creek series
Source: eGalley through NetGalley for review
Rating: 4/5 stars
“Oxnard Matheson was twelve when his father taught him a lesson: Ox wasn’t worth anything and people would never understand him. Then his father left.
Ox was sixteen when the energetic Bennett family moved in next door, harboring a secret that would change him forever. The Bennetts are shapeshifters. They can transform into wolves at will. Drawn to their magic, loyalty, and enduring friendships, Ox feels a gulf between this extraordinary new world and the quiet life he’s known, but he finds an ally in Joe, the youngest Bennett boy.
Ox was twenty-three when murder came to town and tore a hole in his heart. Violence flared, tragedy split the pack, and Joe left town, leaving Ox behind. Three years later, the boy is back. Except now he’s a man – charming, handsome, but haunted – and Ox can no longer ignore the song that howls between them.
The beloved fantasy romance sensation by New York Times bestselling author TJ Klune, about love, loyalty, betrayal, and family.”
Series Info/Source: This is the first book in the Green Creek series. I got an eGalley of this through NetGalley to review.
Thoughts: I really loved the first part of this book, thought the middle was slow, but enjoyed the ending. Prior to read this I had read a number of Klune’s other books. I really loved “The House in the Cerulean Sea”, “Under the Whispering Door”, and “The Lightning-Struck Heart”. I liked, but didn’t love, “In the Lives of Puppets”. I have not read his The Extraordinaries series. For some reason I had no idea that the Green Creek series existed until I saw it up for review on NetGalley.
This story is told from Ox’s POV. Ox is a bit slow and has had a tough upbringing, but all that changes when the Bennett family moves in next door and Joe (the youngest Bennet) chooses Ox as his. Ox doesn’t know that the Bennetts are shapeshifters but he does know he is finally finding the family he never knew he needed. Years pass, Ox’s feelings towards Joe start to become more, then violence strikes and Joe leaves town…leaving Ox to protect the territory and fight through trouble that plagues Green Creek…that is until Joe comes back.
I really loved the beginning of this book. Ox is a bit slow and the story is told in a very lyrical but stylistic way that echos Ox thinking. We find that it’s not really that Ox is slow, he just thinks through things a bit differently than others. I enjoyed the writing style and found it very engaging and unique. There is a ton of humor as well, which had me laughing out loud numerous times. In fact I really enjoyed a lot about this book until Joe leaves. Then things just slow down a lot. There are some good action scenes but you really feel the loneliness and ennui that Ox is experiencing and it went on for too long for the reader. It just gets too serious and too slow.
Things pick up again once Joe returns and I enjoyed watching Ox, Joe, and Joe’s family navigate through all the of the issues that were created both by Joe’s leaving and by the evil werewolf and mage Joe is trying to hunt down.
I know that there have been complaints about the weirdness in the age gap between Ox and Joe. The age gap is really only 5 years, which isn’t that big. The fact that Joe identifies Ox as his true love at the age of 10 is a bit weird, but not that weird considering the supernatural/paranormal aspects involved. Additionally, they end up being just very close trusting friends at this point. A point is made that Ox is a bit developmentally slow and Joe has had to grow up way too fast, so that evens the mental playing field some. Also, Ox and Joe aren’t romantically involved until Joe is in his upper teens and Ox is in his low 20’s. Even then it’s mostly fooling around and not anything beyond kissing. They don’t really get serious until both characters are in their 20’s…so I guess I don’t see the issue here. I mean my grandparents were 10 years apart in age and they did fine…5 years is nothing.
My biggest issue with the book was how much re-hashing of emotions there are throughout the story; this needs some editing to take out a lot of repetitive angsting over the same issues again and again. This book is a couple hundred pages longer than it actually needs to be. I ended up skimming a lot of parts where Ox was rehashing the same issues over and over in his head. Additionally, a lot of the plot hinges on the fact that Joe leaves, and Joe’s decision to leave seemed a bit contrived to me and never made sense.
I did enjoy the complex characters and the way Ox finds a new family with the Bennetts. I also enjoyed Ox’s friendship with the local car mechanics. The different aspects around the Alpha magic were very intriguing and the issues this created when Joe returned were also well done. This is definitely an adult book, there is gruesome violence and very detailed male/male sex scenes in here. Will I read the rest of the series? Not sure right now. I liked a lot of this but also felt like it was just too wordy and repetitive at points.
My Summary (4/5): Overall I enjoyed most of this book but thought the middle portion was too slow and depressing. The beginning of the book was fantastic with a lot of humor, intriguing characters, and a unique writing style that was engaging and fun to read. The book then got too serious and slow for me. There are some great action scenes in here and I enjoyed the plot around the evil werewolf/mage. I also really enjoyed the Bennett family and how they interacted with each other. I would recommend this to paranormal/werewolf story fans who don’t mind a romance heavy story with some very explicit male/male sex. I am on the fence about whether or not I want to continue it.
