The Last Werewolf , by Glen Duncan

Paperback, British, 346 pages

Published March 2011 by Canongate Press

ISBN

1847679463 (ISBN13: 9781847679468)

edition language

English

original title

The Last Werewolf

url

http://www.canongate.tv/the-last-werewolf-1.html

series

The Last Werewolf #1

characters

Jacob Marlowe

literary awards

Shirley Jackson Award Nominee for Best Novel (2011)

 

Glen Duncan delivers a powerful, sexy new version of the werewolf legend, a riveting and monstrous thriller--with a profoundly human heart.
Jake Marlowe is the last werewolf. Now just over 200 years old, Jake has an insatiable appreciation for good scotch, books, and the pleasures of the flesh, with a voracious libido and a hunger for meat that drives him crazy each full moon. Although he is physically healthy, Jake has slipped into a deep existential crisis, considering taking his own life and ending a legend that has lived for thousands of years. But there are two dangerous groups--one new, one ancient--with reasons of their own for wanting Jake very much alive.

  

My Review

I couldn't really seem to get into this book, and I am not really sure why. I love my fantasy novels and don't get me wrong, its nice to read a book based on the traditional ideas of the werewolf generation, but perhaps it was just the context in which the book was written in. I never like reading a book that seems to be talking to me rather than me being allowed to connect to it, because I begin to feel like I am only listening to the novel and therefore not being really given the chance to relate to the novel or the characters. I think that there were some good aspects to the novel, like the fact that what would happen if the last werewolf was killed. What would happen to the realm of the wolves, and would it ever be able to start up again. But I think that perhaps it became a little to ugh, when the werewolves were added in. In places the book just seemed really confusing because there just seemed to be too much going on. I lost track of who was after who, who was where, and who was doing what. you just felt like you were running in circles trying to catch something that didn't exist at all and that is instantly annoying with the case of a book because you just think, why the hell am I even bothering to read it.

 

I am sure that perhaps this is the kind of book that others enjoyed but I just didn't feel like I could sink myself into the lines and pages, and that actually there wasn't anything to grip or grasp at but empty pages with jumbled up letters and words that formed nothing and no one. The ending of the novel was a little better than the beginning but only because things seemed to spark up with the sense of mystery in that a female werewolf had arrived. However it then seemed to just turn into a sex fest. that was I swear literally all I read for about twenty pages, or thats how It felt to me. It was almost like the whole concept of the novel was actually forgotten about for ages in order for the two main characters to have sex. That was irritating in 50 shades of grey but at least you knew that was the aim and the concept behind the book. Whereas this, well I thought it was about the last ever werewolf?

 

Yes there were some good aspects to the novel, like the fact that there were parts within it that were unexpected and you would never have thought to happen. Yet there were predictable parts as well. you knew that the female werewolf was pregnant, you knew at some point they were going to be kidnapped and you knew that the main werewolf would eventually end up dead. but for me there just seemed to be nothing to the point of the novel and I actually felt like putting it down a few times. It just seemed well....boring and dull which was a huge let down when you look at the last book that I read.     

 

My rating