About the book
The Bennett family has a secret: They’re not just a family, they’re a pack. Wolfsong is Ox Matheson’s story.
Oxnard Matheson was twelve when his father taught him that Ox wasn’t worth anything and people would never understand him. Then his father left.
Ox was sixteen when the energetic Bennett family moved in next door, harboring a secret that would change him forever. The Bennetts are shapeshifters. They can transform into wolves at will. Drawn to their magic, loyalty, and enduring friendships, Ox feels a gulf between this extraordinary new world and the quiet life he’s known, but he finds an ally in Joe, the youngest Bennett boy.
Ox was twenty-three when murder came to town and tore a hole in his heart. Violence flared, tragedy split the pack, and Joe left town, leaving Ox behind. Three years later, the boy is back. Except now he’s a man – charming, handsome, but haunted – and Ox can no longer ignore the song that howls between them.
The beloved fantasy romance sensation by New York Times bestselling author TJ Klune, about love, loyalty, betrayal, and family.
511 pages
Published on June 20, 2016
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I’ve been wanting to try a TJ Klune book for a while, but I’ve been so extremely busy with my editing schedule since (Looks at last review posted and realizes it was in October of 2023) that I really haven’t had a lot of time to read and I certainly haven’t had time to write reviews.
After working my unholy butt off to get ahead of myself a bit, I finally discovered that I had time to read again, and that I wanted to read something lighter. Something that is, perhaps, a bit cozier and that doesn’t take any huge amount of effort to get into. Wolfsong by TJ Klune was sitting on the shelf at my library, and I decided to pick it up. I’ve seen Klune’s name a lot, though mostly in reference to his other series (which I have on my kindle but I’m currently not allowing myself to read on my kindle because it makes editor brain too excited. Therefore, my “for fun” reading until editor brain calms down is good, old fashioned paper in my hand.).
I went into this book not knowing what to expect or what it was even about—something that has become a habit for me as an editor. The less I know, the better my edit tends to be (insert reasons here). And I like to carry that into reading as well. If I go into it without any preconceived notions, then I’m more likely to have an honest opinion rather than have an opinion tainted by what other people say, what I think based on the back cover text, etc.
So, I went into this one knowing that a popular author wrote it and that it’s about werewolves. I also knew that I wasn’t a terribly big fan of werewolves.
However, as soon as I read that first chapter I knew I had something special in my hands. You see, Klune’s writing is so purposeful. He has a knack for saying so much with so little. Every word has its place and the reason for being there. Carefully considered, his sentences each carry the surface-level meaning and then add to the deeper layers that he works with as well.
The first chapter is a masterclass on how to effectively set up a character, saying so much with so little. We’re dropped into the book in a heartbreaking scene, and it’s defining for our protagonist, Ox. With careful vignettes of conversation, we’re given the full weight and scope of this moment, and we’re given a careful setup for how it defines the rest of his years. Heartbreak opens the story, and through this, Klune sets the stage for the emotional impact(s) to come. I defy you to read this chapter and not feel, profoundly.
Let me be clear, this story is an emotional one, but it’s written with such empathy that the emotions never feel gratuitous or unfounded. His characters are deep and nuanced and full of layers and texture and as a result, the emotions they feel, the emotions that infuse these pages seem more real than real. You cannot help but feel them along with the characters. We are not given the “emotion words” as much as the sensations of the emotions the characters feel (It’s the difference between being told that someone else is feeling something, vs. being invited so deep into the character’s experience, we can feel their emotions along with them without the author ever needing to use those informative emotion words). And here is the doorway for connection that Klune opens. Here is how Klune invites his readers into his story. We aren’t just reading about interesting characters and interesting events. We’re experiencing moments along with them. Their emotions infuse the pages, and so they infuse us. We experience their heartbreak and healing right along with them.
Wolfsong is an interesting mix of quiet and loud. There are very real struggles of the kind that happen within a character’s life changes and forces their soul to change as a result, as well as the external kind that result in battles and blood and death. And both are written with equal care and attention to detail. This gives the book a layered, textured feel. There’s surface-level action and enough of it to keep readers engaged, but the true meat of the story, the weight that gives all that surface-level stuff engaging is deeper. It rests in those human moments where the character is wrestling against their own soul. When emotions and experience transcend words and the character just feels.
This is where Klune shines. The balancing act between the two: the empathy with which he explores experience, both internal and external. The way he infuses his stories with it. The careful, careful way he works his prose for maximum impact.
I was, quite honestly, blown away with the artistry.
So much of this book happens in that soft, introspective place people dwell in when they are experiencing and internalizing change. Ox is a character who has a hard time finding the right words to say and the right time to say them. His dad thought that people would make fun of him due to that. But Klune takes this and turns it into one of Ox’s strengths, though there is pain in getting from one point to the other. And throughout this book, you find moments like this: where weakness becomes strength. When a character is forced to both find and lose themselves all at once, and in the process, they discover who they truly are.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the love and all the different kinds of it, from family and friends to romantic, because it is the sweetest thread that pulls both Ox and the reader through the book, serving as the guiding light that balances some of the darker themes. Hopeful and yet full of pain, how the love was handled quite honestly blew me away. It’s complex and layered, and so very, very real. More, it illuminates the book, like a lighthouse in the dark, and shines on the plot, keeping everything moving forward: even Ox. Even the reader.
Klune’s characters are painfully human, and their humanity lives and breathes on and off the page. He peels away the layers of his characters until he discovers their beating hearts, and through an honest and empathic exploration of self, and change, and the emotions that come with that (both bright and dark), he opens a doorway and lets his readers in. We experience along with Ox and in this way, he’s not just telling the story of Ox but he’s telling a most relatable story of homegoing and homecoming that we have all experienced.
Yes, we are reading about werewolves, but we are also reading about ourselves.
And this is where Klune thrives: by plucking that thread of humanity and making it sing, with the kindness and empathy that infuses this work, the almost poetic attention to prose, the layers. Wolfsong is a complex book, and far more nuanced and textured than I expected.
The editor in me had a fantastic time analyzing Klune’s craft choices: from character development, to worldbuilding, to plot and pacing. The execution was masterful. I learned a lot by reading this book.
The writer in me was captivated by the emotional depth, the characters’ voices, the purposeful prose.
The reader in me was swept away by how connected I felt to these characters, how he managed to thread the needle of the surreal to tell such a humane story.
Absolutely. Brilliant.
Wolfsong swept me away. Written with empathy and attention toward detail, this is a book I learned a lot from on a craft level but managed to engage me as a reader as well. Deep, layered, and written with stunning empathy, this might be one of the most intensely humane books I’ve read in a while.