I always enjoy a book that re-imagines history, and Wolf By Wolf is by far the most haunting but beautiful history makeover that I have read.  I was very intrigued by the story, considering that the plot revolved around an idea that might have happened if Hitler had taken over the world.  I felt that Ryan Graudin did a fantastic job with portraying the world as it might have been, with both historical elements and science fiction elements, and I enjoyed the flashbacks that were presented to show the motive of the protagonist.

But the problem that I had with this novel was that I felt it moved too slowly for my taste.  The elements of the plot tried to move it along, but it still took me three months to finish the book because it didn’t grasp me as much as I would have liked.  I also am not a fan of cliffhangers, because I feel that they are a cheap trick to get readers to buy more sequels, and this book left too many questions open; however, in terms of editing, originality, and artistic style, this novel passed with flying colors.  It was just that the plot line was too slow, and the characters ended up being flat.  I didn’t feel close to many of the characters, and while I will pick up the sequel because I am a fan of Graudin’s artistic style, I felt that this book was lacking in terms of adequate information necessary for the story line, and I felt that the characters were unrelateable at times.  If this book had been shorter and the motorcycle race hadn’t been so drawn out, I think that it would have earned a well deserved 5/5.  But despite my critiques, I am confident that this book will be a great book to introduce teens to World War 2.  Any books that make history fun are winners in my book.

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