The Tenderness of Wolves
Apr. 14th, 2023 01:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearI had heard of The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney but knew nothing about it before I started reading it. And it's kind of a literary murder mystery, set in Canada in 1867, and involving 11 different POV characters, who are all variously embroiled in the death of a trapper in a remote village.
There was a quote in the front from someone who said they fell in love with the novel within the first 50 pages - at about page 40, I wasn't sure, but by page 50, I was indeed hooked. Once it gets going, the narrative is very involving, the setting is immersive, the various plot threads are intriguing and all the characters are interesting.
It kept me fully engaged right to the end, despite a couple of rather large coincidences and rather more viewpoint characters than I would normally prefer.
But the ending felt very abrupt and nebulous, as well as unnecessarily harsh in some ways - and there were multiple aspects that were just left unresolved (I counted about 12), which was very annoying. I love a good aftermath in a book - and there was nothing of that here. Lots of the characters were scattered all over the place and I really wanted to see several of the reunions, as well as finding out what happened later to several of them.
So, 95% of the book was excellent, but that last 5% kinda ruined it for me...
There was a quote in the front from someone who said they fell in love with the novel within the first 50 pages - at about page 40, I wasn't sure, but by page 50, I was indeed hooked. Once it gets going, the narrative is very involving, the setting is immersive, the various plot threads are intriguing and all the characters are interesting.
It kept me fully engaged right to the end, despite a couple of rather large coincidences and rather more viewpoint characters than I would normally prefer.
But the ending felt very abrupt and nebulous, as well as unnecessarily harsh in some ways - and there were multiple aspects that were just left unresolved (I counted about 12), which was very annoying. I love a good aftermath in a book - and there was nothing of that here. Lots of the characters were scattered all over the place and I really wanted to see several of the reunions, as well as finding out what happened later to several of them.
So, 95% of the book was excellent, but that last 5% kinda ruined it for me...
