Simply fascinating! Such a good read I barely put the book down and when I did I couldn’t wait to start again!! It’s a different take on the traditional werewolves and that’s what peaked my interest and the more I read the more I wanted to know what happens next and how will they do that! Pick it up! You won’t be disappointed!

The feels, the emotions and action! An amazing tale of love, family, jealousy, overcoming and self awareness. If you love weres, you will love this book and the characters. Oh the feels. It is a one sitting read, prepare yourself and keep the tissue handy.

The Were Chronicles presents an interesting take on the classic 'were-animal' tropes and ideas, staging the struggles of a family in a world were 'Weres' are a minority population discriminated against and held apart from the 'normals' by bureaucratic and social norms. Because of the nature of this collection, I'll give my thoughts on each individual book, then wrap up with a few thoughts regarding the trilogy overall.

Random: Our trilogy opens with a young, sympathetic main protagonist who becomes determined to uncover and understand her family's past and secrets once the unexpected happens to her, forcing her and her family to re-evaluate their relationships to the past and to one another. Jazz provides an interesting guide into the world of the Were, as one who is both a member of the society but also been held apart and in the dark, and her journey allows a natural way to world-build without too much 'telling'. Random is probably the most introspective book of the three; its slower pace may be viewed by some as plodding, and the plot focuses mostly on the challenges of being a newcomer and outsider, both as an immigrant and as a member of a minority class. If you're looking for action and magic rather than a more grounded tale of family grief and growth, you may want to look elsewhere. I for one enjoyed the book, though I did feel Jazz's development was greatly overshadowed by her sister's tale, and I regretting not getting to learn more about her as a character. In general, Random was a lovely, more poetic introduction to Alexander's Were world.

Wolf: Wolf shifts our narrator from Jazz to her moody, withdrawn brother in a natural hand-off that is set up in the end of Random. Enough time is spent recapping the events of Random from Mal's point of view to establish his character and motives, but not so much that it bogs down the rest of the book (see Shifter). Where Random was introspective with barely any of the book set outside of the home, Wolf swings the attention outwards towards the rest of the Were world and brings in some elements of intrigue and action. Some elements moved rather fast, and I didn't feel certain relationships had the development required to carry some of the final scenes of the book (hard to discuss without spoilers), and there seemed to be a few deus ex machinas that cropped up throughout, but overall I enjoyed Mal's tale on par with his sister's.

Shifter: *sigh* I'm really not sure how to feel about Shifter. If Wolf didn't exist, it would have hands down been my favorite, as Chalky may be my favorite. character in the series and made for a good narrator However, having read Wolf, Shifter seemed not only to recap the prior books but retell them in near-full detail. To some extent, this is warranted as Chalky played a large role in throughout Wolf. However, as such, it felt like 2/3 of the book was basically the same scenes that were either played out or described in sufficient detail in Wolf that any tension or intrigue was gone and I had to pull myself through the majority of the book. Then, in the last few chapters, we get to the heart of Chalky's story only for there to be a quick timeskip and a final chapter or two leaving me rather put out that more of the book hadn't focused on that section. I liked the beginning and the end, and I wish these had been longer with less page count given to retelling Wolf.


The Trilogy overall: While in general I liked the flow of the three books as a trilogy, the most jarring aspects were the pacing and voices of the characters. While Wolf picks up more-or-less where Random leaves off, Shifter largely takes place during Wolf with many of the same events, only growing outside of Wolf's story for the first few introductory and last few chapters. Huge scale story events are reduced to summaries while small scenes sometimes stretch chapters. It felt a bit confusing at times, especially in Shifter, but I can accept that the series is more micro-scale (character interaction driven) rather than macro-scale.
The other jarring aspect was the voice of the 1st person narrator did not really vary from book-to-book while the character narrating was radically different. While the 'voice' worked okay for Random and Shifter, it really didn't feel right for Wolf, just didn't seem to fit Mal as a character at all. Having read all three books in quick succession, the similarity between the three 'voices' was a bit uncanny and strange..
One last pet-peeve of mine in this series: the use of "Were" to refer to the animal aspect/form of the were-animals. While I do understand how it has become a linguistic shortcut, I still found it a bit aggravating. Can't really blame the author though; I fully expect if Weres were part of society, this would have come into fashion, much as "literally" is used to mean "figuratively", haha.
I did enjoy the many aspects that the author added to the world, building a rather impressive mythos and family tree around the many Were clans and communities, including the inclusion of 'New Moon Were'. Despite my nitpicking, I really enjoyed these books; thank you to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this ARC; all opinions expressed above are mine and mine alone..