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A review by bubbleybrain
Eve by Mark Jonathan Runte
3.0
This isn't your average werewolf fiction. By average, I mean whatever Twilight and Omegaverse pumps out where you have salacious werewolves with bottomless appetites for "flesh." That's fine by me, because I'm not a fan of those types of narratives. But if you're seeing werewolves and thinking it's going to go that way, this will be the wrong book for you.
Relationships in here are abnormal, and mostly since the werewolves featured are wolves unfortunately thrust into upholding a human shape, which means a lot of what they do is clearly not human and clearly defying any type of kayfabe. This would be mostly understandable for the werewolves, less so for the people. Arden's (werewolf) main squeeze (a human) has introduced him to her mother after several months of dating, but they have nothing in common, and their communication is so crap she only finds out after he pukes in a steakhouse that he's "allergic" to garlic (also, the obsession with steakhouses...) And a lot of the side plots and even the main plot just ramble off into nothing, like they're vignettes of a story that are never explained, explored, nor quantified.
Most glaring example of being neither explained, explored, quantified... Eve, one of the sisters, was a breeding experiment. The family is sort of desperate to find her, but the pregnant 5'7" (or 5'9") blond 12 year old is considered "so unique" it would be "hard to miss her", but given girls physically mature earlier and sometimes it's hard to tell what age they are... and she's a werewolf, giving her something like heterochromia would have been an unique, actionable, and even relevant trait to have. And yes, I know some 6'1" 13 year olds. Absurdities like this on top of the trailing plots was what made this read frustrating. Then she just escapes, never explored the after, no idea how she got there, no one really cares, but "we're terrified of being caught because we're, DUN DUN DUN, Russian" bit plays so often it became comical if not outright daft. No explanation about how elusive, never-before-encountered werewolves knew their condition is basically rabies. No exploration about a population under siege by the werewolf rabies, even though it is mentioned it is sort of gleaned. Basically, this story read like it was written in "pants" ("by the seat of ones pants", aka, not planned and plotted). At some point Eve has a multiple personality disorder that's hammered in one chapter, has no relevance, and isn't brought up ever again. Just, why? Why put in something that has zero relevance to the story other than an afterthought of shock value?
There was a lot of characters, which meant most sub-plots weren't committed to and lacked the emotional edge that comes with really bonding with a scant few POVs. There's no closure because it was a bunch of sub-plots that in the end didn't tie loose ends and all went nowhere.
I liked the ideas of it. It was a much different werewolf narrative than most of what is out there. Unfortunately, the throughput on those ideas could have been concrete and better explored.
Relationships in here are abnormal, and mostly since the werewolves featured are wolves unfortunately thrust into upholding a human shape, which means a lot of what they do is clearly not human and clearly defying any type of kayfabe. This would be mostly understandable for the werewolves, less so for the people. Arden's (werewolf) main squeeze (a human) has introduced him to her mother after several months of dating, but they have nothing in common, and their communication is so crap she only finds out after he pukes in a steakhouse that he's "allergic" to garlic (also, the obsession with steakhouses...) And a lot of the side plots and even the main plot just ramble off into nothing, like they're vignettes of a story that are never explained, explored, nor quantified.
Most glaring example of being neither explained, explored, quantified... Eve, one of the sisters, was a breeding experiment. The family is sort of desperate to find her, but the pregnant 5'7" (or 5'9") blond 12 year old is considered "so unique" it would be "hard to miss her", but given girls physically mature earlier and sometimes it's hard to tell what age they are... and she's a werewolf, giving her something like heterochromia would have been an unique, actionable, and even relevant trait to have. And yes, I know some 6'1" 13 year olds. Absurdities like this on top of the trailing plots was what made this read frustrating. Then she just escapes, never explored the after, no idea how she got there, no one really cares, but "we're terrified of being caught because we're, DUN DUN DUN, Russian" bit plays so often it became comical if not outright daft. No explanation about how elusive, never-before-encountered werewolves knew their condition is basically rabies. No exploration about a population under siege by the werewolf rabies, even though it is mentioned it is sort of gleaned. Basically, this story read like it was written in "pants" ("by the seat of ones pants", aka, not planned and plotted). At some point Eve has a multiple personality disorder that's hammered in one chapter, has no relevance, and isn't brought up ever again. Just, why? Why put in something that has zero relevance to the story other than an afterthought of shock value?
There was a lot of characters, which meant most sub-plots weren't committed to and lacked the emotional edge that comes with really bonding with a scant few POVs. There's no closure because it was a bunch of sub-plots that in the end didn't tie loose ends and all went nowhere.
I liked the ideas of it. It was a much different werewolf narrative than most of what is out there. Unfortunately, the throughput on those ideas could have been concrete and better explored.