This book is a wonderful depiction of what it might look like if werewolves were really walking around in the 21st century. Bloody, desperate, fearful, primitive.This book wanders in time and location, alternating between the present storyline and other vignette-like chapters capturing a single moment, experience. In a non-linear timeline, we watch our main character, our narrator who is never named, as he grows up between the ages of 8 to 16 as he yearns to shift and change like his aunt and un...

Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the Autumn moon is bright. - from The Wolf Man 1941It’s hard out there for a wolf.We’ve come a long way from the classic - from Vixens and Monster.tumblr.com What did you want be? As children, we all have dreams of ourselves as adults. I started out, a West Bronx local in a very concrete world, wanting to be a forest ranger, later an astronaut, later still, an aeronautical engineer, with

OH NO SPOOKTOBER IN YOUR FACE!!fulfilling my 2021 goal to read one ARC each month i'd been so excited to get my hands on and then...never readokay, i need more stars for this one.******************************************This is what it means to be a werewolfthis book is definitely going to be in my top three for the year. <--- that is the beginning of a review i began in november 2021 and never got around to finishing. here in april 2022, i can tell you that it did indeed make the top three. i

The most human werewolf novel I've ever read.

I feel bad about it, but I'll say it anyway: Mongrels didn't work that well for me.I listened to the audio and at first I thought it was the narrators that were my problem. After a while, though, I became accustomed to their voices and they were NOT my problem.My problem was: I didn't like it. There it is. I believe I "got" what the author was trying to do and while I admire it, in the end it just didn't work for me. I recommend you give this one a shot if the synopsis sounds interesting to you....

“Always feed a wolf his fill," the old woman quotes out loud, "lest you wake with your throat in his jaws.” Until very recently, I always thought that lycanthropy was a made up condition. Human beings don't really turn into human-wolf hybrids under a full moon--ripping through their clothes and feasting on hapless prey. But I just finished Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones a few days ago, a buddy read with my pal Mindi and now I'm pretty sure Dr. Jones is an actual werewolf and he wrote this "fic...

This is a werewolf coming of age story that was so much fun to read. Clever chapter titles, fun little jokes you could miss if you weren't paying attention, fun twist on the beasties.

It is always a treat to discover a novel that places new twists on old ideas. The werewolf novel has been around a long time and there really didn't seem to be much more one can say about the man-turns-wolf scenario. Yet Stephen Graham Jones doesn't just add a new twist but turns the entire concept on its head. In Mongrels we have a family of werewolves living as nomads in the south. The life of the modern day werewolf is grim, dreary and dangerous. Aunt Libby, Uncle Darren and their young nephe...

A new favorite!

Not a plot-driven novel. Rather, it's a series of vignettes ranging over several years, related by the main character, who is part of a family of werewolves. Though, really, the main character is waiting to go through his first change into a werewolf. In the meantime, he, his aunt Libby and Uncle Darren move constantly, always trying to find a place to make some money and stay under the radar and safe. The three live on the edges of whatever small town they're in, and the main character spends m...

If I'm remembering right, I picked this book off a list of horror recommendations, and well...it's not really horror? It's more like a chaotic werewolf family living their general manic life as they skip town and eat road kill and try to raise a kid while being, you know, also sort of wild animals. Chaos families are my THING in books, so I thoroughly enjoyed that aspect of it.I don't think the main character had a name (??) but he's raised by his aunt and uncle, Darren and Libby, who are twins....

I have read SGJ before and really liked his style, but this one just wasn't for me. The writing was choppy and hard to follow. While the premise was promising and the characters were mildly interesting, it ultimately fell flat for me. Bummer.

As I read this story I couldn’t help but be reminded of Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine, in that both works could be considers novel’s or collections of short stories. Mongrels is at its heart a coming of age story about an untraditional family who are constantly moving across the USA, the fact that they are a family of werewolves is merely colouring on the story. Don’t get me wrong the werewolf lore is handle well and readers are provided with multiple enjoyable stories, which I won’t spoil here,...

I liked this novel, but I think it would've worked without the werewolf theme. It's weird. I've read a review on this book by Bob Pastorella stating it was one of the best werewolf novels ever written and I believe him, it's just that there might be an entire level of meaning I just didn't get from the book.That said, I thought MONGRELS was a solid and original coming-of-age novel, because the werewolf angle is about growing up different and shaped by a strong culture. The family dynamic of the

“It feels like whispers. It sounds like smiling. It smells like teeth” – Stephen Graham Jones, Mongrels At once a book about a family of werewolves and a discussion of growing as “other” in our society, Mongrels is a compelling read. I have had this book on my shelf for a little while and I decided to pick it up after it was selected for the Summer Scares library program developed by the Horror Writers Association (HWA), United for Libraries, Book Riot, and Library Journal/School Library Journal...

"Werewolves, we're tough, yeah, we're made for fighting, made for hunting, can kill all night long and then some. But cars, cars are four thousand pounds of jagged metal, and, pushing a hundred miles per hour now, the world a blur of regret--there's only one result, really.And, if a bad-luck cop sees you slide past the billboard he's hiding behind, well, then it's on, right? If he stops you, you're going to chew through him in two bites, which, instead of making the problem go away, will just mu...