Heartbreakingly beautiful

Okay. Here we go again with Audible screwing with reviews... I had a lovely review written for this book, but it cut it off about in the middle. SO. Until I can get the review I want posted, I'll tell you this. As always, TJ Klune never fails to touch every emotion inside of me. This book IS about werewolves, but it's so very much more. I laughed so hard early on that I thought my heart might come away whole. And, though I never got to the full-on wookie cry face, there were many tears. It's a story of losing a part of yourself, and then finding your confidence, ability to love, and being strong with the help of your friends and family (or pack as the case may be). Kirt Graves did an amazing job narrating this book! He was a pleasure to listen to, and really brought the story to life.

I'll make this easy for you. If you love TJ, buy the audiobook. If you like werewolves with a MM undercurrent, buy this audiobook. Don't hesitate, just one-click and thank me later.

80 people found this helpful

Kirt Graves is superb!

Any additional comments?

I can name on one hand and still have fingers left over the number of audiobooks that have felt almost life changing. Wolfsong is one of them.

Maybe it's because Wolfsong is one of my favorite books ever. But, honestly, I think the truly exceptional narration by Kirt Graves is the reason.

Hands down, newcomer voice actor Graves nails everything in Wolfsong. He is superb.

From the character voices, to his pacing, to the emotion infused so perfectly in all the right places...

This audiobook is EVERYTHING. Everything I had hoped for and everything I could have possibly wanted.

I do not want to spoil this story. You must read and listen it. You must. It's one of TJ's greatest stories. It's so different from anything else of his I've read, and yet there are so many elements of things I love from his other stories interwoven here.

This is hands down one of the best stories I’ve read this year. It’s one of the best stories I’ve read in the genre. This hooked me from the first chapter. It had no lags. I was invested in every single moment, and when it ended all I thought was, “I want more. Please give me more.”

Highly, highly recommended.

76 people found this helpful

Worth 5 credits!!!

Klune has created a masterpiece and Graves read it perfectly. Wolfsong is 19 hours of a story line that is sewn together beautifully, seamlessly. It is full of tenderness, laughing out loud humor, heroism and angst. I've enjoyed it so much that I restarted it, to listen to in full again, right after finishing it. I have over 1000 books in my audible library. I count this as one of my favorites.

As an aside, I will quickly return a book because I find the narrator annoying or the story doesn't draw me in. I was so impressed with Kirt Graves that I looked to see what other works he's done. This is the only one on audible. I will be checking & hoping that he will be doing more books in the future. Also, TJ Klune is one of my favorite authors (especially "The Art of Breathing") who I check on for new works regularly.

18 people found this helpful

✫✫ 3.5 Stars ✫✫

This might be one of the only books I'll ever say may have been better if I had read it and not listened. The narration was good it wasn't that, but I think reading "I said ","I said","I said" over and over wouldn't not have been as noticeable as hearing it. This book has a lot of repetitiveness which really bothered me. Besides that, I was looking forward to a M/M Shifter book and this book was PG-13 at best. I needed it to be steamier and a little shorter. After seeing the reviews I think maybe it was my mood because everyone seemed to love it but for me it was ok. The story line was very interesting and I was intrigued for sure, it just didn't have what I was hoping for.

The narration was really good. This may be my first audiobook narrated by Kirt Graves but I'd look for him again.

14 people found this helpful

Dissenting opinion - but honest

Ox lives in a small town with his mother. His father, the drunk, leaves him as a 12 year old and tells him “he’s a man now” and Ox does his best to do right by his mother.

Years later a boy named Joe shows up in town and instantly becomes Ox’s best friend.

There is a lot of drama and eventually Ox learns that the town is not what it seems.

**

I don’t want to give anything away so my summary is purposefully vague and non-committal.

I’m also going to keep my review fairly brief.

There are many 4 and 5 star reviews for this, so I’m clearly in the minority.

But… I calls em like I sees em… and I just didn’t care for this, at all.

It was full of angst, and lots and lots of words. Sometimes the words were in sentences – sometimes they were just words.

I know what effect the author was trying for but it was more confusing than anything else – to me.

I didn’t like it when Ox was with other people – I know that’s my own bias – but there it is.

I didn’t like the fact that there were repeated flash backs thrown in with the current story.

I didn’t like the angst.

I almost didn’t pick this up to review. I know that I love TJ when he’s funny and am not a fan of his more angsty stuff and this absolutely reeked of angst in the blurb alone – but I adore shifters and so I thought… let’s see what happens.

It was interesting and there was some really unique world-building going on, but I just didn’t care for the love story and that’s what I like most in the world – a good love story.

This was a story about Ox and his story more than anything and it involved the love he shared with Joe – to be sure – but they spent so much time apart that it didn’t meet my needs as far as a love story goes.

So there you have it. Not a bad story – I can’t say that at all. Just not to my taste.

I encourage you to read the other reviews and see if it matches your tastes more, it just wasn’t my thing.


Audio

I've had times when I read a book and thought one thing but changed my opinion after listening to it. This is a book many, many people loved and when the audio came out, it got good reviews too. So I figured I'd give it a try.


I think I feel consistently about this book – including the audiobook. The narrator does a good job, but not a great job. There are times he’s as robotic as my computer-generated “text-to-speech” app. There are definitely folks out there who can murder a story dead and make your ears bleed or others who can make your heart sing. Kirt Graves does a fair job reading this and falls somewhere in the middle. He’s not hard to listen to and he tries to give everyone a unique voice, but he lacks the acting chops of some of his contemporaries. His female voices aren’t screechy and his accents aren’t over the top, but he doesn’t add a lot of emotion or do a lot with extra sound effects or timing.

All in all if you’ve got the time I think this is a fine way to experience this story.

28 people found this helpful

TJ Klune's Stupid Wearwolf Book

After experiencing "The Lightening Struck Heart" and "Into the River I Drown," I thought TJ Klune could write no wrong. I thought of him as a chameleon in character and genre -- the man that wrote cleverness into every page. Well, I was wrong after finishing "Wolfsong." He is also able to waste readers' time with lengthy pages of whining anger and plots that turn on stupid and emotional choices with no finesse or strategy. Finishing "Wolfsong" was like sticking a skewer underneath a fingernail after every chapter, because I wanted to turn off the radio. Among the major problems is that there are two protagonists and both makes unbelievably foolish choices tha endangwr

7 people found this helpful

Getting through this book was a struggle.

Would you try another book from TJ Klune and/or Kirt Graves?

From TJ yeah, from Kirt Graves no.

Would you be willing to try another book from TJ Klune? Why or why not?

Sure, I do enjoy his work, it's just that over time I've noticed reoccurring quirks that aren't inherently bad, they're just noticeable. Like he has this thing about repeating lines in order to drive a point home. "It was all I could do" or "On everything/all that I have" or "because it was tradition" or "my father always told me I was going to get shit" or "You belong to me." The "you belong to me" line really irks me, especially in the context of this story. In TJ's books there's always this weird thing about possession. Like yeah I get that people want to feel a sense of belonging but the way it comes off when someone says, "You belong to me" is that its like a command and that the other person doesn't have a say in the matter. It bothered me more in this book because Joe and Ox just love each other for no reason. I kept wanting their relationship to be challenged so that they could focus on why they wanted to be together but it never happened. Sure they had some conflicts but they always went back to each other because they had history but the history wasn't based on anything substantial. Joe just decided he liked Ox and that was it. Then it became this weird co-dependent fixation that wasn't based on anything other than Joe thought Ox had a unique scent. It just completely invalidated their entire relationship for me because there wasn't any substance there. It wasn't built on anything other than assertion. Show me why they want to be with each other based on circumstances. Don't tell me that they're supposed to be together because Joe gave him his wolf and this is what it means so therefore Ox has no choice but to be with him out of a sense of duty and obligation.I've read/listened to almost all of TJ's books and the reason why I got tired of the repetitious phrases is because it felt like I was being told what to feel instead of letting the story speak for itself. Saying things like "because it was tradition" is unnecessary because the meaning is already there if they're doing it consistently. I think it would have been way more effective to have this stable part in Ox's life and then suddenly it's taken from him. "Because it was tradition" is an assertion and makes it seem like they only ate together out of obligation. There was another moment after Thomas had died were Ox said something like "He taught me who I was and what I could be." I remember thinking that that could have gone unsaid because Thomas felt like a way more predominant figure in his life. Way more than his mother who was barely present (which is why her death had no impact on me) and honestly way more than Joe. At least I can understand the role that Thomas played in Ox's life and what his presence meant to him. We already established that Ox had issues with his dad and with him gone Thomas fulfilled that role. He gave him approval, stability, confidence, and respect. He gave him a home. That was all present in his actions which are way more effective than the assertions that tried to force Ox and Joe together.I wanted Ox to become his own person but he ended up becoming defined by this pack. If there was a moment where Ox left, maybe even blamed the pack for the death of his mother or like his grief severed the ties that bonded him to the others and he needed to be alone, then something brought him back to them and he made the decision to stay, it would make it feel as though he were there because he wanted to be. The entire time I felt like he was part of a cult. Like I get that there's something unique about Ox that allows him to be an integral figure in their group dynamic, but is he that desperate for purpose that he'd willingly go along with whatever they needed from him?I get that I'm not the target demographic for this type of book. Maybe if I were into the whole pack, werewolf thing I can accept imprinting or group think or whatever but I figured that I could just enjoy it on the strength of TJ's writing.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Kirt Graves?

I think he did a good job voicing Ox. I had a really big issue with the way he voiced Joe. Joe sounded young all the way up until he left which made Ox and Joe's relationship really uncomfortable for me to listen to. For the first half of the book the age gap between him seemed way more problematic audibly than it was on paper. I also had a problem with the way he voiced the villain. It was the typical snarling gruff voice and I thought that Richard seem more put together than that. Honestly some of these books I wish I had read instead of listened to because the reader influences so much of how books are digested. I could have imagined a whole range of characteristics and attributes for these characters but when you hear someone voice them in a certain way that image in your head is fixed. Michael Lesley has been a consistent favorite voice actor of mine. Or Matt Baca or Chris Patton.

15 people found this helpful

EXCELLENT!!!

This was by far the best story I have ever listened to! TJ Klune is beyond phenomenal. The wonder of his mind brought to life a story that touched both heart and soul and I can truly say I will never be the same. Kirt Graves narration brought to life Ox and Joe and all the other characters of this wonderful story in such an amazing way. I cannot recommend this story more...it's a must!

14 people found this helpful

Ox is Love. Ox is Life. The emotions are REAL.

It is very rare that I read or listen to books written in first person. It's not a style that I prefer because everything is based in the MCs emotions and observations of the world around them. Descriptions tend to be limited and less detailed. Everything just feels like it is less than what it could be if it were written in the third, I can literally count on one hand how many first person books I've read and actually been thoroughly absorbed by.

This is one of them.

Even though the story is told by Ox he is so immersed in everything around him that in a very short time it doesn't even feel like you're listening to a first person narrative. The characters are beautifully fleshed out and so real. There were times when what they felt was so overwhelming it brought tears to my eyes.

This is a story that takes its time and some people might find that to be a drawback. If you're looking for quick smut. This isn't it. If you want a story that is going to rivet you and pull you down a winding path of coming into your own, finding what it means to be home, discovering that loving someone can hurt so much you hate them and fighting with tooth and nail to keep your family whole, then look no further.

Everything about this book inspires me. The narrator was bliss to listen to and the different accents and inflections of the various characters made them all the more real. Besides that, the dialogue in many of the scenes is hilarious.

Five stars. Ten stars. A million stars.
There aren't enough stars to accurately portray how amazing this book is.
Definitely a must have in any m/m collection!

12 people found this helpful

Nope.

Major age difference in romantic leads is unsettling, and sometimes abusive. It is uncomfortable, at best, and quickly degrades from that into something worse. There are other, better, romance novels that are not abusive and borerline pedophilia.

5 people found this helpful