Title: Mate Vs. Mate

Author: Browneyed_Writer

Genre: Werewolf

Quick Summary: Whoooo buddy.

Thoughts:

This is... basically everything I dislike about werewolf books, even though it tries to claim it's not. Nonsense werewolf pack dynamics. Mate systems. Them barely really being werewolves at all aside from occasional shifting. It's... nothing I've never seen before. There's not really anything here that makes it stick out to me. The only thing that's really different here is MC's age - thank god she's not a teenager for once.

Not to mention, Blake is a douche who doesn't understand what boundaries are and if he was my "alpha", he'd be dead by now. We meet him in chapter three where Skylar tries everything to show she's not interested and he just ignores her. And then in the very next chapter, he's a mass misogynistic cockwaffle when she tries to have some fucking agency for herself and find her own damn brother. No, Blake, she doesn't need you or her dad or any other dude in her life to do her work for her. I'm glad your mate's dead, because at least she doesn't have to put up with you anymore.

And then we meet Skylar's actual "mate". And it's... in the worst possible moments. The pack she's part of has invaders in their land. Her brother's just gone missing. Just as she finds him and right is about to take him home,  NOW she finds her mate? Why couldn't this have waited? There couldn't possibly have been a more inappropriate time for this to have happened unless it had happened in a funeral home. And when she comes back to the rest of her family they act like there's a choice in the bit? What is this mating system? Why does it exist? Why can't two people just fall in love without it being fucking destiny for once? Why can't she just go without love at all? She was kind of doing fine without it!

And then there's just... a POV switch in chapter 5? How does this further the narrative? Why should I care? I don't care why this dude is here. I don't care about him. He sounds like a fucking edgelord and he whines too much about not having love for someone who purports he understands why he doesn't. He's the same aggressive, hyper-masculine douchebag I've seen a hundred times already and could do without seeing ever again. The only thing switching the POV did was make me hate the eventual "love interest" even more than I already do. This chapter could stand to be removed.  

Not to mention Skylar is another one of those "strong female characters" that's only strong in title. For someone who doesn't care about the "Moon Goddess" and all that, she doesn't really show it. Why'd she leave in the first place? Why doesn't she tell her parents to leave her be? She's what, twenty two? That's old enough to have some agency for herself. But she doesn't. She still lets herself be walked on. I'm so absolutely tired of characters like her.

And overall, even with only six chapters, this plot is about as stable as a house made from a deck of cards. While I already call them falling in love [the summary has a "you're mine!" scene excerpt and it's tagged as romance], Isaac is a terrible person. He literally drugs her before taking her with him! And where did he even get it? All he's wearing in this scene is nothing and then shorts! That is not a good way to kick off your new wolf-y relationship. Moon Goddess be damned, get a fucking restraining order against this creep.

Speaking of drugs, that is NOT how fast chloroform works. It's not instantaneous. Please do research.

The only major silver lining to this is that the prose is okay. Needs a whole lot of grammar work, definitely. But the prose was the least of my problems.

This book was an experience. I felt an entire range of emotions and I cannot adequately describe a single one of them.