Customer Reviews

Shara

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Summary:
Shara is a confused moralistic girl who accepted the 'Gift' for all the wrong reasons. She becomes the only werewolf able to bare children naturally and is thus hunted by all other werewolves as an abomination to be killed by some and the werewolf messiah to lead the pack by others.

Warnings:
Honestly I wish I hadn't read the prologue, it ruined the ending for me. If you hate smut you might not want to read this book, it puts all the romance novels I've read to shame. Shara is the Multi-Orgasmic Werewolf!

My Thoughts:
Shara's character changes many times in the course of the novel. I really hated her character in the beginning of the novel but after the setting up of the storyline was over with it got good and stayed that way. Once you get into the story it holds a steady interesting pace and the writer's skills notably increase. The fact Steven started writing this book in the early 90s shows. Overall its an easy read that keeps you curious as to what happens next. I do not regret buying this book even after being so critical about it.

Absolutely refreshing! A new spin on one of the oldest subgenres in Horror, Shara is a classic tale in a modern novel that leaves you breathless, desperately hoping 'the pack' has more to tell!

Shara is not your average rip-n-shred weretale. It allows you to support the murderous monster on her quest to become what is most vulnerable to the werewolf in her - something not quite the beast yet more than the human she once was.

Written with such skill and clarity of his characters, you don't even notice Wedel's writing style at all. Completely dimensional characters that you can reach out and touch make the story, and easily pull you into the pages.

It flows gracefully, perfectly, from drama to comedy to horror and back again. The pace is relentless if you want to read before bed and actually get sleep - I read this in one sitting and was late for dinner because I had to finish it!

The story is comfortingly familiar, yet unnervingly unique - you have no idea what could be coming next, and you like it that way! The atmosphere is tightly written close enough to reality to make you pause at the possibilities of superstitions. And fun metaphors [a beast during her monthly cycle] are wonderfully woven to be whatever emotion is necessary at that moment, while the trials and triumphs are literally felt by the reader.

I will flat out tell you the cover doesn't do it justice and the back is slightly misleading...but you will not be disappointed by what you find in between! Rating is definitely a five

"Shara" is a haunting tale of a shy, timid girl given "The Gift" to become a wolf. A werewolf. Here her tale begins, grabs you by tooth and claw, and takes you into a story you'll soon not forget. Steven Wedel has done an incredible job creating characters that are utterly believable. Even more accomplished is the fact that he makes the emotions they are feeling flow out of the book and into you. He has truly taken the horror genre to a new level.
If you want to read a beautifully written, chilling tale that will keep you on the edge of your seat, this is the one to read. I highly recommend it, and guarentee you will not be disappointed, but looking forward to the next book.

"Shara" is a fun first novel, written with a real love for the genre. The pacing is brisk, the prose well written and the plot (a cross-genre blending of serial killer and werewolf stories) perfectly constructed. Mr. Wedel has a great future.

I purchased this book and started reading. The introduction set my standards pretty high on the story's quality. I was not dissapointed. In fact, the story was so fantastic I couldn't put it down until I finished the book. The book is full of sorrows and twists and turns that made it reserve its permanent place on my bookshelf. Its a great read and I recommend it to anyone who is looking for a fantastic, standout, outside the box kind of werewolf novel.

So I just finished this book and while it had it's issues, it did hold my attention. This review will be heavy with SPOILERS so reader beware

Firstly, the pros: I liked the ease that the shapeshifters could...shape shift. I liked how liquid their forms were. And while some reviewers have issues with the menstrual cycle as wolf cycle being cliche, I liked it. I also thought it was interesting that a werewolf is forced into a natural 5 day cycle where they have to stay as wolves. Shara in wolf shape was often well described, and I enjoyed, well maybe 'enjoyed' is not the word, but I thought the interspecies sex was an interesting and often unused in werewolf fiction. The fact that Shara was able to carry both human babies, and wolf cubs was unique.

I also enjoyed the strange relationship between Shara and Ulrik, I found their father/dater maker/child dynamic to be interesting, and believable albeit too brief in the book.

Now some Cons:

Shara is fantastically annoying as a lead character. She is a whiny victim who has issues with sex, with identity, and with her place in the world. She is not a smart or practical girl, and she never grows into one as a woman. I have no idea why Ulrik would be drawn to her, or why she would be an appealing protege to anyone. She is also bitter, and spiteful and she doesn't ever develop past that. She is always reacting, and always easily seduced by any man (or male wolf) that seems to pay attention to her. When she returns home to her parents in the second half of the book I realized I actually loathe this character, she could not even sit for one stupid meal, before ripping her clothes off and demand her father get over the fact she has breasts and then kills the family dog! Yes this is exactly how one behaves when they wanted to be treated like a human adult. Here are more issues I have with Shara:

1. The fact that she marries the nutty religious zealot after dating him for a month, on top of all her questionable lies and the fact that he believes them! I mean, they are not even good lies. And if my crazy pregnant wife moved to the attic and refused to see a doctor? Or when she is giving birth he does not call an ambulance? Or that a man of god would immediately kill himself in such a way? Shara hooked up with the first and only man she met in town. She had been on her own for about an hour. Why is someone like her getting married? Date, sure, where she can have a life and privacy to maintain a secret life. Marry? No. How did she think this was going to pan out?

2. The fact that husband number two is an ex junkie who murdered someone and now lives in a ridiculous compound. I don't believe he is a junkie, his dreams of syringe armed tentacle things just seem cheezy to me. And his wealth and ridiculous fortress funded by drawing comics? It seems a bit contrived to me all in all. I did enjoy his relative ease in accepting her as a werewolf though. Also the issue that she gets pregnant and wants to get married!?! Call me a modern woman, but if you are trying to conceal your identity and have only dated someone for such a short time with people trying to kill you etc. why are they planning shotgun weddings? Who cares.

3. I did not understand Tom Weisman's hatred of her, and the questionable behavior of the rest of the Pack. Yes Shara is an annoying and stupid werewolf, and yes Tom has to repeatedly clean up her mess. But They (The Pack) weren't the most diplomatic bunch and we never really understand why. Sure some think she is Mother who will being about this great leader offspring for a war. And others...well I guess they don;t want a war or whatever. I never understood their motivations and it seems strange that they would be vandalizing things and killing children all to bring Shara out. Not exactly low profile. The fact that she, Ulrik, and Chris all wonder if she will join the pack seem odd to me. All they do is try to kill her, why would she join them?

4. The wealth in the book and the ease of getting documents. For a bunch of wild animals they spend a lot of time investing and building compounds and mustangs and waterbeds and all that. I just found it distracting.

5. The fact that Shara using computers and old timey spells find a 'cure' for lycanthropy and tests it first on her son! The fact that she would not go first is actually disturbing to me. So what if little Joey is a halfling who like steak? Who cares? Its Shara who has all the issues, all the other werewolves seem to be quite content and she already lost three children by that point. I was genuinely upset that she would use her own kid as the test subject.

Whew, okay venting time is over. All in all it was an okay book, I may read his others in the series, just to see how things pan out. And this was his first novel so I will cut it some slack for plot issues. But I agree with other reviews that felt that the motivations and pacing combined with Shara in the lead, made this book something of a challenge to like.

"Shara is an adventuresome, colorful, and compelling horror story that breaks the traditional werewolf rules and offers us a new kind of beast of burden. Here you'll find believable characters, non-stop action, and cliff-hanging suspense that keeps the narrative gears shifting when you least expect it. Wedel's smooth prose is vivid, engaging and sharp as a wolf's claw."

--Tom Piccirilli, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Night Class and A Choir of Ill Children

"A terse, tense literary throwback to the Universal horror films of the '30s and '40s, Shara is that rare commodity among horror novels: a book that manages to be both frightening and fun while breathing new life into one of the genre's oldest tropes. Steven Wedel's rock-solid debut pegs him as a writer to watch. Especially when the moon is full...."

--Gary A. Braunbeck, author of the Stoker-nominated Things Left Behind and The Indifference Of Heaven

"Steven E. Wedel's Shara is thoroughly beguiling. Caught between two worlds, accepted by neither, we accompany Shara on her terrifying, supernatural journey to belong, and indeed to survive the perils and torments that threaten at every turn.
Mr. Wedel's beautiful, soul-searching narrative and startling imagery sweep us along with Shara to the thrilling conclusion, and he leaves us breathless."

--Diana Barron, author of Stoker-nominated Phantom Feast

"In Shara, Steve Wedel does for werewolves what Joss Whedon and Buffy accomplished with vampires. A modern take on a classical beast, Shara delivers in every way and leaves the reader begging for the next chapter."

-- M. Stephen Lukac, Author of Oogie Boogie Central and But Then Again, You'll Have This...

The story begins with a headstrong girl on her prom night and how that night goes horribly wrong...oh, it's not a werewolf attack, but something terrible that plays a key part in her life for years to come and the thing that motivates her enough to want to change, to want to be someone else, to want 'The Gift'. This story follows Shara from that point through the next several years as she deals with being a werewolf and deals with life.

Shara is a passionate story, one that takes you into the mind of a troubled woman and keys the reader in on the instincts of a wolf. To me Shara was far more than a werewolf novel. The characters came to life in a way that drew me in and made me care. As a reader I felt excited about her abilities and horrified by what they represented. In Steven Wedel's book, being a werewolf is far more than becoming a mindless monster who is bloodthirsty for human flesh. It's a combination of two forces, a civiliized human side and a wild animal side and they are usually at war with one another...neither being in comlete control. In human form the wolf is always pulling and wanting to come out, while in wolf form she is still capable of logical thought, but driven by her natural desires for the hunt. There were several twists as I followed Shara along on the path of her life, from shy girl to outgoing woman. The pace of the story, the way Steven Wedel brought Shara into each phase of her life, kept me reading so that I finished this book several days before I thought I would. I just couldn't put it down. I imagine that this one will get several more reads out of me.

The back of the book gives a detailed plot summary that is so specific you go into the book already knowing the outcome. Having read the book, I would add that if I hadn't already known the outcome, I might not have finished it. Shara's life is one traumatic experience after another up to and after she accepts "the Gift" of becoming a werewolf.

Page one opens where the last chapter ends, so even if you skip the book summary at the back of the book, you know what's going to happen before you read the story.

The setting takes place over the course of Shara's life from age 16 through adulthood, beginning with Shara's senior prom and following her through two marriages. The book is well written and fast-paced enough to keep the pages turning, but I found some of the character motivations a bit unbelievable (i.e. Shara's mother urging her to let her boyfriend sample the milk to keep him happy), but even more unrealistic was Shara's expectation that her first husband would still accept the litter of wolf pups born of a fling with a wolf because they are "half hers". You would think after all she has been through up to that point, she would not be so naive.

I found the setting shifts a bit jarring. After the conclusion of Shara's senior prom, she is suddenly in college, and so forth. I realize the author did this in order to fast-forward the story along, but skipping long chunks of Shara's life in between each subsequent "traumatic experience" she suffers made her hard to empathize with. The reader only gets to see Shara in various stages of emotional distress, which doesn't make her a very well-rounded character. I found myself unsympathetic to her near the end, and at times even unlikable, such as when she re-visits her parents house and murders her mother's small dog for apparently no reason other than to scare them by proving that she is "a werewolf". Her casual acceptable of her second husband's gruesome (and apparently remorseless) tale about a brutal act committed in his past were hard to swallow. I would think a woman who suffered as much as Shara has would have at the very least questioned this story, but instead she blithely accepts is as proof that they have both experienced the hunter's instinct.

As a fan of werewolf novels, I think this is better than many I've read. However, the one-dimensional view of Shara as a "victim" prevents it from being a must-read. When all is said and done, you don't walk away from the book truly caring about the characters, which is what makes a book great.

When I first picked up Shara I was excited about finding a new werewolf author with a series to delve into. The introduction stated that the author had re-done the book and fixed several plot points, etc, etc. My expectations weren't too high as the premise of the book didn't seem out of the ordinary for a book of supernatural essence, but I was still disappointed by the storyline, characters and even the plot.

I have to soundly disagree with the reviewer below that Shara is an 'out of the box' werewolf book. In realizing that Shara is part of an ongoing saga, I found myself reading the excerpt from the next book (about one of the book's supporting characters, Ulrik, Shara's 'maker') and finding that it was as predictable as Shara.

Shara, as the character, had little time for development. She was constantly moving and so was the plot.. to the point where I'd have to scoot back a few pages and think to myself, 'what just happened here?'. While some people have claimed that this book 'stands alone' and is original in it's content, I'd also have to whole-heartedly disagree. Chock-full of Werewolf cliches and typical behavior, I found lines such as , "Beef, it's what's for dinner," to be rather unbecoming of a book that I had originally found promise in. Werewolf shift cycles tied to a woman's menstrual cycles, causing an insatiable urge to 'mate' is also another one of those more 'annoying' traits I've found in various Werewolf novels. It seemed a poor excuse to insert seedy, mock-passionate sex scenes into a plot that could have used more bulk and base.

We hardly get to know Shara on an emotional level, or any other character for that matter and I can't say that I was in any way empathic toward her emotions and/or feelings. She was annoying, childish, presumptuous and, well, she was a 'brat' from the beginning. While the authors intentions may have leaned toward Shara building up to a 'strong woman' archetype, I hardly found her to be anything but weak and nothing like what the proverbial hero of the story should be. I was rather annoyed with her by the end, along with the skipping-months-to-years plot. It took me a couple of weeks to get through it as opposed to the couple of days it usually takes me for a book this size.

I wont be continuing the series. While it may sate the needs of other more traditional Werewolf fans, it was less than compelling for my tastes. Hopefully, for those who stick with the saga, the books are progressively better after this 'breakthrough' book. Best of luck!