Hi friends, happy Wednesday! I hope you’re all doing well. Today I’m posting my review of Cherie Dimaline’s novel Empire of Wild.

Empire of Wild by: Cherie Dimaline: Joan’s husband, Victor, has gone missing. He’s been gone eleven months, and she hasn’t stopped searching. She knows he’s out there, but her family is starting to give up hope. One morning, she happens to stumble upon a tent where the local Métis have been gathering to hear a charismatic preacher. While there, she hears a familiar voice, Victor. Only he claims he’s not Victor, but Reverend Eugene Wolff, set out to spread the word of Jesus. Now Joan must help Victor/Wolff remember who he really is. The reader really wanted to like this, but they felt more confused by the plot than anything else and the characters just never gelled enough for this reader. The Métis folklore of the Rogarou was so interesting to explore and read about, but the reader found it hard to connect with the plot. It took a good hundred pages or more to finally understand what was happening. Things felt so disjointed and nothing was connecting; the switching of the point of views only helped to confuse the reader more because then they really didn’t know who was who. After a while it became clear what was happening and the plot found some momentum; when it got going it really did take off and it was fast-paced, which the reader really did enjoy. That’s why this has a higher rating because this had merit and was good for a bit, but then we got to the end and it just ended abruptly. It didn’t feel like this story had a clear resolution, we had no idea what happened to any of the characters, it was just over. After all the work to try and figure characters and plots out, it felt underwhelming. The characters, unfortunately didn’t connect with the reader, we had a hard time feeling anything for them. They felt so one dimensional and kinda boring. There wasn’t anything memorable about them. It didn’t feel like we got any details or background on them, we were just supposed to take them at face value and it was just so sad because they had so much potential to be more. The background characters felt interesting, but we barely got to see them. We’re not really sure why the author felt the need to add a twelve-year-old boy as the main character’s sidekick because he didn’t do much for the main character or the plot; from the bits we did get, the reader wanted to know more about him. In the end, this could have been great, but it felt more like a half-baked concept than a full fleshed novel.