The Abused Werewolf Rescue Group

Title: Jinks, Catherine.  The Abused Werewolf Rescue Group.  London: Quercus, 2011.  Print.

Overview: When Toby Vandevelde is found in the dingo pen at the zoo no one is really sure what happened.  No dingoes were seriously injured, but Toby has no memory of the event and no explanation for how he got out of his bed and into the pen.  Then a priest named Father Alvarez shows up with a man named Reuben who claims he's a werewolf and Toby is, too.  Does that explain Toby's "symptoms" or are Father Alvarez and Reuben just a bunch of crazies?

Critical Analysis:  I picked up this book because it's by the same author who wrote The Reformed Vampire Support Group and I loved that book.  There are a few crossover characters from the previous book, like Father Alvarez, Reuben, and a few of the members of the Vampire Support Group, but the book focuses mainly on Toby and can be read entirely by itself without any need to read the previous book.  The beginning gets off to a slow start as Toby figures out what's going on and what might have happened that night when he ended up at the zoo.  It takes reading through about the first 1/3 of the book before the action picks up and when it does pick up it takes off running and doesn't stop.  During the course of the book we get to meet two other werewolves and an entirely new species which keeps things very interesting.  Though the book was slow to start I still enjoyed it immensely and would definitely read it again.

Book Recommendations With Similar Themes:

1. The Reformed Vampire Support Group by Catherine Jinks.  Nina Harrison is an 80-something-year-old vampire who was turned at the age of 15 and still lives with her mother.  If you think vampires are at all like on TV - gorgeous, strong, graceful, alluring - you are dead wrong.  Vampires are just that, they're dead, and their life is anything but glamorous.  When a vampire Nina knows is killed she and some of her friends from the Vampire Support Group decide to figure out what happened.  But tracking down the vampire hunter and saving a werewolf from an underground werewolf fighting ring might be more than a reformed vampire can handle.

2. Suck It Up by Brian Meehl.  Vampires aren't all they're cracked up to be, especially the ones at the Academy.  They're ready to come out of hiding and show the world that vampires and humans can peacefully co-exist.  That's where Morning McCobb comes in.  He's been chosen as the guinea pig and gets to be the first vampire to out himself to the humans - he's even been given a publicist to make that happen and make it happen big.  Unfortunately, things don't go quite as planned when his publicist's skeptical daughter, Portia, joins the mix.  As the official jacket description says this is unlike any other vampire book out there.