I absolutely love this cover. It’s about werewolves and it has a great blurb by Kimberly Derting on the front cover too. Needless to say this is another book, I hopped on as soon as it came out and am only now getting to. However, it is a special book for me because it marks the 100th book I have read this year! I completed my GoodReads reading challenge in the beginning of November! My 2013 challenge will have to be harder…And what a fantastic book to be my 100th!
The book is about Mac (short for Mackenzie). She lives with
her somewhat older cousin, who acts as her guardian. She’s had a bit of a
troubled childhood with a father who abandoned her at a funeral…She works at a
restaurant and has some great friends. The book begins shortly after her best
friend is murdered by a werewolf. One of my favorite things about this book is
that werewolves and Lupine syndrome are actually known to the public (True
Blood style). Everyone knows werewolves exist and everyone is afraid of
attacks.
This book is like a good mixture of Vampire Diaries, True
Blood, and Veronica Mars (with no vampires). But, unlike other books I’ve read
recently, it mixes all of the good things about these shows and turns it into
something good, familiar, but also unique. Any way, Mac blames herself a little bit for the death of
her friend even though it no way is her fault. And while missing her awful
sounding family (minus her super cool cousin), and missing her best friend, she
is also trying her hardest to take care of her best friend’s boyfriend who also
is blaming himself.
There is most definitely a love triangle (even though it
takes the whole book for Mac to realize this). There is a lot of chemistry
between Mac and Jason (her dead best friend’s boyfriend). However, Jason is
slowly becoming the world’s biggest jerk, one bottle of booze at a time. And
then there’s Mac’s other best friend, Kyle, who’s the classic boy best friend who
is also clearly in love with her (even though he keeps dating other girls too).
Mac is constantly getting lip from her cousin and her one
other girlfriend about how she belongs with Kyle, but she legitimately doesn’t
seem to have boys on her mind! Yes! She is too focused on her dead best friend
and trying to get everyone around her to be happy. The story really kicks off
when the Trackers come to town. Mac has already had bad experiences with them
abusing power. The trackers are this hybrid group of religious extremists/hate
crime activists. Seriously, a whole bunch of different awful groups of human
beings came together with a mutual love of tracking down werewolves. And in
towns like Hemlock, they tend to be given complete control of the law by the
police.
This results in a plethora of hate crimes, abuse of power,
accidental murders, caging of innocent people who are sent off to camps (where
people with Lupine Syndrome are all sent), and a general obstruction of equal,
civil, and human rights. Werewolves aren’t technically considered human so they
don’t have any rights at all. And the police and general public are almost too
willing to accept the trackers because they are more afraid of werewolves than
they are of loosing their rights. This is particularly true in Hemlock, where
there have been a succession of werewolf murders (including Mac’s best friend
whose the daughter of a senator).
There’s a murder mystery, protests, youth recruitment
meetings, plenty of attacks on innocent people, twists, love triangles, and so
much politics! It gets to the point where the trackers burn down family homes,
beat up werewolf supporters in the streets, threaten the lives of kids who
don’t keep their mouths shut. The trackers are seriously scary! They give this
urban fantasy an almost dystopia feel, reminding me of all the books that take
place in futuristic military societies like Legend.
Except, here the trackers don’t have complete control (yet).
The twists in the book actually surprised me. There were a
couple that everyone can guess right from the beginning, but than there are
some more that I don’t know how anyone could have guessed. When stuff gets
mixed up with senators and political organizations and protests, I literally
was on the edge of my seat. There’s riots, werewolf attacks in the school, lots
of violence, and lots of dystopia type fear.
I loved Mac! She has a lot of problems, but the way she
handles them is just so strong and believable. I loved that she didn’t always
have boys on the mind (at least not till the end)! She also is small and
protected by a lot of people, but refuses to be held back by any boys! And I
love that the romance in this book always sort of took a back seat to all the
supernatural stuff and suspense.
Oh, and the boys! Even though Jason was on his way to
becoming a Tracker and always seemed to say the wrong thing, I think I’m on
team Jason. He really wanted revenge for his girlfriend’s murder, and I kept waiting
forever for him to get his act together. But there was just so much chemistry.
And he gives up his crazy vendetta for Mac. He gives up all of his bad things
for her, actually. And even when it seems she’s picked someone else, he stands
by her. I have a feeling I know which boy she will be with, but I’m hoping for
this one!
This is one fast paced, suspenseful werewolf story. I loved
that the werewolves didn’t have to hide and pretend like they didn’t exist. The
public knew about them! Though, they did still have to hide in fear of being
sent to a camp, that kind of sounds like World War II now that I think about
it. I loved the characters! I loved Mac’s relationship with her cousin. I even
loved this love triangle in a way I haven’t loved triangles in a while. And I
can’t wait for the suspense to continue in book 2. This gets a 10/10 from me.
Kathleen Peacock is a total nerd, so I'm really hoping to love this!
ReplyDeleteChristina, I don't think you'll love it as much me. But I do think you'll enjoy it. I think I tend to like supernatural/romance more than you, but I think you tend to like suspense stuff more than me and this book is both, so who knows?
DeleteI started this, but than I only got about 1/3 ways in and got distracted by other stuff ): I need to go back and finish this haha.
ReplyDeleteGlad you really enjoyed it though!
You should so go back to it! I ended up loving it! Though I definitely understand getting distracted. That's kind of what happened to me with JK Rowling's new book, and I most definitely will get back to it soonish. I'm sort of anxiously anticipating the cover reveal of book two in the Hemlock series...It's just such a fun paranormal book!
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