Review: Underdeveloped
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 20, 2014
Only 2.5 stars even though I liked the book, it lacked in so many departments.  Spoiler alert...I read book 1 and 2 on the same day.  When I started book 2 Belligerent Beta, I was hoping the author had taken heed of some of the constructive comments in her reviews for book 1 but alas no such luck.  This one was even more underdeveloped than book 1.  We meet Dan, the pack's beta and Nathan the pack's omega from book 1.  We are given a little insight into why Dan is the way he is, aloof and very self-sufficient but with Nathan we are left in the dark.  His character is inconsistent to a point of being unbelievable in certain scenes.  Throughout the story, he is timid and practically scared of his own shadow.  He has no skills or real instincts of a wolf and we are only told snippets of why this is so.  So many questions about him left unanswered:  why can he not recall his childhood? who looked after him as a baby?  how did he end up at age 24 without knowing how to take care of himself?  His character is portrayed as being almost asexual, with no sexual response or interaction with Dan or anyone else, yet just a few scenes later, he is willing and eager to jump Dan and give up his virginity!  No gradual sexual awakening for him...no development.  He hardly has any interaction with other pack members he is not familiar with because he is too insecure and does not know his place in the pack, yet he verbally takes on a near stranger as he tries to defend 2 of the strongest members of the pack?  Had the author shown us that he was slowly but surely coming out of his insecure shell and was becoming the man and wolf he was meant to be, then maybe that scene would have been believable but yet again there was no development at all.  There's an element of angst when a rogue wolf comes into their territory and smells like Nathan and we get to think ok maybe a link to his unexplained past but this is resolved in such an anti-climatic way when we are shown who the rogue is.  This series could be so good if the author would give her characters and plot the attention they deserve.  I like the fact that all pack members are so closely linked and can feel when someone in the pack was in trouble or unhappy.  Even though I had many frustrations about this book, I would still buy book 3 and hope that the series improves with each book.