Wonderful from beginning to end.

I was enjoying the story but didn't like the audiobook due to the character voices being all quite harsh so I couldn't finish the audiobook

Objectively, there is nothing particularly special or noteworthy about this book. The plot is simple, and in my opinion, a lot of the elements were extraneous. A villain who's twirling his moustache and tapping his fingertips together while cackling gleefully about how 'EVIL' he is (figuratively, obviously) is not necessary for this story to be good. Ilya, as much as I loved his character, or really any of the other side characters, particularly ones who drag in needless political plots that require an overly-simple resolution, were not necessary for this story to be good.

The concept itself, a young girl and her mother wilding to the best of their abilities wolves that people have tried to domesticate and realized too late that it's impossible, is honestly a strong enough concept on its own, that Rakov and his 'EVIL' ways were not needed. The entire bit with the wilded wolves killing one of the Tzar's animals and Feo's mother being blamed, and the drama from that fallout in the first few chapters wasn't needed for an interesting story. This could have been a fantastic story with no antagonist characters.

Spoiler

And the bit with Feo and Ilya riding on the wolves' backs, which while a great mental image, is also so entirely implausible that I didn't care for it. If you want fantastical elements like that, then the story needs to be a fantasy, not one that takes place solidly in the real world.

Just Feo and her mother doing what they do best and the troubles that come from that would have been strong enough for me.

But while objectively, there were many elements in this story that fall flat for me, subjectively this was a great book. For all of my complaints, I thoroughly enjoyed this book(which, yes, I'm heavily biased because it's not hard for me to enjoy a book with my favorite animal). Yes, it's incredibly simple in concept, and, if I'm being honest, almost all of the elements in it, from the villain to the side characters with the irrelevant politics angle that's pushed as being more important than it should have been, to the incredibly implausible moments all-throughout, were not ones that I personally cared for. But that didn't in the least hinder my enjoyment of what I was reading. Sometimes an incredibly simple children's story with villains twirling their moustaches and tapping their fingertips together while gleefully cackling about how 'EVIL' they are and implausible elements and extraneous characters with political subplots that have been overly-simplified, and, yes, a far too clean and easily gotten resolution, is exactly what's needed. Are there things I wish this book had done differently? Yes. Would I still recommend it to anyone who, despite the things I didn't care for, thinks this book is interesting and wants to try it? Yes.

This is the first of Katherine Rundell's books I've read so I had no expectations or pre conceived ideas about the author's style. This book thoroughly entranced me from the first chapter, Feo and her mother are wolf wilders; they teach unwanted pets how to reintegrate into their natural environment. They live a solitary but happy life until everything changes when Feo's mother is taken away by soldiers. Feo sets off with her wolf friends (& some human ones she makes on the way) to save her mother. Beautifully written, the book had me in tears of heartbreak at one particular moment and made my heart race in fear at others. Ilya, Feo's soldier friend who desires nothing more than to be a ballet dancer is finely drawn and his sexuality is only hinted at but it's heartening to see diversity appearing in MY books without differences being painted as 'issues'.

[3.5 Stars]