Peter the Wolf
Zoe E. Whitten
Aphotic Thought
Press (2011)
ISBN
9780982042731
NOTE
[SPOILERS AHEAD]: After Zoe read my original review of this novel on Goodreads, she was ... upset. Now, I don't make it a habit of
rewriting reviews, but I felt I could afford to revisit the
book. After going over certain passages again, I see a couple things
I'll address, but my overall opinion of the book stands. I'm not
discouraging anyone from reading this novel. In fact, I'd like to
read others' opinions, as I've already seen two starkly different
reviews on Goodreads from Michele Lee and Rebecca Sutton.
For those who haven't read the book, it is essentially the story of
Peter Holmes, a fifteen-year-old who tells his own tale. He's
damaged goods. His parents were the scum of the earth, who sexually
abused him and his fraternal twin sister. At the age of twelve, after
his sister was murdered by one of their parents' clients, Peter
finally summons the will to turn them into the police. His father is
killed by inmates, while his mother rots in prison. As for Peter, the
system sweeps him under the rug. The novel begins with him at
fifteen-years-old, living with a compassionate family of four. He's
only surviving, and then he meets Alice.
Alice is a gymnast and a gifted one at that. Through her, Peter find
a passion for gymnastics. While this healthy introduction into his
life takes shape, so does a disturbing one. His sexual urges, that
he's suppressed through his own methods because he has no faith in
anyone's ability to help him, focus directly on Alice. That might not
sound too terrible, except for the fact that she's only ten when they
meet. Their friendship grows, until Peter crosses that line and
molests her. He tries to stop himself and agonizes over what he knows
is wrong, but ultimately gives in and lies to his family and Alice's
in the process. From then on, I didn't see him just as a victim, but
as a predator as well.
Peter's sense of self-worth seems to improve as he trains to become a
gymnast, he comes out of his shell and makes friends at school, but
it's threatened. Not only by his relationship with Alice, but by her
father when he and Peter's foster family discover what they've been
doing. If that's not enough, some jocks at his high school have found
out about the horrid childhood he had to live due to video footage
floating around online, and decide to blackmail him with it.
In my original review, I said I lost all sympathy for Peter when he
crossed the line with Alice. To be more accurate, I lost sympathy
when it became clear he wasn't going to stop crossing that line. Yes,
he was a victim through most of his life, and he openly admits what
he's doing is wrong, but he does it anyway. And even though I lost
sympathy for the guy, I was still wrapped up in the story. It was
written very well, and in scenes where Peter wasn't intimate with
Alice or lying to others about it, he was a character I
wanted to root for. He even accepts a therapy session at one point, but the relationship continued.
Even though Zoe didn't intend this as a love story between the two, a
great deal of Peter's and Alice's interactions felt that way to me. Now, Zoe is a heckuva writer, but this novel just didn't jibe with
me. What really lost my emotional investment was the last third of the
novel, which veers wildly into left field as Peter discovers he is a
werewolf, just like his mother who has escaped from prison to hunt
him down. I'd spent the first two-thirds of the book becoming
emotionally invested in Peter's life and turmoil, which were riveting
regardless of any objection I had to Peter's relationship with Alice,
but it was all but forgotten as Peter's mother arrived, kidnapped
Alice, morphing the story into a damsel-in-distress tale. I mean, the
whole contemporary drama of Peter's life was already engrossing and
that's what I wanted to see focused on. Frankly, the return of his
mother felt like a distraction from the important through-line of the
novel. And by the time the story gets back to tackling Peter and
Alice, I had already dropped out of the story on an emotional level.
The book is the first of a trilogy, so it's pretty clear the bigger picture is yet to be revealed. Maybe reading all three books together would help better appreciate the story, but with just this one book to go on, I didn't care for it.
The book is the first of a trilogy, so it's pretty clear the bigger picture is yet to be revealed. Maybe reading all three books together would help better appreciate the story, but with just this one book to go on, I didn't care for it.
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