Glyph by
Max Ellendale
My rating:
4 of 5 stars
It is difficult to read a book that includes as the main and only point of view a woman who is, at times, TSTL (too stupid to live). She’s a genius doctor, but she kept making very very stupid decisions that put her life in danger – that put other people’s lives in danger. In addition, one of the other main characters (though not POV), also had TSTL tendencies (what with being gung-ho in putting herself in danger, and not ‘respecting’ danger when it appears -
(view spoiler)[talking about how Xany 1) was easily enthralled (or whatever the word is) by a vampire; 2) after being saved - wanted to go back outside to attack the vampire despite having no ability to do so; 3) when danger was about, charging outside because it was/is more exciting to know what’s going on (both when the weretiger and the werewolves raced outside because ‘a not normal cat’ was out there; and the time she wandered around outside when the werewolf cubs were turning (both in taunting the female cub, then later standing around outside like a moron while werewolves were charging around all hungry like – though this is also another occasion Shawnee, the main, was acting stupid) (hide spoiler)]. In addition to this specific problematic issue is the part where I entered this book thinking I was going to be reading lesbian fiction. This was in no way a work of lesbian fiction. No lesbians here (Shawnee is messed up from an extremely abusive childhood, so she didn’t have a clue what she was like or what she might like, but ultimately she’s bisexual; Vanessa, the weretiger, has a history of constantly banging dudes (with no history, apparently, of banging chicks, except being really overly affectionate with Shawnee – hence my ‘no lesbians here’ comment; Xany, the only other main character level chick in the book is into dudes).
Right, so. Once I got past those two specific issues, I found the book to be enjoyable. Sometimes hard to read, literally, since Shawnee kept having massive panic attacks and be terrorized by her past. And the book ended . . . well, I can’t say, spoiler, but it ended a certain way.
Shawnee Twofeather is a full-blooded native American . . . she thinks. Her mother is a full- Cherokee (even if that’s rare), while her father, she thinks, is probably Cherokee and Sioux. She had a massively abusive childhood, but she’s mostly blocked that out (well, as much as she can without actually dealing with the issue, which leads to nightmares and stuff – the not dealing with it), and works as an emergency room doctor. Hmm, actually. Her role in the hospital was odd. She was . . . what, a research assistant? Who had the run of the hospital and could wander wherever she wanted, the ER, the morgue, wherever? Eh, weirdly open job, but she worked as a research assistant and handled stuff in the ER whenever she felt like it. This leads me to another issue I have with the book that actually shocked me -
(view spoiler)[early on in the book the ‘good’ doctor helped create a ‘serum’ which would have a particular impact on shifters – though she wasn’t told that that was what the thing was supposed to do. Throughout the majority of the book I was under the impression that Shawnee knew what the serum was for – various reasons, like words she used inside of herself – that the serum would prevent shifters to shift (not exactly what the serum was actually, but something like that) – only later it turns out that . . . she didn’t know? I know she was living a life of blocking out the world around herself, and I would be quite ‘happy’ with the idea that she blocked the truth from herself, except for words at the time, but whatever (hide spoiler)].
I’ve kind of lost track of where I was. Mmphs.
So, let’s see: main and only point of view is Dr. Shawnee Twofeather. She works in a hospital. She has, basically, one friend, a woman named Vanessa. Despite some rather descriptive stuff given for others in the book, all I know about Vanesa is that she has red hair – I mean all I know physically, well, her human shape.
Only friend, that is, until she runs into a woman who is bubbly and introduces herself as Xany. They meet outside their apartment building. Xany has locked herself out. Turns out – they actually live on the same floor. Xany is very nosy, and bubbly. One thing leads to another and something like an ‘intervention’ occurs when Xany introduces Shawnee to Xany’s brother and friend (Mal and Calden). The ‘intervention’ is about just what Shawnee is; with the understanding that she didn’t know. But, while she’s tried hard to block her past, she did/does know. Mal & C are werewolves. Xany and Shawnee are ‘breeders’. Vanessa is a weretiger, but that wasn’t part of the intended intervention talk.
Right so . . . . It’s hard to write about this book without doing what I’m doing. Plot info dump. Mmphs. Well, to keep myself from continuing down that road I’ll note: the shifters grow closer, spend time together, until troubles erupt due to Shawnee’s past (which are handled in a TSTL fashion by Shawnee).
For the most part I enjoyed the book. The characters can be sometimes hard to take/like. Watching a woman showing signs of lusting towards a man in a book that I had thought was lesbian fiction was a little hard to adjust to, but bah, whatever. Truth to tell, I wasn’t sure what I was getting into, though I saw how affectionate Vanessa and Shawnee were; and noticed how Shawnee really took in and seemed to like Xany’s bouncing massive breasts. But alas, this did not turn out to be a FFF book. Nope. As noted, Xany’s into dudes.
(view spoiler)[it’s a F-F-M book, in that Shawnee is the pivot point, Vanessa is into her, and Mal is into Shawnee; V and M tolerate each other but are not into each other (hide spoiler)].
Rating: 3.88
May 26 2018
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Bound by Max Ellendale
