Laura Wolford's Reviews> Tell the Wolves I'm Home

This is one of those times when I am completely out of sync with the majority. Here are some of the the things about this book that didn't work for me. I didn't get the sisters relationship at all; Greta's jealousy was completely unbelievable to me and unrealistic. It would have made more sense if Greta had secretly wanted something bad to happen to June so she could have Finn to herself than the other way around. Sibling rivalry I can understand, sibling obsession is foreign. June being "in love" with her gay uncle in a romantic way was disturbing and weird. I thought Toby, the partner of Uncle Finn, was kind of a bum and was turned off by all the cigarette smoking and volcano drinking and sneaking around behind the parents backs with their minor child. I don't think even Uncle Finn would have approved of some of their outings and activities (giving June cigarettes and alcohol). The dad seemed okay when he was around but the mom had some major issues. She definitely didn't seem to know and accept her children for who they were (or her brother). I did think Finn was a cool uncle until the writer confuses us by giving Toby the credit for Finn's benevolence. Apparently it is all about who buys the cookies. At first I could sympathize with the main character June and her losing someone special in her life but as the book dragged on I began to dislike her. I found her to be dishonest, insecure, full of herself and her own particular flavor of teenage angst. I thought that it was weird that she wanted to hang out with Toby when she could have been playing D&D (seemed like something she would like) with Ben (who was into fantasy too). Ben seemed like a decent, caring, mature sort of person. Too bad he didn't play a larger role in the story. Also, can I just say, the hang out retreat space in the storage cage in the basement was plain creepy. So while everyone else loved this book, I could not understand or relate to any of these characters (except of course the rarely mentioned dad and Ben). The author had some pretty ways of putting things but the lack of character development made me wish I had picked a different book. I guess the key to having a massively popular book has mostly to do with having a killer title which this book did.