Big Reads: The Wolf Road

The Wolf Road was very different from anything else I've read this year.

Different in a good way.

Told through the eyes of a young woman known as Elka, whose reliability as a narrator continually breaks down over the course of the story. Elka has grown up in what I assume to be Canada. I assume it's Canada because the its called the BeeCee, its very cold, and the Ruskies walked there during the Damn Stupid (the apocalyptic war that has ruined the world.) While The Wolf Road is technically a post-apocalyptic story, it's not dystopian. It feels more as if it's set in the past. And though I believe it to be set in Canada, the Appalachian accents Elka and others speak with greatly remind me of the deep south.

So, we've established that Elka is unreliable, but she has good reason to be. Her parents left her with her Nana to head north to find gold - they never returned. Elka never got along with her Nana and got separated from her during a storm. She wandered off assuming that her Nana didn't survive the storm and meets a man she calls Trapper. Trapper takes her in and teaches her how to live off the land and in the wild. Elka soon begins to refer to him as her daddy in her mind.

One day while in town, Elka sees a wanted poster with Trappers face on it. She can't read, but a magistrate sees her looking at the poster and asks her if she knows the man pictured as he in wanted in connection with a murder. As you can imagine, things spiral out of control from there.

This book was dark and twisted and takes a look at all the darkest parts of people. Characters change as you learn more about them and as soon as you think things might get better for Elka, you quickly find yourself to have been very wrong. And though this book opens at the ending, there's a pretty big twist that will change everything you've read. No one can be trusted... not even Elka.

If you have a chance to read The Wolf Road - absolutely take it. You won't regret it.

Now that I've finished The Wolf Road, it's on to the ever persistent reader question... What should I read next?

I received this book from the Blogging for Books program in exchange for this review, but all opinions are honest and my own.