Fables&Wren

Wolf by Wolf #02: Blood for Blood

/ 05 STARS, RG YA WOLF BY WOLF

Blood for Blood Book Cover Blood for Blood
Wolf by Wolf
Ryan Graudin
Young Adult Fiction
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
November 1, 2016
Hardcover
496

"Wild and gorgeous, vivid and consuming. I loved it! I can't wait for the sequel."--Laini Taylor, New York Times bestselling author of the Daughter of Smoke & Bone trilogy, on Wolf by Wolf The action-packed, thrilling sequel to Ryan Graudin's Wolf by Wolf. There would be blood.Blood for blood.Blood to pay.An entire world of it. For the resistance in 1950s Germany, the war may be over, but the fight has just begun. Death camp survivor Yael, who has the power to skinshift, is on the run: the world has just seen her shoot and kill Hitler. But the truth of what happened is far more complicated, and its consequences are deadly. Yael and her unlikely comrades dive into enemy territory to try to turn the tide against the New Order, and there is no alternative but to see their mission through to the end, whatever the cost. But dark secrets reveal dark truths, and one question hangs over them all: how far can you go for the ones you love? This gripping, thought-provoking sequel to Wolf by Wolf will grab readers by the throat with its cinematic writing, fast-paced action, and relentless twists.

WrensReads Review:

This series deserves more hype and I am hoping that those who read this will give this duology a chance.

This is a retelling of a very real thing that happened: World War II.

Before I start, I want to shut down those who believe this series is insulting to what actually happened. Wolf by Wolf and Blood For Blood DO NOT GLORIFY the Nazis and what they did to innocent people. If anything, it helps see the hurt and pain that can come from such a horrible event. If retelling such an event is insulting in your eyes, I assume you don’t watch anything involving Captain America, or movies such as Inglorious Bastards, or even video games such as Call of Duty? How about episodes of shows like Doctor Who?

None of these movies/comics/games insult the events that actually happened. I just see the makers and authors trying to making something beautiful out of something so horrible, if that makes sense. They still hold true to the horrible things that happened. Some, like this book I am reviewing, take the experiments done on said innocent people, and twist it into something vengeful.

Yael failed to kill Hilter. In fact, she came into the realization that there are other skin shifters out there like herself, and some are even working for the Fuhrer himself. How many times have they tried to take the tyrants head off and it just ends up being someone else entirely?

Change faces. Keep changing. Always changing.
They are after Adele, not Yael. Keep running. Always running.

Yael has failed. Everything she has worked for since escaping the clutches of the Nazis, has meant nothing. Nothing? No, she must make it right. She has held people at arm’s length to make sure nothing got in the way of ending this nightmare. She will not let it all be for nothing. She must find the Resistance.

Little does she know that her fate is still intertwined with Luka’s and Felix’s. Each one plays a role in how this book ends.

Yael: Realizing that even though she kept people at arm’s length, doesn’t mean they kept her at the same distance.
Lukas: Finding himself having feels for Not-Adele, someone on the opposite side of the train tracks. Also seeing the ugh truth of the war and what his father worked hard on.
Felix: Doing whatever he can to save his family. But who has his family and who can he trust?

This book is a slower paced book and has a lot of character development. A lot of people didn’t like that aspect of it and expected it to be exactly like the first book. Well, sorry, not all books are the same and you have to have character development in order to keep the book interesting.

Personally, I thought Felix had the most interesting story line. He never knew who to trust. He was playing tug-a-war the whole time, but he was the rope. He was an emotional wreck the whole time because one moment he would trust Yael and the next he would be doing everything he could to destroy her. I mean, wouldn’t you be if you found out who you thought was your sister was not actually your sister and then where are your parents who has them and who would actually protect them? WHO DO I TRUST THE ANSWER IS EVERYONE AND NO ONE LETS DO EENY MEENY MINY MOE.

Yael meets some from her past, saves people she doesn’t need to save but wants to and finds out the horrible yet welcoming truth of what really happened to her friend.

The last like twenty chapters of this book are intense. I can’t even describe it. It’s a lot like this meme:

I have such a love for this book. Any types of real-historical-event-driven books always catch my attention. I highly recommend this book for history nerds, fantasy lovers and action junkies.

WARNING: Your heart will break at the end.

NARRATOR: Christa Lewis
★ ★ ★ ★ ★

I would go as far as to compare Christa Lewis to Lauren Fortgang. She does voices and she actually grabs your attention. I absolutely will listen to more books read by this narrator!

But, as always, the applause goes to Ryan Graudin! Such a beautiful, heartbreaking tale!

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Wolf by Wolf #01: Wolf by Wolf

/ 05 STARS, RG YA WOLF BY WOLF

Wolf by Wolf Book Cover Wolf by Wolf
Wolf by Wolf
Ryan Graudin
Juvenile Fiction
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
October 20, 2015
Hardcover
400

Code Name Verity meets Inglourious Basterds in this fast-paced novel from the author of The Walled City. The year is 1956, and the Axis powers of the Third Reich and Imperial Japan rule the world. To commemorate their Great Victory over Britain and Russia, Hitler and Emperor Hirohito host the Axis Tour: an annual motorcycle race across their conjoined continents. The victor is awarded an audience with the highly reclusive Adolf Hitler at the Victor's ball. Yael, who escaped from a death camp, has one goal: Win the race and kill Hitler. A survivor of painful human experimentation, Yael has the power to skinshift and must complete her mission by impersonating last year's only female victor, Adele Wolfe. This deception becomes more difficult when Felix, Adele twin's brother, and Luka, her former love interest, enter the race and watch Yael's every move. But as Yael begins to get closer to the other competitors, can she bring herself to be as ruthless as she needs to be to avoid discovery and complete her mission?

WrensReads Review:

What if Hitler won the war? What if Hitler tried to make everyone have blonde hair and blue eyes? What if this actually created a shape-shifter?

Yael was mutated. She was born a normal human being, got experimented on in a concentration camp, and can no take the shape of whomever she wants. Grant it, she doesn’t really change mass or anything so guys are harder for this small girl to take form, but she can still try.

After a series of events, Yael ends up in the hands of The Resistance, a group trying to kill Hitler and crumble his reign, and they have a plan: disguise herself as Adele Wolf, the only female to win the Axis Tour, and kill Hitler at the Victor’s Ball.

The Axis Tour is a motorcycle race. So she learns how to ride a bike in 9 months, and is good at it and better than any of her competitors who have been training all their lives (not a fan of that part, but moving on). She also studied Adele’s life and all who are in it. The only thing left is to win the Axis Tour and come face to face with the man she loathes the most.

The Fuhrer. Hitler himself.

As expected, a lot of things were not in the files she studied. Like the relationship Adele has with her brother Felix and how protective he is. Or the history she has with another Axis Tour winner Luka and the complicated relationship Yael forms with him as Adele.

All her studying won’t get her to the Victor’s Ball, she has to improvise.

Graudin has written a masterpiece.

Don’t let the fact that the setting is a motorcycle race. Usually, that would make me automatically go to sleep; but that isn’t what happened here. You are focused on the characters and Yael trying to figure out what Adele felt, how Yael herself feels and how to react and… it’s really hard to pretend to be someone else when that someone else has a lot of history with them that wasn’t in the folders.

I loved this series. It needs to get more hype than it has.

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Outlander #01: Outlander

/ 05 STARS, 2018 JANUARY, DGABALDON AR OUTLANDER

Outlander Book Cover Outlander
Outlander
Diana Gabaldon
Fiction
New York, N.Y. : Delacore Press ; Toronto : Doubleday Canada
1991
Audiobook
627

Hurtled back through time more than two hundred years to Scotland in 1743, Claire Randall finds herself caught in the midst of an unfamiliar world torn apart by violence, pestilence, and revolution and haunted by her growing feelings for James Fraser, a young soldier

WrensReads Review:

“When I asked my da how ye knew which was the right woman, he told me when the time came, I’d have no doubt. And I didn’t. When I woke in the dark under that tree on the road to Leoch, with you sitting on my chest, cursing me for bleeding to death, I said to myself, ‘Jamie Fraser, for all ye canna see what she looks like, and for all she weighs as much as a good draft horse, this is the woman”

This book struck a chord in my heart I didn’t know I actually had.

Now I want to voice to anyone who isn’t aware already that this book talks about rape, there is attempted rape and rape situations.

Not only that but there is a scene where Claire is literally spanked by Jaime because she got the whole group in a big mess that could have been avoided if she would have done what Jaime told her to do. Now I know all you feminist out there are like outraged and your panties are all in knots and what not, but seriously it is 1743. If a wife didn’t do what her husband asked her to do, sometimes they could be straight up killed and no one blinks an eye.

Jaime told her what he had to do and why it had to happen even though she knew what she did wrong and he didn’t do it out of anger. And he didn’t expect her to like it or to forgive him.

Now, would I just dismiss someone doing that in our time? Absolutely not. Do I think it was the right thing to do? Are you kidding me? No. Would I have not fought back and getting furious with Jaime if I was in Claire’s situation? You bet your bottom dollar I would have scratched his eyes out. But, again, this is 1743. It is a different time and they did things differently, no matter how wrong it actually is.

And yes, I am a feminist in case you got the vibe I wasn’t. I am literally just saying that times have evolved for the better and when a woman from 1945 goes backwards to 1743, she is going to be treated differently because women unfortunately have not always been treated with the equal respect that we deserve.

Anyway, warnings and rants over, let me tell you about the epic dilemma that Claire finds herself in…. she time travels into the past leaving her husband and gaining a new one who is a fugitive with the law. It’s okay though, he is super dreamy and lovely.

Claire ends up having to marry Jaime in order to be released of the English laws and going to see the devil himself named Randall. Thankfully, it works but Randall is still the absolute worst. There is a special spot in hell for men like him.

“And if your life is a suitable exchange for my honor, why is my honor not a suitable exchange for your life?”

Claire has to adapt to being someone’s second. She was a nurse in the war, so she knows about medicines and how to handle certain injuries. This can lead to a lot of problems, as some things have not been discovered. I mean, they still use leeches. GAG ME PUHPLEASE.

I can’t really say a lot about this book without giving things away. Claire deals a lot with loving two men in two different times, being called a witch for the knowledge she has, seeing people poorly treated that wouldn’t be tolerated in her time. Jaime deals with having a wife who knows more about sex than he does and knowing there is more to her than she leads on.

Basically this is an epic love story role into a time-travel history-lesson book. Like this author did her research. You can tell with all the details and all the attention to the events going around them that Gabaldon gives. She truly wrote a masterpiece.

On that note, I am taking a break from this series. It is long, it is detailed, it is high and romance… it is high in emotions and I know if I start the next one now, I will not be doing myself any favors. A break from this will make me more anxious to read the next! Distance makes the heart fonder, right? (That could have a double meaning…)

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This broke and mended my heart so many times. RTC

– – –

Want to point out that I started this book before Christmas and I still have a while to go. Not sure why this book is taking so long, because I do really like it! It’s just so much detail and so long!

– – –

More than half way through this book. It’s super detailed and super thick with information, but not very action-centered. Lots of pages, but I am actually enjoying it! It’s just a slower read for me.

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