The Wolf Road

***SOME SPOILERS***I sat high, oak branch 'tween my knees, and watched the tattooed man stride about in the snow. Pictures all over his face, no skin left no more, just ink and blood. Looking for me, he was. Always looking for me. He left red drops in the white, fallen from his fish knife. Not fish blood though. Man blood. Boy blood. Lad from Tucket lost his scalp to that knife. Scrap of hair and pink hung from the man's belt. That was dripping too, hot and fresh. He'd left the body in the thick [...]

All I know is that one day all the maps became useless and we had to make our own. The old'uns called the day the Fall or the Reformation. Nana said some down in the far south called it the Rapture. Nana was a babe when it happened, said her momma called it the Big Damn Stupid. Set everything back to zero.An event has happened that set the world back to a time with no technology. Mother Nature is boss and seven year old Elka learns the hard way when her Nana is 'lost' during a strong storm. Elka [...]

I found The Wolf Road to have a compelling and easy to read style. The protagonist is one of the strongest females that I've read, and I found how she survived several early traumas to be mostly believable. If you are looking for strong female characters, and a variety of them, you will enjoy this book. This was a book that was hard to put down, even if it strained my 'willful suspension of disbelief' in several important places. Grounding a story in reality is very important to me, even when it [...]

Trapper was my family even though I didn't know a sure thing about him. Trapper was the kind a'family you choose for yourself, the kind that gets closer'n blood. He was what I chose and I chose wrong. An extraordinary novel - dark and funny and full of wild energy First novel of this author, Beth Lewis, and well worth reading. It is an apocalyptic story, although it does not 'feel' that way and it is hardly noticeable, it is not the main part of the story. It is a novel about a girl in the wilde [...]

Find all of my reviews at: 52bookminimum/True Grit meets The RoadFor maybe the first time in the history of ever the powers that be got it right!The usual suspects get the credit blame for me reading this one. First Shelby said to read it and then Ed said the same. It doesn’t take much more than that. It’s been like 36 hours since I have either been told how stupid I am or personally confirmed said stupidity, so let me take a second to remind all of you. Between the title and the cover and t [...]

Novel is pert-near perfect. One slight complaint I got is that some parts is a mite hard to read. Made my head spun, they done did. Cruise willin' and the creek don't rise, I might give 'er another read one day. See what alls I might of misunderstood cuz it's writ all broke-like. Writing that first paragraph hurt my heart and soul. I cannot fathom writing an entire novel like Beth Lewis wrote The Wolf Road. I once wrote a story called "Smitten" in this style, and to this day, I want to go back a [...]

With the world chock-full of assholes, I’ve made a New Year’s resolution to strive to play to my kinder, gentler nature. One in which I’m less apt to point fingers or lay blame when my friends lead me astray. Less likely to sling mud, or poke fun, or call names. Less inclined to suggest that everything’s ridiculous™. A new version of self where I can somehow resist the urge to reply with belittling or disparaging remarks to trolls who posit opinions as facts . . . Naw, who am I kidding [...]

Copy furnished by Net Galley in exchange for a review.Elka doesn't much like people. She don't trust 'em. Raised in the woods by a man name a' Trapper, all she knows is the wild. Her basic credo is one of common decency - leave the forest as you found it. Backward and illiterate, Elka is going to need to employ the use of every survival skill she knows when her world comes crashing down. Spare and gritty, this one.

Survival/revenge/redemption + tough-talkin', knife-wieldin' heroine + post-apocalyptic setting + a strong female friendship. "The Wolf Road is an intimate cat-and-mouse tale of revenge and redemption, played out against a vast, unforgiving landscape—told by an indomitable young heroine fighting to escape her past and rejoin humanity.""Way I reckon it, men killed more wolves than wolves ever killed men. I know who I’m more afraid of.”Elka is orphaned when she is seven years old and taken i [...]

I absolutely loved this book.The Wolf Road is a post-apocalyptic road trip with a western vibe. I won't summarize for fear of spoilers. There's a strong plot to keep the pages turning, but what absolutely blew me away was the writing. It's got that every-word-considered vibe you only get from the most skilled and careful practitioners of the craft. The lead characters are all strong and memorable, but even minor characters who only get a page or two come across as fully realized. That's quite a [...]

Read for post-apocalyptic book club. (My selection, but then events happened and I couldn't make it to the meeting. Mea culpa!) I liked it, but I just hope others did as well!Now, I did like this book, very much. And I picked it up because it was advertised as a post-apocalyptic selection. BUT. This story is really a Western. There is nothing at all about it that requires a post-apocalyptic setting, and much as I love the genre, I felt that the efforts to fit the story into a presumably-future d [...]

Oh dear. I'm calling this one at 30%. DNF. This just isn't for me. I hate to DNF a book I get from Netgalley, but I figure, why force it? I can tell this is a book a lot of people would like, but it didn't work for me. The pacing is slow. Not much goes on except for Elka surviving, which includes finding food, building shelters, and just trying to escape the harsh environment. Occasionally something interesting happens, but then it goes back to her wandering in the woods.The dystopian element is [...]

4 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum bibliosanctum/2016/09/29/I didn’t really know what I was getting into when I started The Wolf Road, but once it started going I couldn’t stop! And to be honest, I’m surprised more attention hasn’t been given to the book’s “Western” vibe, as that really deserves to be front and center. Out of the novel’s many strengths, its harsh and gritty frontier-like atmosphere was what really stood out—a definite plus for me, considering there’s certainly [...]

The topography of British Columbia has changed. Wars have created a post-apocalyptic wilderness demanding a new set of survival skills.Elka, an orphan, has lived with Trapper for ten years. Rescued at the age of seven, she has been taught survival techniques including tracking and hunting. Although he is a solitary hunter, Trapper has nurtured Elka because she follows his rules. She doesn't talk to anyone, ask any questions and has a '"gift" with a knife. On a trip to town for supplies, Elka fin [...]

***NO SPOILERS***This thriller is proof that a villain doesn’t have to take center-stage to be sufficiently terrifying. A fearless teenage narrator, Elka, is on the run from her serial-killer surrogate father. “Hunted” gets much more attention than does “hunter,” and it works so well. The year is unclear, but what is clear is that a far-reaching bombing event has propelled this corner of the world into a kind of post-apocalyptic lawlessness. This isn’t just any lawlessness, though; t [...]

This book is perfection.Okay, okay, there was one thing that didn't sit entirely right with me, but which I don't feel adequately skilled to comment on, and that was the concern that there were discrepancies within the slanguage used.Elka is illiterate, and she often uses weren't instead of wasn't, uses a' instead of of, and abbreviations such as 'bout, 'neath, 'stead, 'hind, 'tween, and afore. At times while reading, I thought I might have caught some discrepancies, where she used the correct w [...]

I won this from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers Program in exchange for an honest review. I did feel some pressure to quickly review. Though I wouldn’t read any other reviews until after I wrote and posted my own review, I noticed that many reviews have already been posted, many more at than at LibraryThing.I read a paperback uncorrected proof not for sale with 356 pages. I received it on May 11. It has an expected publication date July 5th. I read it as a buddy read with my friend Caroline [...]

O sweet Christ, this was such a perfectly-written, instantly addictive novel.The revelations are parceled out in drips and drabs. The truth about the world this story takes place in, the truth about the characters' history, the truth about what human beings are really capable of. At once a "Western," a survival tale, a travelogue, an epic journey, a murder mystery, and a semi-post-apocalyptic coming-of-age story. There is so much going on here!

The best thing about The Wolf Road is the voice. Main character and first-person narrator Elka is one badass bitch. She wasn't raised by wolves, but might have been better off if she had been. Abandoned by her parents after an apocalyptic event, she grew up rough in the woods with a man she called Trapper. He taught her all the survival skills she needed, and maybe a few she didn't. When Elka learns Trapper might not be quite the father figure she thought he was, she lights out on her own on a q [...]

This review can also be found at Carole's Random Life.I love a nicely told dark story and that is exactly what I got with this book. I really liked that the story is told from a very unique voice although I would imagine that not all readers will enjoy Elka's rough speech as I did. I thought that the world that this book was set in felt very vivid and realistic. This is a brutal story but also one of hope. Elka meets some wonderful people on her journey and works to improve her own future. I thi [...]

Not all 3-star ratings can be considered equal. There's the “middle-of-the-road”, straight C: “liked you, but don’t go braggin now”. The C+: “got a little swagger in my step”. And the C-: “tripped over my own swagger”.What I liked (mainly the 1st half): The character of Elka. She is this unique, “wild-raised” girl (young woman for most of the story), who talks like 3rd grade trucker, takes no sass, but will certainly hand it out. I like her for who she is, because she wears [...]

"All people are good till they ain't no more."This genre-bending post-apocalyptic book is part horror story, part cat-and-mouse thriller, part modern western, and part survival tale.Seventeen-year-old Elka can hardly remember her life before she met Trapper. For a decade now, this gruff man has been like a father to her. The two of them have lived on their own in the middle of nowhere—on the fringes of a decimated society. Trapper has taught her how to live like an animal, hunting for food and [...]

The Wolf Road is an incredible novel – dark, intriguing, absolutely beautifully written with one of the strongest and most memorable character voices I have ever read.This is Elka’s story – and BOOM what a story it is. Her parents gone, lost in a storm, taken in by “Trapper” and brought up in the wild, until one day she discovers something sinister about her saviour and sets out on a journey across a wild and bitter landscape, a journey that will take her to unexpected places and unexp [...]

Such grit. Very western. Wow murder. -Peter Damienfrom The Best Books We Read In July 2016: bookriot/2016/08/01/riot-r

‘One a’ them rules is don’t go trusting another man’s path…People do it, they do what their mommies and daddies did, they make them same mistakes, they have them same joys and hurts, they just repeating. Trees don’t grow exactly where their momma is; ain’t no room…I weren’t following no one up through life.’Deep in the woods of what was once called British Columbia, 17-year-old Elka is struggling to survive on her own. After what she refers to as the “Big Damn Stupid”, th [...]

Review from Tenacious Reader: tenaciousreader/2016/0The Wolf Road is a brutal and fascinating story that entrenches you in the mind and personality of Elka, a young woman living in a post apocalyptic world that can be harsh and unforgiving. I found her personality and story both riveting and touching. She is far from a sentimental type, quite the opposite really. She is driven by practicality and survival and gives little thought or need for much of anything else. In all honesty, her character h [...]

*3.5 out of 5 stars*The Wolf Road started out a little slow for my taste. I think it was partly due to the fact that I had some trouble getting used to the way Elka talked. I guess her character was meant to have some kind of accent, but this made it difficult for me to read the way I normally do. It wasn't a really big deal though, and I did end up getting used to it as I read on. The other issue that may have contributed to the slow start was that after the prologue (which was very interesting [...]

Young Elka was only 7 years old when she was parted from her Nana due to a violent storm and became completely lost in the woods. She was found by a man she only knew as Trapper and she came to think of him as Daddy. Trapper/Daddy would go out hunting and bring back meat that he taught Elka to skin. He taught her everything she needed to know to survive in the wild. Then when she’s 17 years old, she learns that he’s a killer and now he’s after her.This book takes place in the future after [...]

I absolutely loved this story. It's so good. And very well told. Really, it's awesome. Best thriller I've read this year. Maybe because it didn't read much like the usual thrillers. I especially liked the post apocalyptic wilderness/western-like setting, and although there's a mystery, it's really the world building that sets this one apart. As for the narrative, it's rather slow-paced, but in a good way. I really enjoyed getting to know the backstory through Elka's memories, and I really liked [...]

I really enjoyed this book. Elka is a strong individual who is raised by a man she calls Trapper. He found her when she was 7 and teachers all the skills to survive in the wilderness. After 10 years she finds out he is wanted for murder. As she runs away trying to escape from him and the law, she gets in very dangerous situations. She wants to find her parents who left her with Nana 15 years ago to dig for gold.I really liked Elka and was cheering for her to find her parents and to get away from [...]