Review: The Gilded Wolves

The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is an exciting story with fun characters, and I get the comparison, I really do, but PLEASE. This book is not in the same league as Six of Crows. Sorry. It's good, but it's not SoC good.

I did like it, though!

I'm actually overwhelmed by my thoughts on this one so let's go bullet points.

✓ Diverse characters
-Great variety with different backgrounds and temperaments
-Mixture of nice and sass
-Fun dynamics between them

Severin
As the leader of the pack, he was a little underwhelming. Kinda selfish. Never really created the cohesive team I was hoping for. Also, I kinda have no idea what he looks like? Descriptions were pretty scarce in this book.

Tristan
Again, a little too vague for me to really get attached to. He's a bit naive and pathetic and super childish. I did admire his dedication to Goliath, though. Even if I don't approve. *shudder*

Enrique
Fun fact: I have a friend named Enrique so it was really hard for me to not imagine my friend instead of this Enrique. Any one else get that when reading familiar names? Anyhoo. I liked this Enrique a lot, but I couldn't figure out his age at all. I thought he was young, then I thought he was old, then I thought he was middle-aged ... I really enjoy the way his mind works, though.

Leila
Ah, the seductress of the gang. She was such a mixed bag. One minute she's seducing everyone, next she's bringing them tea and cookies and hugs. It was really hard for me to pair the two. She seemed cool, though. Like she's actually the glue that holds them all together.

Zofia
My fave, and probably the best fleshed out. She's adorably awkward and small and totally underestimates herself. I like that she just says whatever she's thinking and I feel sad whenever she questions herself or feels embarrassed for not conforming to societal norms. Again, no clue what she looks like, other than 'white-blonde' 'candlelight' hair. Whatever colour that is.

Hypnos
Classic eccentric billionaire with no friends. He wants in on this little band of friendship, so he kinda just inserts himself in their business. Severin was kinda harsh towards him, but I like that he won the others over. Took me a minute to realise he wasn't a villain, though.

Character Conclusion: Characters were diverse and fun but not explained nearly well enough. I can't really picture any of them, and I was never particularly attached because there was nothing to draw me in quite as irrevocably as I'd hoped. Also not nearly as much sass as I needed. Sev and Leila got close, but not enough.

✓French Setting
I'm obsessed with everything French so this was fun! It didn't go into too much detail but there's a few French phrases here and there so that made me happy.

✓Ancient Artifacts
This was fun but a little confusing. It's set in France, but we're dealing with biblical artifacts, Egyptian artifacts and random mathematical theories? I was très confus. I think more research was necessary in this department.

✓Criminal Hijinks
Lots of B&E, destruction of property, theft, impersonating authority figures etc which made me happy. The action was a bit scattered but as long as there's mayhem and chases and things blowing up I am happy. Maybe this is why I liked Zofia so much. We are kindred spirits.

Overall Feelings:
There's a lot here to like but it just felt messy and unexplained. Nothing is really described, so it's quite hard to let the story come to life in your head because you can't really see the setting or what the characters look like, other than hair colour. I really feel like I need to re-read it and find out whether I just missed a lot or if it was never there in the first place. It was really hard for me to let myself go with this one, which is a shame because the characters have so much potential.

The whole forging thing was a bit confusing and kinda convenient with very few rules? I feel like there would be a few holes if people wanted to look closely.

The storyline was interesting but just a bit hard to follow when nothing was ever really explained. There were no real shock moments because I was still traipsing behind trying to work out how we got where we were.

Conclusion:
A fun enough story, but a few too many holes in it to get emotionally attached.

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