Summary: Charles saves Anna from her abusive Chicago pack only to realize she is an Omega, a valuable member to any pack. He also realizes that she is his mate. They leave for Montana together to start building their relationship and start the search for a rogue werewolf who is killing in the mountains.
*This may be the first book in the Alpha and Omega series, but you SHOULD read the Alpha and Omega novella before attempting this book and I would also suggest reading the first Mercy Thompson book as well (Not necessary, but it will help this book make more sense).
I gave this book a 2.75 out of 5 stars
So, I am currently participating in the OWLs Magical Readathon (this is the second round). This is a readathon hosted by G from Book Roast on Youtube (she will be linked at the end of this post, as per usual). I used this book as my Charms book whose prompt was to read an adult book. As I am reading this series chronologically and I had already read the book and novella prior to this, I decided this was the perfect opportunity to pick this book up. I had had a mildly positive experience with both Moon Called (the first Mercy Thompson book) and the novella (which I listened to via Overdrive), I was keen on reading and learning more about Anna and Charles. Also from previous experiences with Urban Fantasy, I usually find that books get better and better, so that got me really excited.
Unfortunately I didn't enjoy this book as much as I had thought. About half, if not more of this book was faffing around. In the novella, Charles realized that his wolf has chosen Anna's as his mate. When the novella ends, Charles and Anna have only known each other for about a day and a half? This causes a problem when they move in together. The first chunk of this book is them attempting to work on relationship problems. Charles believes that if the inner wolves have chosen each other, the human side shouldn't have any problems (I guess this is the reverse of what usually happens, so I can see why he would think that). While the human sides do seem to be attracted to each other, Anna has come from extreme abuse (all of which is talked about in the novella...which you should read...haha). She has a hard time with men, especially alphas, because of all of the physical, mental and sexual abuse, a thing that Charles doesn't really seem to get. He saw the conditions she was in and when she doesn't return his affections or flinches away from him when she thinks it's going to get sexual, he gets super butt hurt about it. It's frustrating to read. Especially for 100+ pages.
I also didn't really connect too hard to the characters. We didn't really get to meet Charles in Moon Called. He was mentioned a few times and I think he made a cameo? Then we only had 42 pages of Anna. That is not really enough time to get to know her. We didn't have a lot of time with Bran either (Charles' Dad), so I had had a hard time caring about him...or Asil...or Sage....or anyone really (I must also mention that I didn't read any other novella other than Alpha and Omega, so I don't know if I would have different feelings...). It's really hard to enjoy a book when you don't really care about the cast inside it.
The pacing of the book was also atrocious. There was a plot about a rogue wolf...but I kept forgetting about it until it would randomly pop up again. It was the most interesting thing that was happening, so I was disappointed when it felt like an after thought.
I was a lot more excited when the action started picking up after halfway through. Unfortunately I would have had more fun if it was paced better. I was pretty over the book by the time the fun started, so that was a bit of a bummer. I was anticipating the end, so I wasn't 100% invested. The plot did get more complex than I thought it was going to get, which was great, but because the pacing was so bad, it was over very quickly.
My feeling for the characters started to grow a bit more by the end of the novel as well. Initially I felt they were in the way of the plot progressing, but as the plot progressed, they started to feel more important to the story (does that even make sense? Haha). Asil ended up being a really cool and complex character and I ended up falling in love with Bran. I hadn't really enjoyed him too much in either story, but a bit more of his backstory was given to us and now I enjoy him a lot more (I also haven't read all of the novellas, so I don't know if my feelings would have been stronger or not). Sage also seems like a cool character too and I'm interested to see how they all progress in the next books.
In the end, I think a 2.75 is a fair rating. I enjoyed the last bit and the end, but the beginning was exhausting...I did read that some of the kinks have been ironed out in the second book and I'm cautiously curious about it. I will be taking a break before I attempt to pick it up.
All of the links:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk5eRrShYL-HK0Gzg2qp4zQ
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/6483377-supermomochan-peachyfishybooks
Twitter: @_PeachyFishy_
G from Book Roast's channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsIJyv-pQSrKP4Ogj6WYIdg/featured
