Book Review: The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan (Not Your Typical Cute & Fuzzy Wolf)

Posted on February 1, 2012 by Emma

  Too wordy! The phrase less is more could be applied to this book.  It’s overwritten but maybe I’m just not intelligent enough to fully appreciate this type of literature.  If you like cute and cuddly werewolves who chain themselves up come the full moon to avoid creating carnage, this isn’t the book for you.

Jake is a werewolf first and a man second.  He makes no apologies for being a monster.  Once a month he will devour and kill a human being and do so with relish, then go on living because life is all there is and you love life.  His only companion is Harley, an older gentleman who is a spy in WOCOP (World Organisation for the Control of Occult Phenomena) and treats Jake as his son, though Jake is a lot older than him at two hundred or thereabouts.  Jake does not expect to survive the next full moon when he will be hunted down and killed by WOCOP agent Grainer, therefore eliminating the entire werewolf species.  Harley wants Jake to fight to stay alive but Jake has had enough of life.  He never allows himself to get close to anyone and especially to love because he would then have to kill and devour the object of his affections.  This is a werewolf thing you see; you always want to eat the person you love, apparently.

The Last Werewolf is set in London and Wales and is filled with violence, unromantic sex and an unlikeable but interesting protagonist.  These days, fiction is filled with brooding supernatural characters trying to deny their inner monster and do good in the world.  Jake does good in the world; he’s used his money for various charities and missions throughout his long life but he never fights the inner beast.  It’s difficult to feel concern or empathy for him but perhaps this is why I kept reading to the end, despite me not loving this book.  Jake is unlike any main character I’ve read in a long time.  He isn’t human and doesn’t think the way people do.  Guilt is nothing to him anymore, nor is shame or loneliness.  He barely feels emotion.

If you’re looking for a different type of werewolf story then think about giving this a go.  As for me, though I’m glad I picked it up on impulse thanks to the spooky front cover (note to self, I really need to stop buying books because of their beautiful artwork), I won’t be reading this again.   ***

Check it out on Amazon HERE

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TV Time: The Vampire Diaries: Team Stefan or Team Damon?

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Emma

pic fanpop.com

I can already hear some people scoffing at the frivolity of this post but every now and then we need some light-hearted debating, and besides, it’s Friday, time for the fun to begin!  For me, watching The Vampire Diaries is a break from reality.  Work, bills, relationships, money and day-to-day living can be tough, especially in this economy, so it’s nice to forget my worries for an hour every week by getting lost in the fictional world of Mystic Falls.  To fill the void left by the lack of TVD episode this week, let’s look at the two vampire leads and see which brother captures your heart.

Stefan was behaving in an extremely un-Stefan like manner at the start of this series.  He’d taken off with Klaus and left a trail of dismembered bodies across the country.  Yes, that’s right, Stefan doesn’t just kill his victims to drink their blood, he beheads and poses them too.  For awhile we were able to blame his bad behaviour on Klaus but then he got even worse.  Not only was he murdering people but he was basically treating Elena like (gasp) just another ex-girlfriend.  It’s probably not good to admit this but it’s the latter that bothered me more.  He also managed to pull one over on the 1000 year old vampire Klaus by kidnapping his family and being the better villain. What has been the result of such coldness and bad boy behaviour?  He may now outrank Damon as the show’s hottest vampire.

Damon on the other hand has gone from being the crazy, unreliable and dangerous vampire to spending a lot of time this season making moon eyes at Elena, and generally behaving himself.  Result?  Not nearly as sexy as he used to be.  And that long awaited kiss with Elena was such a let down.  Where was the passion, the lust, the desperation?  It was as boring and uninspiring as the kiss shared between Jacob and Bella in Eclipse.

When discussing TVD with my sister and friends, nine times out of ten over the past two years it’s been Damon who’s taken the sexy crown.  There I’ve been, constantly defending my choice:  “Just because Stefan’s good doesn’t make him boring,” and “look how much he loves Elena; he’d do anything for her,” I’d fruitlessly speak up, only to be knocked down again and again.  But my, how the tables have turned.  While most of my VD gang aren’t willing to completely give up on Damon yet, they are suddenly looking at Stefan with new interest.  What is it about fictional guys behaving like jackasses that makes our hearts pound?  Stefan acting like, well a vampire a few weeks ago in the car with Elena on Wickery Bridge reeled me in completely.  Part of me wanted to see him take his darkness to the next level.

So now that we’ve known the Salvatore brothers for a couple of years who would you rather have bite you?  Or, like many, are you now looking beyond the Salvatore boys to the vampire with the sexy, British accent, Klaus?

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