KJ Carson lives an outdoor lovers dream. The only daughter of a fishing and wildlife guide, KJ can hold her own on the water or in the mountains n...
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reviews
Sep 01, 2010
Annalisa
rated it: 
It's so nice to read a YA book about real issues. And I'm not talking about the awkwardness of being a teenage girl, of wearing the wrong outfit, of feeling that everyone else is popular and you're a social leper, of not understanding what boys mean or why they do the things they do, of struggling with an overbearing parent you can't relate to, although the book is about that too. But it's also about a world that's larger than us. In this case, it's about the Wolf Reintroduction Program at Yello
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Aug 23, 2011
Mollie
rated it: 
The first thing that should be mentioned about this book is that it is NOT a paranormal teen book. We're not talking were-wolves here. I think with the cover (which I love!) and the flood of paranormal teen books out that that should be made clear!
KJ who has, in her father's words, "blossomed" over the summer but, unlike many other teen novels where the ugly duckling turns into a beauty, she doesn't miraculously become popular. Love it. I think it's a good lesson for teens More...
KJ who has, in her father's words, "blossomed" over the summer but, unlike many other teen novels where the ugly duckling turns into a beauty, she doesn't miraculously become popular. Love it. I think it's a good lesson for teens More...
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Aug 19, 2011
Melannie :)
rated it:
I LOOOOOVED THIS BOOK.
I know it's a little early in the year to say this,
but it will probably be my favorite of 2011,
it has THAT potencial.
It was amazing. It was one of those times when you just love EVERYTHING about a book. Even though it couldn't be more
alien to me, not even paranormal books are farther from my reality,
yet I loved it. And connect with every character, understood everyone of them.
And if you're like me a don't really More...
I know it's a little early in the year to say this,
but it will probably be my favorite of 2011,
it has THAT potencial.
It was amazing. It was one of those times when you just love EVERYTHING about a book. Even though it couldn't be more
alien to me, not even paranormal books are farther from my reality,
yet I loved it. And connect with every character, understood everyone of them.
And if you're like me a don't really More...
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Dec 06, 2011
Aimee
rated it:
I bought this not really knowing what it was about. The cover got my attention, but it was the title that made me buy it without checking it out. I was pretty happy with what I got. I enjoyed the story and the road to discovery that KJ was on.
This had quite a lot on the wolves of Yellowstone in it and about those who are for it (wildlife enthusiasts, scientists, the government) and those against it (hunters, ranchers) and it was interesting to see how something like that might affect More...
This had quite a lot on the wolves of Yellowstone in it and about those who are for it (wildlife enthusiasts, scientists, the government) and those against it (hunters, ranchers) and it was interesting to see how something like that might affect More...
Oct 09, 2011
Christen
rated it:
I tore through this book in record time. The winning feature has to be KJ's voice. She's neurotic, dyslexic and understated. I like that. She has some flaws to work through before the end of the story, and she also has guts. Maybe more than her sometimes boyfriend from Minnesota. I was waiting for him to grow a pair, not going to lie. At least he's pretty.
The story takes place in a town near Yellowstone, where biologists, ranchers and tourists collide each year over the topic of wolve More...
The story takes place in a town near Yellowstone, where biologists, ranchers and tourists collide each year over the topic of wolve More...
Sep 17, 2011
Kate
rated it:
I don't read a ton of contemporary YA fiction- a lot of times I want the escape that comes with paranormal and fantasy, but every once in a while I will scoop up something more realistic. The quickest way to get me to grab your book? Yellowstone. It's as easy as that. So this book, set just outside the park in Montana and focusing on the controversy that came with the reintroduction of wolves in 1997, was a no brainer. I've done reports on the subject and spent countless hours sitting on the hil
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Aug 29, 2011
Carol
rated it:
KJ lives in Yellowstone National Park with her father, a former lawyer turned hunting and fishing guide, and is one of the most "real" characters I've met in a long time. She's klutzy, insecure, and dyslexic, but at the same time she's funny, spunky, and brave. The people in and around Yellowstone are dealing with the reintroduction of wolves to the park and all the consequences of that. The wolves become characters in the novel themselves as KJ gets caught up in the dilemma while als
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Aug 28, 2011
Natalie
rated it:
I love good surprises and this book definately counts!
I bought this on a whim because it mentioned Yellowstone, which is a major obsession of mine. I figured (wrongly) that because it is YA book with a girl and a wolf on the cover it would be a melodramatic werewolf book about a girl from out of town or something. You know?
But I was totally wrong! This book was great! KJ, the heroine, lives in a slightly fictionalized version of West Yellowstone Montana and works in he More...
I bought this on a whim because it mentioned Yellowstone, which is a major obsession of mine. I figured (wrongly) that because it is YA book with a girl and a wolf on the cover it would be a melodramatic werewolf book about a girl from out of town or something. You know?
But I was totally wrong! This book was great! KJ, the heroine, lives in a slightly fictionalized version of West Yellowstone Montana and works in he More...
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Feb 14, 2011
Aaron
rated it:
There is no question that environmentalism is one of the "in" things for today's teens. This novel takes a look at one teen eco-warrior who is hoping to make a difference in her hometown. KJ Carson lives in a small town in Montana that borders on Yellowstone National Park. She lives with her dad, who is a local nature guide and a fishing store owner. KJ's mom died when she was just a little girl.
The whole town (as well as nearby communities) are thrown into an uproar over a 1995 fe More...
The whole town (as well as nearby communities) are thrown into an uproar over a 1995 fe More...
Nov 24, 2010
Holly
rated it:
Campaigning for the wolves of Yellowstone National Park was never in sixteen-year-old KJ Carson’s plans. Small town, park life and the outdoors is such an inseparable part of her already, how was writing about the wolves in the school newspaper any different? Growing up in West End, Montana with a wildlife guide and sports shopkeeper for a dad, her daily life has consisted of rowing, fishing, and going wolf watching and elk hunting during tourist season. So why would it be seen as taking sides i
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Nov 17, 2010
Emily Michelle
rated it: 
I suppose this was a nice enough book, but I wasn't wowed. In its defense, I think several things were working against my liking it: I tend not to enjoy books about Real People with Real Problems; I also don't even kinda sorta care about wolves, so the pages filled with descriptions of wolves and their social structure didn't work for me.
But I did learn a lot about wolves and the problems that their reintroduction to Yellowstone caused, which is a subject I knew nothing about beforehan More...
But I did learn a lot about wolves and the problems that their reintroduction to Yellowstone caused, which is a subject I knew nothing about beforehan More...
Nov 08, 2010
BookKids
rated it:
KJ lives in a small town just outside Yellowstone National Park where her father owns a successful outdoors-store and hunting/fishing guide business. Although not exactly content to stay in the background, she has no intention of ever seeking the limelight. Then for the school newspaper, she is asked to write a series of articles about the controversial wolves that have been reintroduced into Yellowstone. She intends for the series to be balanced, but when the first article is pro-wolf, and
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Aug 18, 2010
Claire
rated it:
I liked this because the story and characters are quite readable and engaging and also that it stands well as a metaphor for what our culture is facing now: guarded camps the could benefit from positive action and civil discourse.
So. KJ lives with her dad, Mom died in an accident when KJ was three- all fine Dad is a fishing/hunting guide and KJ his assistant.
Dad is taciturn and still grieving, KJ knows how to deal. Now though, she is 17, filling out and confused about new situation More...
So. KJ lives with her dad, Mom died in an accident when KJ was three- all fine Dad is a fishing/hunting guide and KJ his assistant.
Dad is taciturn and still grieving, KJ knows how to deal. Now though, she is 17, filling out and confused about new situation More...
Aug 02, 2010
Carol
rated it:
OK...I know the title sounds like the Twilight series but no, not even. This is a teen fiction set in Yellowstone. Our heroine, KJ, is a high school student. She helps her father with his sporting goods store and occasionally on his fishing and hunting expeditions where he acts as a guide. She is just starting a new school year and is enrolled in a journalism class that puts out a weekly school newspaper. Imagine her astonishment when the weekly column she is writing on wolves ends up dividing
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Jul 15, 2010
Jennifer
rated it:
KJ Carson lives in West End Montana, with a whopping population of 948 people. You can just begin to imagine how exciting her small town life is in West End.
Wolves, Boys, & Other Things That Might Kill Me kicks off with KJ starting a new year at school and things are about to get a lot more interesting. There's a new guy at school who's pretty cute and he and KJ are assigned to write a column for the school newspaper about the local wolf packs.
This may sound like a p More...
Wolves, Boys, & Other Things That Might Kill Me kicks off with KJ starting a new year at school and things are about to get a lot more interesting. There's a new guy at school who's pretty cute and he and KJ are assigned to write a column for the school newspaper about the local wolf packs.
This may sound like a p More...
Jul 06, 2010
Madeline
rated it:
KJ lives in a small town just outside Yellowstone National Park where her father owns a successful outdoors-store and hunting/fishing guide business. Although not exactly content to stay in the background, she has no intention of ever seeking the limelight. Then for the school newspaper, she is asked to write a series of articles about the controversial wolves that have been reintroduced into Yellowstone. She intends for the series to be balanced, but when the first article is pro-wolf, and
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Dec 05, 2011
Adriana
rated it:
No. This book doesn't have any werewolves. Sorry. If you didn't have that same thought when you read the title well... yeah. It's just me then. KJ Carson lives near Yellowstone. Her father is a guide there. He is very serious and always brooding. Her mother dies in a car crash when she was little. She was in the car but nothing happened to her. She's the clumsy type of person that is like the girl you don't really know. Well in this really small town they do know a lot about you.
Then More...
Then More...
Oct 28, 2010
Kiirsi
rated it:
I LOVED this book. Loved, loved, LOVED. And I am not exactly sure why...it's more of a "quiet" book in a way, with complicated characters and problems. There's sadness, and hatred.
But the main characters really do a lot of growing and changing. They're not the same people at the end of the book as they were at the start, and it happens so skillfully that you don't even realize the gradual progress. I like the romantic relationship and I like the fact that this is a C More...
But the main characters really do a lot of growing and changing. They're not the same people at the end of the book as they were at the start, and it happens so skillfully that you don't even realize the gradual progress. I like the romantic relationship and I like the fact that this is a C More...
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Oct 04, 2011
I'm not giving this a rating because I did not--and will not--finish it. But I'm definitely including my reasons why. Here's the thing:
The beginning rocked. It started off as something potentially compelling. I even wrote down a few quotes, wanting to remember them. But I was more than half-way through the book when I realized that I just didn't care for it at all. The story felt contrived; all made up to fit around a big environmental message. I don't mind messages (and I donated to More...
The beginning rocked. It started off as something potentially compelling. I even wrote down a few quotes, wanting to remember them. But I was more than half-way through the book when I realized that I just didn't care for it at all. The story felt contrived; all made up to fit around a big environmental message. I don't mind messages (and I donated to More...
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Aug 10, 2010
Monica
rated it:
Awesome stuff. Yellowstone and the wolves are vivid players, as is the drama of small town life. KJ struggles with a host of interpersonal complications, contradictory lessons, and all the trials of being a teenager trying to do the right thing.
Things this book gets amazingly right:
-teenagers as young adults, with adult goals and dreams and loves, filtered through a shorter life experience
-a female protagonist who is never without agency, rather than moving from passive t More...
Things this book gets amazingly right:
-teenagers as young adults, with adult goals and dreams and loves, filtered through a shorter life experience
-a female protagonist who is never without agency, rather than moving from passive t More...
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Apr 05, 2011
Mrs. Riding
rated it:
KJ Carson lives outside Yellowstone and works for her Dad helping with the store and guiding visitors on fishing and hunting trips. The little town doesn’t see many people around during the off season, but this year a new boy moves in named Virgil. Usually KJ doesn’t fall for the good looking popular type, but this guy is different. Virgil and KJ are assigned to work together on an assignment for the school newspaper about the reintroduction of the wolves to Yellowstone Park. This begins an adve
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Jan 27, 2011
Marina
rated it:
The horrible cover aside, this was a very good book. Wolves have always been of interest to me (probably because they're related to dogs) and I thought this book was a good way to introduct people to wolves, their endangerment and their reintroduction to Yellowstone and all of the controversies surrounding that. KJ Carson (real name Katherine and, I swear, the entire book I waiting for somebody to start using the nickname Kit for her but, alas, that never happened), having lived in the small Yel
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Jun 02, 2011
Nicole
rated it:
Great jacket art and design.
And the story is pretty good, too. A awkwardly clumsy, but ultimately likeable girl feels like an outcast in her small town. Think Bella from Twilight, but with more substance...and likeable. With LOADS of nonfiction info about wolves, it walked the line of sounding like a textbook but never actually crossed it. With the exception of a ridiculously melodramatic moment near the end, the book felt plausible.
My one beef with this book and the More...
And the story is pretty good, too. A awkwardly clumsy, but ultimately likeable girl feels like an outcast in her small town. Think Bella from Twilight, but with more substance...and likeable. With LOADS of nonfiction info about wolves, it walked the line of sounding like a textbook but never actually crossed it. With the exception of a ridiculously melodramatic moment near the end, the book felt plausible.
My one beef with this book and the More...
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Jun 03, 2010
Mary Etta
rated it:
When Karen told us her girlhood friend wrote this the title didn't interest me. But after reading the Salt Lake Tribune article this morning, I'm interested in this YA. http://www.sltrib.com/arts/ci_15072145
Maybe its the Yellowstone connection, or the Stegner epigrams, or the "scenes capturing the weather." Maybe its the wolves or another look at youth.
Hope to be at the Kings English Saturday afternoon to hear the author.
Met the author and bought More...
Maybe its the Yellowstone connection, or the Stegner epigrams, or the "scenes capturing the weather." Maybe its the wolves or another look at youth.
Hope to be at the Kings English Saturday afternoon to hear the author.
Met the author and bought More...
Dec 18, 2011
Janice (Janicu)
rated it:
3.5. Again: I wish goodreads gave half stars.
Review originally from my book review (wordpress / livejournal)
I’ve been interested in reading Wolves, Boys, & Other Things That Might Kill Me ever since I read Holly’s review where she said her “expectations held up from the first page until the last”. Yup, it was grabbed on an impulse at a bookstore when I was in Southern New England, and I settled into it quite happily when I got home.
The Premise: When the wolv More...
Review originally from my book review (wordpress / livejournal)
I’ve been interested in reading Wolves, Boys, & Other Things That Might Kill Me ever since I read Holly’s review where she said her “expectations held up from the first page until the last”. Yup, it was grabbed on an impulse at a bookstore when I was in Southern New England, and I settled into it quite happily when I got home.
The Premise: When the wolv More...
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Apr 18, 2011
Darla
rated it:
(Genre:Teen fiction) KJ has lived and gone to school in the same small town near Yellowstone Park for almost her entire life. She works for her dad who owns a store and runs a hunting/fishing guide business. Her mother died when she was three and her relationship with her dad is strained. When a new boy moves to town for a year so his mother can study the wolves in the park, KJ is drawn into the political and personal feelings/tensions of the local residents about the wolves who have been introd
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Jun 12, 2010
Lea
rated it:
KJ Carson lives in West End, Montana, population 948. Her father is a fishing guide and the owner of a local fly shop, and KJ spends all of her free time working with him. When a new student, Virgil Whitman, joins her newspaper class, KJ agrees to write a column about the local wolf population that his mother is studying. But the wolves in Yellowstone are still a sensitive topic with the local population, and KJ and Virgil find themselves caught in a storm of controversy that endangers both thei
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Apr 19, 2011
Megan
rated it:
Wolves, Boys, and Other Things That Might Kill Me centers around a 16-year-old girl, KJ Carson, and her fight to be herself and to stand up and do what is right. Although this book kept me up reading long into the night and into the early morning- I can't say that I really enjoyed this book. There is something about the authors writing, it seemed disjointed. Also, I couldn't connect with the main character- or really any of the other characters. The whole wolf plot is somewhat interseting to me.
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Oct 28, 2011
Kathryn (Clean Teen Fiction)
rated it:
There are at least 2 reasons why I decide I like a book. 1) I love the main character. Whether the storyline is interesting or not I want to find out more about this character's life. 2) I love the storyline. Either it's action packed or a great romance or even a hint of a brewing romance.
Sometimes a book has both or just one or the other that's working for me.
For me this book had #1. I loved the main character KJ from the very first page. I'm not anything like KJ, but Kristen More...
Sometimes a book has both or just one or the other that's working for me.
For me this book had #1. I loved the main character KJ from the very first page. I'm not anything like KJ, but Kristen More...
Jun 26, 2011
Stephanie
rated it:
The thing I enjoyed most about this book were the little descriptions and references to places I know from many summers spent in West Yellowstone (not West End) area. Plus, I like wolves and think they have been made the villain when they are just trying to fill their place in the ecosystem. There are other ways to keep them away from farm animals, but I won't go into that here. No, for me, the delight in this book was that I have fished on Hebgen Reservoir, swam in Wade Lake, shopped in the boo
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