This was tough to get into and I ended up doing audio. The main character was annoying and made such stupid mistakes for one living off the land for so long. I just didn't care what was happening.

This book might hit a bit differently now as opposed to when it was first published, but perhaps now we see more reliability in post-apocalyptic/post-pandemic stories.
Very interesting and engaging story. I particularly liked the strong confident main character and the theme of hope in dire times.

Loved the setting and this book! The story was extremely atmospheric, well-written and had me totally engaged.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for the opportunity to read an electronic ARC.

Not a long review for this one but I found it to be an interesting survival story with good action and some intriguing relationships. For some reason I like anything set in the cold so thats a bonus haha.

Set in a post-apocalyptic North America, where the Asian flu has ravaged the human population, inciting wars and nuclear destruction. The McBride family takes refuge in the isolation of the Yukon wilderness and lives a simple and uncomplicated life until the day a stranger walks into their camp. Trouble soon follows, threatening to unravel their quiet existence and uncover long buried family secrets.

I am a sucker for post-apocalyptic and dystopian novels, especially those with a cold weather setting. The author's descriptions of the snowy, wintery environment and survivalist methods were captivating. Unfortunately, the characters resembled cardboard cutouts and the storyline and plot twists were a little too perfect and convenient. Personally, they lacked the depth and complexity required to appropriately do justice to the storyline. Perhaps a sequel is in the works?

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for providing a digital copy in return for an honest, unbiased review.

I absolutely loved this book and read it compulsively. The prose is beautiful and the plot sings. A fantastic read.

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for a review. I don't recall if the agreement said “an honest review”, but this review is as honest as I can be in describing my reaction to this book. It's complicated.

Here are some good things about <i>The Wolves of Winter</i>: the prose is good. Tyrell Johnson knows how to craft a sentence. There are very few examples of an awkward sentence that doesn't make sense, or that breaks the illusion of the created world. For the most part, the plot is quite good, if nothing particularly new, insightful, or exciting. It's interesting that Johnson chooses to make his post-apocalyptic world colder rather than warmer, and several possible explanations are given for why this cooling has happened. But the wars and viruses and their creation are little that I haven't seen before in a more interesting way, so it's a struggle to say that it would have been more than a good story without the elements that utterly ruined it for me.

These elements require a content warning for sexual assault, the details of which I will hide behind a spoiler tag in the next paragraph. To put it succinctly: there is an incident in the first chapter that sets a tone for the rest of the novel, putting me on the alert throughout and making me notice all the little ways in which Johnson has failed to examine his place in a masculine supremacist culture, the little misogynistic ideas that almost certainly aren't intentional, but when I'm on the alert, I notice them and they begin to add up into a pattern. I ought to note here that I am (a) a man and (b) not a survivor, and while I'm pretty certain that Johnson is the former I have no idea if he is the latter. My position is based on wider reading and paying, I hope, enough attention to the world around me and what women have to say about it (especially in October/November 2017, when I read the book). I believe that it is possible to write meaningful fiction about sexual assault and would point to works such as Roxane Gay's collection <i>Difficult Women</i> that do so. <i>The Wolves of Winter</i>, in my honest opinion, does not.

<spoiler>So then: the details. In the first chapter of this novel the protagonist, Lynn, confronts her family's neighbour Conrad after he steals a kill from one of her traps in post-apocalyptic Yukon. Conrad then physically attacks her, pins her to the ground and touches her between her thighs telling her he could take anything he wanted from her. Lynn's uncle then has a word with him, and Conrad is largely absent from the narrative until around the 85% mark (by which point I had been lulled into a false sense of security) when he once again beats Lynn, but this time he he traps her on the ground and tries to rape her. Lynn, encouraged by a hallucination of her dead father, kicks him in the balls and then kills Conrad. While this latter event almost serves a point in the plot – it puts Lynn in a position where she feels able to kill people – it also supports a narrative that if women facing assault just fought back harder they'd be able to free themselves. The first incident doesn't really serve any purpose at all. It establishes Conrad as a Bad Man, and perhaps ultimately adds to the idea that Lynn's family can't protect her. But it felt gratuitous, meaningless, and like it undermined the stories of real world assault and harassment survivors.</spoiler>

The things behind the spoiler tag are the worst of it, but as I said: it put me on edge and made me notice other things, like the fact that virtually everyone in post-apocalyptic Yukon is a man (I count four or five named women; more than double that named men plus virtually all the background characters). Lynn, who is twenty-three, is constantly initialised by herself and others, while desperately hoping for the approval of her dead father (she's less keen on her still-living mother). The words “(little) girl” and “girlie” are used in a pejorative manner throughout, despite the fact that Lynn almost exclusively refers to herself as a girl. She also <b>hates</b> the few other women who do appear, usually for being pretty. Individually, none of these features are necessarily bad and might even be features of actual human women. I actually quite liked Lynn most of the time, and when I didn't it wasn't because the character did anything particularly unreasonable. Lynn does some pretty badass stuff, so saying she's “just a girl” could be understood as ironic, if she didn't use “girl” as a pejorative herself. But taken together, as intentional decisions by an author, in a first-person narrative that only allows one perspective on women, in a world where there are so few women, when the reader (me) is on heightened alert because of that thing in the first chapter, then they come across fundamental ideas about women and gender. And it's not good.

I could also write reams and reams about masculinity in this novel – about the idealization of the silent masculine outdoorsman, the feminization and infantalization of the men who don't meet that ideal and fail to perform sexually, the casual misogyny of several of the male characters particularly Lynn's brother Ken, and the assertion that men who do the things behind the spoiler tag are marginal to society rather than expoliting a structural problem of society. But I'll limit myself to saying that this novel has little to say about masculinity besides that it would just be super fine if everyone met its impossible ideals. Why not enjoy it on International Men's Day this Sunday? (Because the book hasn't come out yet is why not).

Should I reiterate in conclusion that Johnson is a skilled writer, who just needs to examine more closely his ideas about gender and sexuality? Or should I recognise that having spent this year aiming to read more books by women[*] that it's just not necessary for anyone to read this kind of book from a man when everything it tries to do have been done better by women? If I'm being honest – and I think I have to be – the books to which <i>The Wolves of Winter</i> has been compared – <i>[book:The Hunger Games|2767052]</i> and <i>[book:Station Eleven|20170404]</i> – are so much better than it that if you haven't read them, I certainly don't think that you should bother with this book. It's a reasonable post-apocalyptic story marred by unexamined misogyny.

[*] I have read few books by trans or non-binary people, if any, this year. It's a goal for next year.

I received an ARC of The Wolves of Winter by Tyrell Johnson, compliments of NetGalley and appreciated the opportunity. An apocalyptic novel set in the Yukon, where survival is the focus for Lynn McBride and her family. Fleeing their former lives to the isolation of the Great White North, they are living away from most of society. They are unaware if there are others left, a flu epidemic all but having erased the world they knew. Lynn finds herself yearning for more than the day to day struggles, she craves adventure and independence and then Jax appears. Lynn is now faced with a desire to fulfill her curiosities, but this creates more confusion in her quest for her
passion and purpose. Who can she trust, who are her allies, what will tomorrow bring, why is this all happening. A journey to find truth and possibility. The book held a good pace, captured my interest from the start. It is a YA book, so a rather easy read. The characters were well produced, in a lonely, but beautiful scene. I have it 3.5 starts, could have benefit from more character depth and less predictable plot lines.

unfortunatly, i did was not able to finish this book before he title disapeared from my Library. I enjoyed what i started reading thought. i wish i could finish it and i will definitly try to find this title to enjoy the end of the story, it was very good

3,75 *

The Winter of Wolves by Tyrell Johnson was a quick read. I had a hard time with the writing at first but it went away rather quickly. Even though the book was short, I got attached to all the main characters, and Wolf! It was a post-apocalyptic story but it seemed very, very plausible, to the point we forgot that it was taking place in a near future.

Trigger warning for sexual assault.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for a free ebook copy in exchange of a honest review.

The Wolves of Winter is a fascinating survival story with some surprising twists, although it slowly became a bit too traditional YA-apocalypse for me. I expect that this will be part one of a series, and if so, I will continue to read it, despite it's often YA simplicity. Johnson's writing is worth reading for the atmospheric world-building alone.

Wolves of Winter threw me so many wicked curve balls while reading that I sort of want it to pitch for the Jays next year! While reading, the story veered so quickly from what I was expecting going into the book but I loved every second.

The characters are very well written in this novel. I liked and was fiercely protective of the “good guys” and the “bad guys” were intensely dislikable, looking at YOU Conrad 🙄. Lynn is a bit reckless as the female lead but if I had to live in the same patch of land in much harsher circumstances than my earlier life I’d go a little stir crazy too. Jax’s air of mystery and secret past is the perfect way to stoke Lynn’s urge to explore and he comes complete with a pup as his sidekick; it really doesn’t get much better than that.

The pace of the story is great and makes this book an extremely quick read. There are no excessively long lulls in action and I remember thinking wow this feels like it’s going by fast but I just started…and being 55% with the book when I checked! It’s action-packed with lots of tension that you’d expect from living in the current situation of that world. There were also so many amazing twists that I never saw coming and it kept me wanting to know more and not want to put the book down. (We won’t discuss the number of times I missed or almost missed my stop on the bus while reading…)

Wolves of Winter gave me everything I was expecting and quickly veered off and gave me much, much more than I’d ever imagined. It’s a fast-paced, exciting read that I highly recommend to those who love intrigue, excitement, action, and the like. I warn you though…grab a blanket because all that talk of snow makes you feel cold by association!

Welcome to the new world a world that has been ravaged by disease and the wages of war . The McBrides have been eking out an existence thinking that they are the only ones left in the world . They are just barely getting by in the wild Yukon territory . There are so many threats against them and more coming . Between the stranger that claims to have the secrets about the past and there is IMMUNITY who are a pre war organization that say that they can save humans from the flu. Will they adapt or will they end up dying alone .
This book is a really good post apocalyptic read and has such a gritty air about it . It is set about a decade after a nuclear war has destroyed everything and the world wide flu epidemic has wiped out most of the world .I must say I was really intrigued by this book . It felt like I was in the Yukon with the McBride's . The book takes us on an epic journey .
The characters are well written and complex. The main character Lynn is a strong willed young woman . She is bad ass in most ways hunting and keeping her family safe . But there is a softness to her that we see in her thoughts and dreams. Which actually made me like her even more . But being a 20 year old woman she does some really stupid things sometimes . Like inviting a stranger into her world . Even with beautiful eyes and a smile that would melt.
Jax is a mystery , he is strong and silent . He gets Lynn in a tither . There is chemistry between them . Jax is also hiding something he has people chasing him . You don't know if you should trust him or be very leery of him . He has that way of sucking you into his universe. But they do make a great team, you don't know if it is a romantic or platonic relationship . The author also uses the Yukon as a character in the book telling about its unforgiving snow covered terrain and the unforgiving cold .
The author takes us on such a journey . The story is a realistic portrayal of what might actually happen. It makes you think and go wow I wonder what I would do if this happened would I survive . The first part of the book had me sucked in and I couldn't put it down . Then there was a part where it kind of dragged and I kind of lost a bit of interest . The author did a great job pulling me back in though. Over all I enjoyed this book very much . The writing is great and the story line will make you think of what would you do . I am going to check out more from this author .

Dystopian Fiction
Adult
“Forget the old days. Forget summer. Forget warmth. Forget anything that doesn’t help you survive.” When a nuclear war and flu pandemic ravage the world they once knew, Lynn McBride and her small family find refuge in the Yukon Territory. Seven years have passed since Lynn’s father died of the flu and her Uncle Jeryl convinced his sister-in-law to trek from Alaska to the Yukon’s Blackstone Valley. Isolated from whatever remains of the world, the small band of survivors builds cabins and grows a meagre lot of vegetables in springs that never turn to summers. Days are spent gathering firewood and melting snow for water. In a nod to Katniss Everdeen of The Hunger Games, Lynn is a skilled hunter, setting traplines and using her crossbow to feed the family. She’s now 23, but knows little of the outside world and seems a much younger protagonist. When the mysterious Jax and his dog Wolf arrive in the Blackstone valley, Lynn talks her mother into feeding Jax and letting him stay. But Jax reveals little about himself, and his secrets have put them all in danger. Lynn draws on her tracking and shooting skills as she, Jax, and her family fight off a mysterious enemy that is as desperate to capture them as they are to escape. Johnson, a young American who now lives in Kelowna with his family and the Siberian Husky inspiration for Wolf, has created an unforgettable setting for his first novel. The snow practically crunches on every page, breaking the icy silence in this world of winter. Lynn is a highly appealing protagonist – awesome with a bow but immature as she struggles against the constraints of life in her tiny community where the horizon is endless but she is as trapped as the animals she captures. Take a look at the cover. There is barely enough room for the title – an allusion to her life in the Blackstone. Sure, she behaves like a sulky teen at times, storming out into the snow more than once, but this is a novel about family and love as much as it is about survival. With bloody scenes of violence and attempted rape, it’s a gritty and realistic novel that may appeal to older teens as well. It’s packed with great writing – “Snow can save you and sustain you, crush you and kill you. Snow is a fickle bastard.” – and a generally solid plot, though it stretches credulity with one too many rescue scenes. While the story is largely resolved, there is definitely a hole for a sequel to fill. It will be interesting to see where Johnson takes the story next. My thanks to Simon & Schuster Canada for the advance reading copy provided through NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
More discussion and reviews of this novel: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32920273

In a post-apocalyptic world devastated by nuclear war and a deadly flu pandemic, humanity has been almost completely wiped out. To escape the disease which doesn’t seem to thrive as well in cold weather, twenty-three-year-old Gwendolyn (Lynn) McBride has fled with her family, first to Alaska and then to the Yukon where there were only two seasons

<i>… the cold season and the stay-inside-and-try-not-to-freeze-your-ass-off season.</i>

Even after seven years, they rarely see other people in the area. Then one day, she sees a stranger (Jax) pass by with his dog (Wolf) and, despite the possible danger, she invites him back to her family’s compound. Her family is not pleased that she has brought them home but, when her mother learns he is wounded, she insists he stays until he heals.

Shortly after Jax’s arrival, several more men appear claiming to be traders but, after a deadly battle breaks out between them and Jax, he reveals that they were from Immunity, a supposed group of specialists that claims to be searching for a cure for the flu but may have more sinister plans. They seem to know who Jax is and are determined to capture him alive. It also becomes clear that Lynn’s mother knows more about the group than she will say and is just as unsettled by their arrival as Jax.

The Wolves of Winter is the debut novel by Tyrell Johnson and, oh, what a gripping debut it is. It is one thrilling roller coaster of a ride full of action, excitement, and plot twists that are sure to keep you glued to the pages. The characters are all interesting but the setting itself is one of the strongest as Johnson uses the frozen and unpredictable landscape to amp up the tension. I was completely sucked into the story and will definitely be looking for more from this author in the hopefully not-to-distant future because he clearly has mad skills.

*Trigger Warning: There is a great deal of violence including killing of animals as well as language that some may find offensive

Thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review

I really wanted to like this novel. But I didn't. It wasn't terrible by any standards, but it just wasn't as gripping or unique as I wanted it to be. The story was pretty much like your average dystopian tale: there's a girl who is learning to survive in a new environment and through a turn of events discovers that she is different and could potentially save the world. And there's the love interest that conveniently comes along and becomes a part of the adventure. It's something I've already seen so many times so it was hard for this book to hold my interest.

Now, not everything was the same. For instance, Lynn is older than your usual teen protagonist - she is 23 years old and is no longer a child. But for some reason, her voice didn't show the maturity of someone her age. I understand that she has been living only with her family for a number of years and has been isolated from others her age, but that doesn't mean that she should have the maturity of a 16-year-old. The age factor might have been a unique feature of the story but since the author didn't give her a mature voice, Lynn resembled every other teen protagonist from a dystopian story. It also doesn't help that Lynn was bland. Even though the story is written entirely from her perspective, and the author tried to include snippets from her past to give her a more defined personality, I didn't really get anything from it. She bored me and it was really hard for me to get through the novel. 

The story was also different in that there were two parts to it: not only was there nuclear warfare that turned the world into a wasteland, there was also a disease that led to the deaths of many people. This was interesting ... but perhaps not necessary. Only one of these conditions really mattered and got carried through in the story.

I also had an issue with the relationship between Lynn and Jax. There didn't need to be one. There was no chemistry to be detected between the two and their exchanges were awkward and cheesy. I got no satisfaction from seeing them thrown together because they were both such bland characters. It didn't help that all of the other characters in the story were also stereotypically portrayed. There was no nuance or depth to it at all and it made it really hard for me to enjoy this story. 

In the end, I just didn't enjoy this dystopian story. There were too many stereotypical elements to it for it to be unique and all of the characters had a one-dimensional personality. I'm pretty sure there is going to be a sequel to this story based on the way it ended, but I'm probably not going to check it out. Unfortunately, this book gets 2/5 stars from me.

I closed my 2017 reading challenge with this book, and there couldn't be a more perfect one for the subzero temperatures we've been seeing here. The atmosphere in the book is glacial and miserable, so I highly recommend this book during the dead of winter, or when it's so hot outside that only imagination can cool you down!

In all honesty, however, it was refreshing (is this a pun?) to read a dystopian where the weather turns snowy as opposed to hot, dry, deserted wastelands. The author doesn't gloss over glamourized details of a winter apocalypse - we see the characters suffer from the cold, the blandness of the food, the loneliness that can only be caused by strictly living with family members. We also get to read about the nostalgia caused by losing almost everything one had taken for granted, both through the character's present-time and through flashbacks. There's a grim reality in these pages that some dystopian books lack, so I truly appreciated reading about Lynn and her family's struggles.

The characters were all wonderful with the exception perhaps of Conrad - I'm still not sure what was the purpose of adding a perverted, violent man for only a handful of pages? The book could have lived quite wonderfully without the Conrad-related arcs, but I suppose it would be important to show that survival can turn a person into something this nasty.

I'd like to thank Simon & Schuster as well as Netgalley for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I would recommend picking it up!

4.5 stars - This book was a great read. I was sucked in almost immediately and finished it in a couple sittings. The writing style flowed quickly and naturally. The descriptions were vivid and accurate - which gave a welcoming sense of realism. I truly didn't know how the story was going to end, as any plot twist as free game. It was dark, haunting, but most importantly, opened the reader's eyes to a very possible near future. For a first book, I give all my congratulations to Tyrell Johnson. I can't wait to see what he puts out next!

This book was such an unexpected surprise; I loved it. I was instantly drawn to the cold, wintry setting (PLUS it's in Canada!) and found the plot more believable than many other post-apolocalyptic/dystopian worlds. Lynn was a totally badass main character and the author did a great job of giving her depth. She was super tough/outdoorsy and could fend but herself with weapons, etc. but also realistically vulnerable given her circumstances and grief. I just loved everything about this book and would love to see a sequel!

Thanks to Simon & Schushter and Netgalley for the ARC.

In a post nuclear war and flu epidemic world, Lynn and her family live off the land in the Canadian Yukon. It’s a pretty simple and lonely life just surviving the cold, gathering and growing supplies and hunting. The family is Lynn, her mom, her brother Ken , her uncle Jeryl and her uncle’s basically adopted son, Ramsey. The only other person in their community is Conrad and he “mostly” keeps to himself since he doesn’t get along well with the others.

When Lynn is out hunting one day she spots Jax and his dog, Wolf, and invites them back even though she probably shouldn’t but it’s the most excitement she’s had in years. Jax says he will only stay until his leg heals and then he needs to move on. Before that happens, a group shows up calling themselves “traders” but they really want to take Jax back with them. The story really changes at this point and becomes much more tense and action packed.

I was interested throughout and really liked the ending. Perfect setup for a next book.

ARC generously provided by NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.