Back in high school
Jessica was awkward, lonely, bullied, helpless and desperate
Many years have
passed since then - she’s now successful, powerful, rich, has an awesome
network of friends and an amazing pack. Of course she has some old scores to
settle and is perfectly willing to give old crush Bobby Ray Smith the run
around.
I love Jessica. And I
would love this entire book to be the story of her awesome life. Jessica was an
orphan and grew up almost friendless, ostracised and severely bullied. Her
family lost through a plague that hit so many were-wild dogs (and I like that the
world building includes elements like that - that a disease can his one
population and what that does to their culture and survival). We then have the
gap to adulthood
Jessica is wealthy,
successful, snarky and she has a pack. And while I am a complete and utter cat
person and would never ever ever have a dog, I absolutely love the wild dog
pack. I love how they have fun. I love how they rely on each other. I love how
they constantly support each other. I love their bonds, I love their karaoke, I
love their family and how important it is to them. I love how they support
other lost orphans and work closely with them to help them feel belonging and
connected.
I just want the story
of Jessica. I want the story of her and her four closest friends. I want their
fun, I want their complete lack of embarrassment over everything (they’re not
wolves - they’re dogs. And since when do dogs care about being silly?)
And I want the story
of her claiming her power; not just wealth and success but how she built her pack
and staked out territory and her pack together. There’s some excellent, awesome
scenes where this wild dog pack showed just how much they are contenders and
excellently take down the packs who look down on them.
Jessica is also a
Black woman. She is completely lacking in stereotypes or tropes or other
elements that so often make us cringe when we see a Blackety-Black
portrayals. On the downside I reached page 163 and read “get my Black, Wild-dog
ass out of there” and said “wait, she’s Black”? Which is almost a little odd
because one of her pack is Asian and that’s very clear; we also have another
Japanese wild dog who visits and is a major business partner which is very
overt.
