The Gilded Wolves: A Discussion on Blending Genres, Perspectives, and Expectations

This is a novel that has been hyped all over social media and the book blogisphere. Even if you weren’t anticipating it or planning to read it, you’ve probably come across mention of it. I was thinking I may get it from the library, at some point, in the undefined future, if I didn’t have a long TBR or too many other projects going on… You get the idea. As gorgeous and alluring as the cover is, The Gilded Wolves wasn’t a title that really caught my attention.

So why did I rush through it in the last week of January? Easy — because it arrived in my Owlcrate order. The entire box was absolutely magical, and such a joy to unpack, and I knew that even if the book didn’t shower golden sparks of amazingness on me, nothing could take that experience away.

My overall thoughts on The Gilded Wolves aren’t quite straightforward. I’m wavering between enchantment at the clear charm woven into the very fabric of the style, the portrayal of the characters (the complete personification of “cinnamon rolls”), and the elegant setting of Paris in 1890; and overwhelming annoyance at the major plot holes, lack of cohesion between actions and motivations, and intense non-explanation of how the world of the Order of Babel truly works.

The premise is so engaging — a bunch of misfits, outcasts, misunderstood teenagers, from minorities or possessing abilities that the general public isn’t really on board with, banding together in the attempt to right some wrongs, and in the process they become a family. They’re either orphans or separated from their biological families, and they’re all either racially mixed or struggling to control complicated magical powers or innate traits that make life difficult. As a group, they find acceptance and caring. And there is plenty of snark and sass, as you’d expect from adolescents in any century, so there are several laugh out loud moments while reading.

Severin is the leader, the one with the biggest personal vendetta against the Big Bad Wolf, the Order of Babel. His family was part of it, and then the organization killed them off or something and disowned Severin. It’s never really made clear. In Paris, Severin runs a fancy hotel (again, huh?), and brings with him Tristan, who’s sort of his foster brother (so much more confusion), Laila (basically an exotic dancer, I think?), Zofia (a Polish girl who’s apparently autistic, but very stereotyped), and Enrique (a Filipino-Spanish flamboyant lost child). Each member of this ragtag bunch has specific roles, but I really struggled to understand just what those roles were or how they were decided upon. Zofia, being called “Severin’s engineer,” is the closest we get to clarity on this matter.

The plot (no spoilers) is about the accidental discovery of a very rare and coveted magical artifact belonging to the Order of Babel, and the group’s intention to acquire it for themselves. The idea is to have such intense bargaining power that Severin’s birthright will have to be restored, no arguing. And on the surface, this makes sense. Except…except it doesn’t.

We never get a real picture of what the Order of Babel does, what their significance is to this world, or why Severin sees them as such a threat. They don’t seem to start wars, want to take over the whole planet, or enslave large amounts of innocent people, so I really don’t know why they’re the villain. I do grasp that Severin feels incredibly wronged, and that this story is a tale of revenge. But, still…why? If Severin hates this organization so much, why is he fighting to have a place in it? Wouldn’t human nature indicate that his planned revenge would involve destroying the Order? They took everything from him, so now he’s going to make them suffer — right?

When the antagonist-non-antagonist gets introduced, things become even more complicated. Hypnos is basically an excuse to have a closeted gay man in 1890 Paris. It’s a cheap shot at the coveted diversity platform, and I don’t like it. In the Victorian era, such lifestyles/choices were still largely outlawed, and Hypnos would not have been seen as someone fit to lead a faction of a worldwide secret institution. Sorry, folks, but that’s the historical truth. You don’t have to like it, you don’t have to agree with it, but you shouldn’t be so eager to include modern social justice views into a novel set in a time period where they simply didn’t look at the world how we do.

The more we attempt to gloss over history or justify certain things society has changed their mind about, the more we in fact risk going back to an overzealous way of thinking and living. Sorry-not-sorry.

One could put forth the argument, however, that since the author obviously made some changes to the historical setting, by making magic a very concrete part of her story, that it was an alternate universe and maybe the perspectives were different. But we can’t rest on those laurels, either, since there was absolutely no evidence of that in the worldbuilding.

This is probably my biggest issue with the entire book: There are just too many things not explained. It reminded me more of a 2-hour made-for-TV movie than a fantasy novel. The characters were lovely, but they couldn’t carry the lack of proper storytelling on their own. Whenever pieces of a backstory were revealed via flashback, the author would abruptly cut the scene to return to the main thread, or to insert several more paragraphs of, albeit beautiful, but wholly unneeded, flowery description of a place or clothing or some flowers in a hallway. It got tedious when I was hoping to gain more of an insight into what makes the characters tick. I’m all for slow reveals; I strongly believe that keeps a reader’s interest longer than info dumping; but we never seemed to get very deep under the surface with anybody other than Severin.

Who do I blame for this? Frankly, I blame the editors. This author is with a traditional publishing company that threw an army of editors, formatters, designers, and marketers behind this project. Why, at some point during this process, didn’t somebody bring up what bunches of readers have since the title was released? Why weren’t these plot holes addressed ages ago, so that we don’t even know about them? Isn’t it possible that someone in this company was willing to cut out 100 pages of purple prose and replace it with plot twists and concise conversations involving lines of dialogue such as, “I think we should strive to completely topple this oppressive regimen that keeps the public in dark about their true purpose, while they’re starting wars all across the globe and sacking cities and ravaging developing nations’ natural resources!” You know, to inject some reason into the characters’ entire mission.

In the end, I’m not experiencing reader’s remorse; The Gilded Wolves is cute and entertaining. It mostly falls short under intense scrunity, because I tend to think a lot about everything, and I ask a lot of questions. I’m not judging the whole book too harshly. Would I recommend it to others? Yes, I would, actually.

However, I do come away from this reading with the sense of a cautionary tale for writers, and editors, and maybe the publishing industry as a whole. If you keep producing content that makes lifelong readers roll their eyes or throw up their hands in despair, this will soon lead to a massive drop in sales, and a domino effect on literacy itself. For the last few years, the trend has been towards a decrease in quality — according to the consumers. This is something that really shouldn’t be brushed off.