Wolf By Wolf by Ryan Graudin

The Blurb On The Back:

Once upon a different time, there was a girl who lived in a kingdom of death. Wolves howled up her arm. A whole pack of them – made of tattoo ink and pain, memory and loss. It was the only thing about her that ever stayed the same.

Germany, 1956. Over ten years since the Nazis won the war.

Seventeen-year-old Yael is part of the resistance, and she has just one mission: to kill Hitler.

But first she’s got to get close enough to him to do it.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Ryan Graudin’s YA novel (the first in a duology) mixes alternate history, dark fantasy and a strong revenge plot to exciting effect. Graudin’s vision of a victorious Nazi regime is chilling, partly for the way it shows the implementation of Nazi policies (notably the way women are reduced to baby breeders) but also because of the effect of the concentration camp experiments on Yael, both physically (with the skinshifting) and mentally (as seen through her use of tattoos to try and retain her identity and purpose). I enjoyed the way Graudin mixes Yael’s journey into the resistance with the Axis Tour – it keeps the tension up while feeding in information on her character. However, I wanted to know more about what the Resistance’s ultimate aims (the references to Valkyrie suggests National Socialism with a different leader) and while the Axis Tour is an exciting race, the competitors (with the exception of Luka and Felix) are thinly drawn and the threat of discovery about Yael’s real identity never convinced. That said there’s a great twist at the end and I care enough about Yael, Felix and Luka to want to know how Graudin concludes their story.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.