A review by sararmn
The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper

5.0

Stories have power whether we believe them or not.

"We only have life, nothing else matters beyond that," she says. "Not honour, not anything."

"When you see a bird flying," she says, "that moment when it chooses to swoop lower or soar higher, when there's nothing but air stopping it, that's what freedom feels like."

Amara looks at the crowd, at the faces watching her. It is a power she has never felt before, this sense that she might shape the expectations of others, hold their desires in check, or release them.

She is not ashamed of her body the way she would have felt ashamed of her clothes.

"You get used to having nothing, don't you? And then suddenly to have something, to feel something, it's..." She trails off.

"It's happy-sad?" 

"Yes, because nothing belongs to you, not even the happiness."

She tells herself it is easier not to want, not to feel. When you cannot make your own choices, what good is wanting anything, or anyone?

"When you cannot be with someone, is it worth the pain, pretending it's any different?"

She lives with the knowledge that he could tear her life apart on a whim, while she could do him no more damage than a pebble dropped in a pond.

"Just because you have been generous enough to allow me a choice, doesn't mean anyone else has."

"Behaving like a shit isn't going to make your life any easier," she says.

When you are dead, you are nothing.