Customer Reviews

Nadya: The Wolf Chronicles

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Nadya is an action adventure book with a strong woman at its center. It's also a historical romance, set in the Old West. Oh, and it's also a werewolf tale. Nadya has it all, and Pat Murphy is a wonderful writer. The characters are people you want to know, the action is exciting, and a whole new world opens up with every chapter. An all around good read.

Sometimes in our lives there comes along a book so enticing, that all others pale in comparison. Nadya is woman, wolf, truly wilderness incarnate; Pat Murphy invites us to explore a world far beyond our everyday experiences. In this book, we have the epic tale of a woman's struggles to find acceptance as she faces deception, betrayal and rejection. A wolf by the full moon she runs free of the toils she encounters as a human, but even the wolf has hardships it must face.

Pat Murphy takes the reader on a journey rich in detail, strong in emotion, and often biting in its satire of American society. Nadya's journey becomes our own as we travel not across the land, but across the mind, exploring her innermost beliefs, fears, hopes, and dreams. Through Murphy's extraordinary book, the reader is given the chance to experience a life free from the constraints of society and walk away with a piece of the wilderness, a piece of the wolf, in their own hearts.

Pat Murphy has been on my auto-buy list ever since her wonderful novel, _The City, Not Long After_. I picked up _Nadya_ mostly on my feelings about her as a writer and not so much for the werewolf angle.

The book follows Nadya, a werewolf during her life in the late 1800's, from her birth in the Midwest to her trek across country to California and settling in the Pacific Northwest. A variety of characters come and go, but very little plot is developed- in many ways it's more of a travelog than a novel. Each part (Growing up, travel, and life in the Northwest) is basically self contained, without any carryovers from bit to bit, so you end up feeling like the book is a series of short stories.

Worse, it's a series of short stories with the same, almost nonexistant plot. Nadya meets evil people who don't like wolves and good people who do, and survives despite the bad people. The third time around is just dull and predictable- you know as soon as she finds happiness with good people who like wolves, shortly evil people who don't will move nearby.

The book would be far more interesting if the evil characters were better written. Each is stamped from a mold: Evil people don't like wolves, are racists who want to kill Indians, treat women badly and log forests. None is the least bit sympathetic- we're given not a single redeeming quality in the vast majority. (At least the preacher in the first section is a bit better written.) The good guys are stamped from the mirror of the mold: each loves wolves, lives in harmony with nature, accepts all races and treats women as equals. After being hammered over the head with the same stereotypes again and again, you simply stop caring about the characters.

I hope that this book is just an abberation: Murphy can (and has) written far better.

Nadya is a wonderful book. It is the story of a young woman who happens to be a werewolf looking for love and herself. She explores animal/human and woman/man binaries. She approaches love openly, without defining herself as any sexuality. The book is full of wonderful imagery and strong characters such as Dmitri's school-teacher in Russia, to the young, wild girl Jenny, to the Indian chief and the settlers in the home Nadya finally finds. I would recomend this book to ages 14 and up for anyone struggling with who they are and what others would like them to be.

The beginning of this novel is "soft," but well worth reading all the way through. I think the problem with the first fifty pages is it's hard to connect with the characters, but after that point, the problem was being able to disconnect from them. They are engaging and believable--and the story is a howl (not of laughter)...

Nadya is a young woman in the American mid-west 150 years ago. She is werewolf: one night during the full moon she changes into a wolf and lives wild for that night. She is isolated from her society, but not her family, and because of this, she is able to become who she really is in a trek that takes her to the west coast and a new life there.

This story is about female wearwolf finding her world in old USA. Nadya, the heroine, traveled from Missouri to California and finally set up near Astoria. Description about her travel is vividly written, not too much to feed up the imagination.

The plot, however, is too simple. Everything can be predicted from even in the first part of the story. The rushing in final part does not make the story interesting, instead it deprives the preasure in wandering more inside Nadya's world. The bias against her foes is also so much that it becomes comical. Nevertheless, the idea presented in this story is superb. Though the story will not linger long in memory, the understanding and appreciation of the wild gained from this book will be always remembered.

Okay. I won't mince words. This story made me cry. Pat Murphy is a master of character development. She could make you sympathize with an axe murderer. Much more so someone who is merely different, wanting only to be herself, to help others, to fit in, and to live in peace. Nadya is the story of a young wolf-woman, born of parents just like her. They are normal people who, when the full moon rises, Change and spend the dark hours romping and playing in the woods and fields. But many fear the wolf. And what they fear they hate. And what they hate they kill. Nadya hopes otherwise, but when her hope costs her family their lives, her fear and loneliness take her on an adventure across 1830's America.

This is not a young person's story. It's filled with sex and violence, love and hate, and reality.

Pat Murphy eases us into the story. We sympathize with these people as people first. They are wolves only as an afterthought. It's a technique I have seen Ms. Murphy use elsewhere as well. The effect is dazzling. By the end of the story, you identify so strongly with Nadya, your every reaction hangs on her fate.

I do have a few bones to pick. Various descriptions and experineces become redundant. The Change, for example. The first time it was described in detail, I found the description fascinating. By half through, I groaned through the process. By the end, I knew the ritual so well I felt like I could Change myself, and even the two or three short sentences used to describe it then were too much. The sex scenes followed a similar pattern. Nadya's first sexual experience, described in vibrant detail, kept me on the edge of my seat, because of the surrounding circumstances. Her second was more information than I needed to know. The third was boring. By the tenth or twentieth--I lost count--I just felt like wretching. Really, I didn't need that much detail.

My biggest gripe is that there's no epilogue. Yes, there's something at the end called "Epilogue," but that's not what I mean. I mean there's no ending to the story. After the climax and resolution of the story, it cuts off. Not even an "And they lived happily ever after." No closure.

But don't let any of these stop you from reading this book. Go out and beg, borrow, or steal a copy. It'll be worth it.

I read this novel awhile back and I still think about it today. I loved what the story was about and loved it from beginning to end. I think this is a good book to read for people who like to read about wolves, self-discovery, love, Native Americans, and finding a place to belong.

I echo the sentiments of those reviewers who enjoyed reading this book. We see Nadya, living in a world of fear, loathing and intolerance for what is deemed unseemly and inexplicable, learning to live and thrive, both as a Woman and as a Wolf. In the process, she finds acceptance in a new life she is able to establish for herself out on the frontier.

The author provides vivid descriptions of the experiences Nadya faced in making the trek westward in the 1840s. You feel yourself being carried across an arid landscape on a rickety wagon and on through the snowy Rockies (facing all kinds of hazards and overcoming them) with Nadya, Elizabeth, and Jenny.

One touching scene in the book is when Nadya as a Wolf (having been spurned earlier in the day by Elizabeth, who has never felt right about her romantic attachment to Nadya) allows herself to be mated with a male Wolf. In that moment, you experience Nadya's joy at that moment of orgasmic release as she howls ecstatically to the skies.

For those readers seeking a werewolf novel full of gore and gratuitous violence, you won't find it here. But if you want to read a well-told tale about the life and experiences of a female werewolf in 19th century America, you've come to the right place.

This story is about female wearwolf finding her world in old USA. Nadya, the heroine, traveled from Missouri to California and finally set up near Astoria. Her character besides wildness and abnormal sexual desire, is those put out from comic's hero. Kind. Brave. Everything. Description about her travel is vividly written, not too much to feed up the imagination.

The plot, however, is too simple. Everything can be predicted from even in the first part of the story. The rushing in final part does not make the story interesting, instead it deprives the preasure in wandering more inside Nadya's world. The bias against her foes is also so much that it becomes comical. Nevertheless, the idea presented in this story is superb. Though the story will not linger long in memory, the understanding and appreciation of the wild gained from this book will be always remembered.