Thomas F. (hardtack) - , reviewed on 7/20/2023 + 2574 more book reviews

As a dog lover, and someone who has been fascinated by wolves since an early age, I found this book disappointing. I expected it to be about the wolf which became the first dog. Instead it was mostly about the relationships between people in three different "tribes."

I have never met such a group of people who manipulated each other for their own purposes, cheated on their spouse, forced members of the tribe to marry people they didn't love, killed each other---within the same tribe, practiced cannibalism, fratricide, matricide... well the list goes on. Even some of the "good" people participated in the above. It makes me wonder how this so-called human race ever survived past the stone age. And I'm not even talking about the tribe that hunted and killed members of the other tribes for fun.

So the wolves have only a minor role in this 500+ page book.

Then the author has different headings for paragraphs such as "Year Nineteen," "Year Four," Year One, etc. Maybe he'd thought the reader would catch on quickly. I didn't realize he was jumping around in time until at least 1/3 of the way through the book. So I found it confusing.

In the "Afterword" the author admits he didn't know how people of this time would talk and apologizes for his confused efforts at their speech. Frankly, I was amazed at their knowledge of the English language and expected them to start discussing Darwin's Theory of Evolution. (Obviously, that is a hyperbole.) But I found it amazing women knew words like "oblivious," while the male tribe leader had to think before coming up with the word "thing." However, I bet some of the ladies reading this will think "what's so strange about that?" :-)

In any case, the ending was too rushed and left several threads hanging, making me think the author either hoped for a sequel or just ran out of patience with the book.

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