Review: History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund

I have been in a pretty good reading groove this summer, plowing through my to-read list faster than ever. Starting this blog has really helped motivate me, even if I'm the only one who reads it. :) One of the novels on my list was History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund. I honestly didn't even remember adding this, but when I reread the summary I understood why I had.  The protagonist, Linda, is a lonely teenage girl growing up in a failed commune deep in the Minnesota woods. She doesn't have much to do and doesn't fit in with other kids her age. She becomes obsessed with a male teacher at her school who is accused of having an inappropriate relationship with one of her classmates and possessing child pornography. Linda is kept busy digging into her teacher's illicit activities until a young boy and his mother move in nearby. As she takes the role of the boy's nanny, it's obvious to Linda that things aren't as they seem with this little family either.
How promising does that sound!

Unfortunately, this book was a total disappointment for me. By the time I got to page 80, I was so bored. I found myself choosing to do other activities instead of picking it back up, which is why it took me a few weeks to read.  The story felt like it was going nowhere for the first two-thirds of the book. While Linda was a very interesting and real character, there was little driving the story forward. You learn from the first few pages that the little boy dies and the intensity goes downhill from there. The story had very little to do with the teacher, perhaps 3-4 chapters in the entire novel addressed him and his story, and more to do with religious extremism in the field of parenting. Had I known this was the heart of the story, I probably never would have picked it up in the first place. I was complaining about reading this book so much that my husband told me to just stop reading it. Usually I always stick it out to the end, but I was seriously considering abandoning this one.  After reading the ending, which left me confused and frustrated, I kind of wish I had listened to him.

The writing in this novel, as many other reviewers have already stated, is exceptionally beautiful. Fridlund does a wonderful job of painting the scene and while I have never been to the wilds of Minnesota, I was able to feel the frigid temperatures and see the thick forests. I could empathize with Linda's loneliness and awkwardness at points. That, however, was probably the only redeeming quality of this book. I would not recommend History of Wolves because I felt like the story that was advertised was not the story I read. It was very slow-moving and just really missed the mark for me.

My Rating: ★★☆☆☆