This book came out in the wake of the Twilight phenomenon, and Glen Duncan seems determined to ensure that the reader understands that this is not That Sort Of Werewolf Book. Oh no, this is an Edgy Werewolf Book. There is graphic violence, there is a lot of sex, there are a lot of c-bombs thrown around (also, if I don’t have to read the word “sly” in conjunction with a c-bomb again it will be too soon). It does do some cool things! The world-building is excellent, Duncan creates an intriguing shadow world in which werewolves are no longer able to transmit their condition through bites, and a religious-turned-paramilitary organization that hunts them down (hence why there’s a last werewolf in the first place). But where it fails spectacularly is character development. Jake Marlowe, the titular final lycanthrope, spends most of the first 150 pages of the book despairing at his status in the world and preparing for his own death. It really does not make for a compelling reading experience. The character beats that are hit are largely very similar throughout the book, until a second main character is introduced about halfway through, when Marlowe gets a second set of beats to hit, though this character remains at a remove despite a lot of words being used to describe them. And that’s the other thing. The prose, while not terrible by any means, tends towards the overwritten and this does not do anything to make it more dynamic. Some books I read quickly because I can’t stop turning the pages, and some I read quickly because I want to get on to the next thing and this was the latter. ( )

1. This book really really wants you to know that werewolves Fuck. Werewolves are just big fuckmurder machines. I am capitalizing this because I don't know how else to convey the intensity with which this book needs you to know that werewolves, well, They Fuck. The book jacket/blurbs use the word "sexy" to describe this book quite a lot. It is not sexy, it merely involves a lot of sex. Particularly because much of the sex in the first two-thirds of the book is specifically with women the narrator dislikes, or is, at best, totally personally uninterested in.

2. I'm rating this book two stars instead of one for a few reasons, but it was a close thing. The first is that the lowest you can rate something on Goodreads, in my understanding, is one star, and this book is definitely better than the other bad longish werewolf urban fantasy novel that I've read, Martin Millar's Lonely Werewolf Girl, which was dramatically more sexist and also written much more poorly than The Last Werewolf. This doesn't mean that The Last Werewolf is either not sexist nor sometimes not-very-well-written, however. At one point, early on, the narrator specifies that he is not, in fact, a misogynist, and then gives the example of the fact that he goes down on the escort he hires. This is, of course, a joke, but there's something telling about it. Especially the way Duncan talks about the female characters' bodies (here the Horny Werewolf narrator seems mostly like Duncan really wanted a way to talk about lithe tits and soft anuses and call it literary*), or the fact that the first sentence in a woman's POV is "No one raped me," which hits exactly that King-Rat-style trying to be aware of rape culture and structural misogyny and just--missing it.

3. The thing about this book is that it wobbles so close to the exact kind of bad monster (especially bad werewolf) fiction that I adore. This is probably part of why I did finish the entire novel, and there were parts that made me laugh out loud (in genuine enjoyment). There's moments that, like, in their ridiculousness but also excellence, reminded me of, like, Teen Wolf (the TV show, not the homophobic eighties movie with Marty Mcfly or whatever) or The Vampire Lestat. It has a similar willingness to just go for the full over-the-top narrative. Like, there's werewolves, and vampires, and they do hate each other a lot for some sort of instinctual species reason, and there's an elaborate werewolf hunting organization that requires a lot of bullshit spy tactics to evade, and possibly my favorite character of the entire book, Ellis, a werewolf hunter with waist length blond hair and a sort of philosophical hippy aura, a sort of classically-mad-king Luna Lovegood. Like, that's excellent. There's a bit where the main character is just sort of carrying around a sad French former male model who keeps trying to kill him very incompetently because his girlfriend just dumped him (he is, notably, on quite a lot of cocaine for most of this). The ex-model made a silver-tipped javelin to kill the werewolf with. It has his name and his ex-girlfriend's on it in "angelic script." I have no idea what that is. At one point the werewolf and the model are just sitting in the woods, both having injured each other quite a bit, doing cocaine (the model), smoking cigarettes (the werewolf), and eating cashews (the model again).

4. The ending was, genuinely, very good. The switching perspectives was, apart from my complaint above, largely done well, and the sort of bait-and-switch move from the title to the end was clever, and I only suspected it was going to happen a few chapters before it did. It made me want to read the sequel, a little bit--I really like Tallula. But I don't think I'm going to.
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*I want to be clear, I am not automatically opposed to literature involving significant discussion of tits and anuses, though I feel like I might be done with the word "lithe." I think we could all use a "lithe" moratorium for a while. ( )

Not for me. The prose is quite good, but not good enough to make up for the, albeit well integrated, smuttiness. Yeah, it's story about a werewolf, the last to his knowledge, who is morosely contemplating his future, or lack there of, as he recalls his bloody past. I've read hardcore characters, so I wasn't expecting Jane Austen and I'm good with gritty violence; but it needs to be balanced with a story I want to read, or characters who have some quality of redemptive appeal. I suspect there is a good book here, and those who persevere may find the end game makes up for the desultory protag, and vulgarity, but I didn't find enough to interest me in the first 6 chapters, and I'm not drawn to keep looking. ( )

Most books that start out being a miserable read will stay that way. This was not one of those books. My relationship with this book began with profound irritation; the writing style was annoying, the characters were unlikeable, and the international espionage-like plot was the polar opposite of the kind of books I like to read. But as I was soldiering on the minimum 50 pages before I could DNF, something wonderful happened. It sucked me in. I can’t describe why or how, either, because the main character remained an intolerably self-involved navel gazer and the plot continued to be a goofy sort of werewolf international intrigue. Maybe I just finally adjusted to the writing style, because I eventually began to enjoy it. If there’s one thing I did profoundly appreciate about this story, it’s that you will find no heroically romantic werewolves or vampires here. They are all monsters.

Also, this is one of the handsomest books I own. It’s why I bought it, originally. The paper is good quality with a classic oldfashioned typeface. I love the simple cover, black with iridescent phases of the moon, and the pages are edged in a dark brownish maroon, like old dried blood.

I read this for the Full Moon square in 2016 Halloween Bingo, and this makes my last 2 bingos and achieves blackout.

Previous updates:
http://sheric.booklikes.com/post/1482293/the-last-werewolf-progress-36-346-pages
http://sheric.booklikes.com/post/1482561/the-last-werewolf-progress-89-346-pages
http://sheric.booklikes.com/post/1484968/the-last-werewolf-progress-194-346-pg
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Really enjoyed this book. ( )