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Hannah Whitten brought out For the Wolf, a mid-fantasy/romance in 2021. This is the first book in the series. It has been well received by the mass market community and publicized enough to get a lot of readers.
Having read a Court of Thorns and Roses recently, the similarities in structure and content was a bit much. Then again, having been written like a Beauty and the Beast retelling (but with a Red Riding Hood toss in) what can you actually hope for? Sometimes you just want a good B&B retelling, and that’s enough.
If it doesn’t sound like I’m enamored with the book, don’t get me wrong. I really did enjoy the read. The editing was done well. The sentence structure, cadence, and vocabulary were what I would expect from a 2020s author writing for an adult audience raised on young adult literature. The pacing felt like an editor had taken a strict hand to it and defined it down to word count rather than clarity – which is par for the course at this point with mid-fantasy novels.
Maybe my issue comes from the side characters not having enough screen to develop them into actual beings rather than tokens. Is that too much to be disappointed with a book? Maybe. I just wish there had been about four chapters interspersed throughout to help really develop more info on the two main side characters.
The interactions between the MC and the LI and the depth of the world build to me were more interesting than the MC’s sister’s arc. I got through maybe three of her chapters and then just didn’t care and started speed reading those sections. I wanted more of the woods and more of how that worked. Of the MC and LI interacting together and really developing a complex relationship. It instead really read more like a piece written up as a concept screenplay for a PG13 HBO production.
I would say if you liked ACOTAR then you really will enjoy this series. For me, I don’t really have much interest in reading the next book in the series. I don’t mind that I bought the Kobo edition for a couple bucks on some kind of sale. I don’t think that was a bad deal. It just might be something I have to be more aware of as I pick and choose stories to read from here on out. It isn’t fair to authors to review a book poorly only because I didn’t care for the storyline at a personal level. Objectively, the story worked. I’d say if you want a read that doesn’t require heavy emotional work, then it would make for a nice weekend.
Books in the Cottage 