From the Bookshelf of Altoona Public Library (IA)…

Little Wolves

Thomas Maltman

Start date: January 20, 2015

Finish date: January 20, 2015

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Jan 19, 2015 Jenni V. rated it really liked it

Shelves: book-club

Our book club read this because it was an All Iowa Reads selection.

Just as you can really like a person but not love everything that they say, I really liked this book even though I didn't love every paragraph.

On the plus side, it was intense and difficult to put down at times. The writing was so vivid I would look up and be surprised that I'm not sitting in a barn on a rainy night with the characters right in front of me. I nodded with familiarity at the descriptions of small town life such a Our book club read this because it was an All Iowa Reads selection.

Just as you can really like a person but not love everything that they say, I really liked this book even though I didn't love every paragraph.

On the plus side, it was intense and difficult to put down at times. The writing was so vivid I would look up and be surprised that I'm not sitting in a barn on a rainy night with the characters right in front of me. I nodded with familiarity at the descriptions of small town life such as "Know the price of beans or the weather forecast, and you might find your way into a conversation" and "people lived in this town for twenty-five years and were still counted as strangers".

On the minus side, it is difficult to recommend because there are many elements to it - religious but also a hint of supernatural - that keep it from falling into a simple "you like a particular genre (religion, mystery, supernatural, etc.)? try this book" category. Also, after toeing the line for most of the book, the ending was a letdown because it went too far into the spiritual side for my liking. I'm sure there are things that I missed (extra meaning in the chapter titles or significance in the multiple injuries that led to bleeding palms) because I tend not to focus on religious aspects or lessons.

I was not surprised to see in the author's note that he woke up one morning hearing a father's voice and needing to follow it led to the book because Grizz was the most vivid character to me.

A Few Quotes from the Book
"Clara Warren's hand shook as she marked the words on the page because she knew she was trapped inside one of her father's stories, and the only way out was to write it down. She wrote as if her life depended on it, and maybe it did."

"Few people know you as well as those who hate you."

"Sometimes Seth smiled his small secret smile because there was music inside him when he was alone in his thoughts. And Grizz had to turn away, the familiar expression reminding him too sharply of the boy's mother. Seth's hand for drawing, his fancy-flighting, his desperate capacity to love the wrong things: all this he inherited from her."

" "Rilke says that we live out our lives in the horizontal." He drew his hand slowly along the surface of the table, "but every now and then, even in an ordinary life, we touch the vertical." "

Find all my reviews at:
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Jan 09, 2014 Mandi rated it it was ok

Shelves: audio-books

I must say that the writer's voice was impeccable and he had a way of using descriptive terms that was so unusual and poetic.

The story, however, I just did not love.

Full review:

http://theinsomniacbibliophile.blogsp... ...more

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Jan 28, 2014 Jess rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Dec 30, 2014 Laura Duffield Biegger rated it liked it

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