Lonely Werewolf Girl

This is a fun book that stays with you long after it's finished.

For the first few chapters I wondered what exactly I'd bought. Millar's writing style is hard to tag and initially I found it distracting but as I let myself listen to the rhythm, I realised that the occasional jerkiness of the text was deliberate.It gives this book a sort of Punk energy that kept me slightly off-centre but always engaged. It's the writer's equivalent of shooting a movie with a hand-held camera, the result is less smooth than using a dolly but it gains a kind of credibility, a sense of really being there, that the fixed camera can't match.

"Lonely Werewolf Girl" is a big book with a large character list and rich back-story. It is filled with humour even show more though the themes are dark and it rattles along, urging you to keep turning the pages even though you know you should have been asleep an hour ago.

Initially I thought that the lonely werewolf girl of the title was Kalix MacRinnalch, a vulnerable, violent, self-abusive and anti-social young girl who is also brave, passionate and wonderfully unable to understand the world around her.

By the end of book I understood that all of the MacRinnalch women qualify as lonely werewolf girls.

The world that Martin Millar builds is energetic, vivid, quirky and addictive. Thankfully there are two more books in the series. show less

I love Lonely Werewolf Girl - its a book that is serious, in how it doesn't take itself seriously. Everything is both over the top, but feels very real - much like life itself. Its a book that isn't afraid to be outlandish, but at the same time remain very very grounded. Its a rare author who can set up a plot of a girl with mental illness, write a comedy over that, but still manages to get across how broken Kalix is.

On top of it, the duo of Kerasa, a fire queen, and Thrix, a werewolf fashion designer is just about perfect. Add in a pair of punk rockers wannabees, a bored, intelligent wereworlf with her own problems, a couple of werewolf hunters, you get a fun story. My only complaint is possible the length, but it all works and the show more story doesn't drag.

Highly recommended if you want a werewolf story, with traditional werewolves that are not stereotypical. show less

This book is SO PROFOUNDLY MISOGYNIST. I read all of its 500-page bulk, desperately hoping that this premise, which I /love/ would bear fruit, but instead I got an exhausting view into a gross man's imagined version of women's interiors: every female character is intensely obsessed with and terrified of the concept that she may not be the most beautiful woman in the room at any given moment. Fuck this bullshit that imagines eating disorders as a kind of paranoid vanity and imagines all women as constantly in weird awful competition with each other for the attention of any passing male. Fuck Martin Millar, frankly.

Oh how I love this book! It's SO SO good! Earnest, sweet, funny, very engaging, sad and chock full of great characters, wacky adventures and unique story lines.

When it comes to the supernatural I've always thought if a writer were going to somehow tie in eating disorders it would be connected to zombies. But in Lonely Werewolf Girl the title character battles depression (among other things) after being thrown out of her house when she lashes out at her father because he and her mother hound her about not eating.

Sounds a bit odd, maybe, and even a bit over the top, but it's not. Martin Millar knows the heart and mind of a teenage girl...and perhaps that's one of the best things about this wonderful book...

Che dire, Millar è stato una rivelazione! Devo dire che il 2009 è iniziato proprio bene! Ho notato questo libro qualche mese fa ma al momento ne avevo altri in lista così mi sono limitata a segnarne il titolo... poi finalmente è arrivato Natale e mi sono mossa e... per fortuna! Sono un'accanita lettrice di vampiri e streghe ma non di licantropi. Errore! Questo libro a mio avviso farà breccia anche fra i più scettici! Coinvolge subito, non ti fa attendere, ti prende e ti spinge a divorare pagina dopo pagina presa da una stra euforia. Gli intrighi della famiglia MacRinnalch sono avvincenti e vivi. I personaggi sono caratterizzati con precisione e non sono affatto statici... nonostante i loro caratteri ben definiti riescono sempre a show more colpirti. Dominil fredda e granitica riesce alla fine a sciogliersi un po' (ma solo un po'!). Kalix è il personaggio meglio approsondito ed anche il più complesso dell'intero libro. Accanto a lei possiamo ritrovare una fantastica Regina del Fuoco caratterizzata in modo a dir poco superbo. Perfetta nelle vesti dell'essere superiore alla quale non interessa minimamente (o non capisce) le bege di lupi ed umani ma nonostante ciò è abile e essenziale nell'evitare lo sterminio dei lupi. Thrix, sorella maggiore di Kalix, dovrebbe proteggere la piccola della casa dalle mire dei fratelli maggiori ma tutto quello che riesce a fare è di finire a letto con l'unico amore di Kalix, Gawain, che, scoperto, non troverà niente da fare che fuggire nuovamente senza tentare neanche di riconquistare la giovane licantropa. Bello, coinvolgente è un fantasy che merita senza il minimo dubbio di essere letto. Il finale aperto lascia la speranza in un seguito... vedremo. show less

A whole clan of werewolves, each with their own story, converges on London after the youngest member of the ruling family viciously attacks their patriarch.

This one's all about the layers, and I think Millar's dealt with them really, really well. There are tons of little "ah ha!" moments where two storylines crash together... only to slip apart moments later. The chapters are short and punchy and oh-so easy to devour in large doses. They push the story along, jumping between characters and storylines with a wild abandon that slowly reveals itself as clever, purposeful plotting. Millar has a great feel for structure.

His style is also worth mentioning. The language isn't flashy; the descriptions aren't poignant or sensual or evocative. In show more fact, his prose is often rather plain. He says what he means. He tells, more than shows, and yet he makes it work for him. It's clear he knows exactly what he's doing. The book has a fresh, visual feel; I could really picture this story on the small screen, and wasn't at all surprised to learn that Millar cites Buffy the Vampire Slayer as an inspiration.

So stylistically, I got a lot out of the book. It really got me thinking about writing and storytelling and all that good stuff.

As far as content goes, though... well, it was fun. Parts were quite funny. The story was interesting. The characters were both larger than life and suitably human. There were times when I had an absolute blast with it. But there was a point, about a hundred pages from the end, when I wrinkled my nose and said, "Isn't this over yet?"

It was good, but it didn't blow me out of the water. And, as is so often the case, I find that it all boils down to the characters.

I had fun reading about them, but I never really engaged with anyone. They were mildly interesting, sometimes amusing people. Millar did a lovely job of telling us who they were, and I often found it possible to empathize with them, but something kept me from clicking with them.

I think part of it was the sheer realism. In some ways, this is a neglected-child-makes-good story. Kalix, however, isn't the typical neglected heroine; she's not an instantly sympathetic character. She behaves exactly as a neglected child is going to behave. She's suspicious and ungrateful and completely unable to accept that anyone might actually want her around. I could empathize with her, but it took me a long, long time to like her. If she'd died midway through the book, I would've just said, "Wow, weird twist!" and read along into the next chapter.

It's the same with all of them. They're interesting to read about. They're sometimes quite funny. But they never moved me, and that brought the book down from 4 stars to 3.5.

I know I'm in the minority here. Everyone else seems to have had a strong emotional reaction to this book, but I connected with it purely on an intellectual level. I feel somewhat like the werewolf Dominil, unable to really bridge the gap between myself and the characters.

I did think it ended well, though. It was hopeful and nice and gave me the feeling that things were on the up from here. They aren't perfect and they never will be, but they're getting better. That, at least, is something. It was a nice ending; not enough to make me love the book, but enough to make me smile and nod and decide I was glad I'd read it.

(A rather longer version of this review originally appeared on my blog, Stella Matutina). show less

Only Martin Millar's name on the jacket could have persuaded me to buy a book with 'werewolf' in the title (I'm totally jaded with the whole current vampire/werewolf obsession). I've been a great fan of Millar's novels for about 20 years - which make me feel old though his stories are as fresh as ever. The Good Fairies of New York is up there on my Top Ten list and I think Lonely Werewolf Girl has just joined it. This book is an absolute delight!

Teenage werewolf Kalix MacRinnalch is an amazing character but despite beong the eponymous 'heroine' she's only one of very many equally important and unique characters that populate this book, all of them brought to vivid, crazy, pathetic, laugh-out-loud, dysfunctional life. Even the minor show more characters are fully drawn with their own quirks and motivations. The plot with all its typical Millaresque convolutions and sprawling subplots zips along to a frenetic (in a good way) denouement that leaves enough loose ends for a plausible sequel.

I've read criticisms of Millar's writing style from some who found it childish, repetitive and clichéd. I personally think his style is perfect for his characters and their stories. It's repetitive in the oral folk tradition kind of way, and his short chapters (some only a page or two long) and point-of-view hopping keep the pace up. I found it a roller-coaster of a book and compulsive reading. And the good thing about coming late to this awesome novel is that the sequel is already out - yay! show less