Have you ever read a book and, part way through, start to wonder why the hell you’re reading it? So much about this book should have irritated me to the point of not finishing it. And yet, I held on all the way through 550 pages to the end. I’m still not sure how to explain that other than to say that Kalix, the eponymous werewolf girl, has something of Lisbeth Salander about her. They’re both terribly damaged girls that you want to help and take care of, that nonetheless can kick your ass if they felt like it.
Martin Millar’s Lonely Werewolf Girl is a scattered, multi-threaded novel that follows a quartet of werewolf siblings in London. Two of them, the brothers, are scrabbling for power even before their father (the head of the clan) dies. The sisters want to stay out of the business. One of them wants to build her fashion business. The last sister, Kalix, wants to stay out of it because her family is a back of vicious creature that want to kill her. The novel jumps back and forth between the lot of them as they scheme (or don’t) over several weeks until tempers start to flare and characters start to die.
Kalix is prickly, addicted to laudanum, and seriously, deeply depressed. In real life, she would be hard to deal with. And yet, other characters start to adopt her because she can be witty and caring when the circumstances are right. I can’t help but try to psychoanalyze her. Every clue about her childhood is tantalizing. Part of what is so appealing about her, I suppose, is knowing that she’s one of the few decent members of her family. She’s fiercely protective of her friends and the people she likes. As a reader, you know she could be a great person in her world, if only she could straighten herself out. Millar shows the beginning of that process, probably because we would lose all hope if Kalix kept circling the drain.
Another thing that kept me reading was the dark humor of the novel. On the back cover, there’s a blurb from a UK magazine called List: “Imagine Kurt Vonnegut reading Marvel Comics with The Clash thrashing in the background.” I couldn’t have put it better myself. This book is snortingly funny at times. And it doesn’t shy away from the darker side of life, making it deeper fare than most contemporary fantasies. In spite of the magic and werewolves, this book feels truer to real life than other books in the genre. When characters get hurt in this book, you can see the bruises in your mind’s eye. When they cry, you want to hug (some of) them.
I should mention the irritating things about this book. It’s only fair warning to other readers who might want to pick it up. First, there is far too much recapping, especially in the first third of the book. Millar repeatedly brings up character’s recent histories and motivations. Because I found this book so compulsively readable and was reading 100 pages or more in a sitting, I noticed it enough to get annoyed. Second, there are some characters that I wanted to shake until their teeth rattled. Two characters in particular were so obnoxiously upbeat and self-centered that I hated them at first site. And yet, they started to grow on me, too. By the end of the book, I found them hugely entertaining.
Lonely Werewolf Girl is a book that you have to take a chance on. After a rocky first third, this book is pretty damned good. Good enough that I’d like to read the sequel. Millar has created a genuinely original urban fantasy. It’s full of the thorny dilemmas that I love to read, and characters so well-rounded you feel like you might actually bump into them someday. More than anything else, I’d say that this book is a compulsive read. If you pick it up, and give it a chance, be prepared to lose a weekend or so reading.