Started Raised by Wolves (looking at YOU Parametric) and I like so far...
Hope you enjoy! I thought RA1SED BY WOLVES was the perfect response to books like Rachel V1ncent's STR4Y (werecats) and Andr3a Cr3mer's N1GHTSHADE (werewolves).
It seems to be a rule that werewhatevers must live in incredibly patriarchal, repressive cultures. Women are treated like sex objects, physically weak, useful only for breeding. The protagonist, who is invariably young and female, is dominated and controlled by men to a creepy extent. In STR4Y the protagonist is literally kept in a cage in her father's basement; in N1GHTSHADE the protagonist is ordered to make herself sexually available to the future husband chosen for her. That's not a problem in itself, but the authors' critiques of these cultures are really incomplete and unsatisfactory. It's like the authors don't recognise just how bad a situation they've created. We're presented with apparently happy endings in which the protagonist has come to accept patriarchal rule (STR4Y), or has exchanged one form of domination for another (N1GHTSHADE). It's frustrating to read and I'm used to being disappointed by these books. So when I saw the whole patriarchal situation unfolding again in RA1SED BY WOLVES, I started rolling my eyes.
I was wrong. So wrong.
The story engages with issues of self-determination and empowerment in a way I found painfully lacking from similar books. The protagonist
takes on an entire culture - she not only breaks her own chains, she empowers others to break theirs. Kind of like Buffy. She basically starts a social revolution. And it's really, really satisfying.
(Plus, kickass mother-daughter relationship ftw.)