Book Review: Where there's a wolf there's a way by Lisi Harrison (Monster High) | Read in a Single Sitting

Lisi Harrison’s back with the third installment of her junk food-esque Monster High series, and it looks as though she’s finding her stride. Though there’s no denying that these books make Stephen King, the self-proclaimed “literary equivalent of a hamburger” look like the ten course degustation menu at Jacques Reymond, with matching wines, they’re the kind of guilty pleasure that you’ll indulge in after a tough day at work (and after which you promise yourself that you’ll atone for your bad behaviour with a run or a volume of French poetry).

When we last saw the Monster High crew they’d just been outed on TV by an unscrupulous documentary maker. Now the motley assortment of beasties is torn between fight or flight responses. The majority jetset off to various monster-friendly places such as Romania or Loch Ness, but a few stay behind to face the rather discordant music. Clawdeen Wolf and her lunatic (literally–as their oh-so-subtle names indicate, they’re werewolves) family are among those opt to stay behind, hiding out in the family inn. But although Clawdeen takes up a fair bit of page space describing her clothes, trimming her hair and waxing–werewolves are rather hirsute, as it turns out–and planning her “sassy” sixteenth birthday party, all the interesting stuff occurs when the POV switches over and out; namely to Melody Carver and Frankie Stein.

Melody, protagonist of the first in the series and monster rights activist, has recently found out that she’s perhaps a little more ghoulish than she thought: her voice has the kind of lure that in the epics of Homer sees ships dashed against rocks. Melody and her sister continue to campaign for monster rights, with Melody deciding to use her voice to cajole the monster detractors to side with her and her spooky friends instead. And what better place to make a stand than at Clawdeen’s party?

Meanwhile, Frankie Stein, though nudged back to mere supporting character status is struggling with the notion of agency. Having campaigned for non-normies to be able to live a public life without discrimination since she was, er, created, she’s ambivalent about the fact that the monster crew is achieving a degree of public acceptance, but that she has played no active role in bringing this about. Of course, one supposes that the only child of two mad scientists must feel like an underachiever no matter what happens in her life.

Where the first two books in the series felt as though they lacked direction, this third is a lot tidier. Admittedly, the opening scene, where Clawdeen and her family are running through the woods making the same jokes over and over is a bit bloated and confusing, but Harrison has quite a bit of back story to work in, and given the amount of POV characters these books utilise, doing so in a concise manner is surely a challenge. The gradual thematic shift away from simple popularity and fashion towards equality and activism is a plus, too, and makes for a much stronger read all around. Even the characters feel more solid, and there’s less competitive bitchiness and more working together towards a common goal–there’s more of a sense of the characters being legitimately connected rather than simply thrown into the book for the sake of a bit of snarky banter.

There are some aspects that detract a little from the reading experience, however. The flood of brand names and pop culture references is of biblical proportions, and I suspect that Noah himself would struggle to navigate these crowded Trademarked, Registered and Patent Pending waters. The fact that several chapters is devoted to a Lady Gaga concert is also a bit bewildering. Although I get that Harrison is making a play on Gaga’s whole “little monsters” and the beauty in difference thing, I suspect that this could have been done far more effectively and in a way that wouldn’t date the book in such an extraordinary manner. As it is, the branding and references serve to make these books feel utterly disposable. Finally, the slew of alternating points of view dilutes the plot a little, and although we’re told that Where There’s a Wolf There’s a Way is Clawdeen’s book, there’s actually very little sense of this, and Clawdeen’s role is mostly about preening and primping rather than moving the plot forward in any meaningful way.

Still, the book feels a lot more oriented than the first two in the series, and even given the supreme superficiality of the main characters (wearing flats is not a crime, people) it’s hard to argue that they’re not a whole lotta fun.

Rating: (good)