Reviews

The Wolving Time by Patrick Jennings

vale15's review

2.0

This was a book I was looking forward to rereading and I was both disappointed and pleased. I enjoyed reading about the farm life, the handmade items the family sold at market and village descriptions. These were definitely the highlights of this book. The writing was fine, easy to understand. My issues with this read is its just kinda boring. Of course the human torches, the arrests, and the final run for freedom were interesting, everything in between was a bit dull. I think it was the lack of interesting characters that are at the center of this issue. Laszlo was coming up on his time to join his parents as a werewolf but there is very little of it that is actually interesting. I recall his mother saying that his emotions are heightened after changing and at no point do I ever feel that. I wish that Laszlo had felt more conflicted over becoming a werewolf. There just wasn't any tension where I felt there should have been. His parents were also pretty boring and missed the mark. Laszlo remarks multiple times about his mothers wisdom but she rarely acts like it. She bullies her husband, encourages reckless decisions and blantly disrespects a judge who is sentencing her family to death. She just comes off as immature. But at least these qualites might match her wolfish nature. Kalman is just downright a 2D character. He seems to rarely make any decisions and is the exact opposite of a family leader. He comes off as weak, easily bullied and is contradictory to every idea anyone has. The other characters aren't much better and there are some logic issues and motivation issues as well.

Overall this book isn't what it could have been.

icedcoffeeandbookss's review

adventurous dark emotional funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

meghanc303's review

3.0

Notes from my childhood review:
-I love wolves so this was a good book for me
-History, animals, coming-of-age stories

nerfherder86's review

4.0

A short book that takes a historical look at werewolves. Lazlo is a shepherd living with his parents in the medieval French countryside. His parents just happen to be able to change at will into wolves, and they are friends with a local pack of regular wolves. Lazlo is looking forward to the time when he'll be able to start changing too, despite the dangers of being seen as "different" in the small village--where a nasty priest regularly rounds up villagers and burns them at the stake for supposedly being witches. Lazlo's life gets complicated when a girl from the village, the priest's servant, sees his parents change--will she reveal their secret and force them to move away yet again? Very interesting book, nice adventure story and wolfy book.

martha_schwalbe's review

4.0

What a great month to read a werewolf story? I'm still not sure where the werewolf myth originates but I surely enjoyed the way this book was written. A couple of events surprised me and I wonder if they were really possible in the 1600s. Since I wasn't there, I'll let the author have free reign.
Definitely a read for a beginning werewolf reader because it isn't scary but it creates an interesting background.