The Great Destroyer

I saw Howlers: First Bite on Amazon one day. It was free. It only made sense for me to click the “Buy now with 1-Click” button. Yes, it was because of the cover.Howlers: First Bite follows the story of fifteen-year-old Lou and her sister Mel, who, after some rather dramatic events in their early years and a strange inheritance, move to Tasmania – I shite you not – with their little brother and grandfather. Now those events that I mentioned earlier left the poor kids parentless. Their mother died after a strange animal attack – I bet the title gives you a hint to what kind of attack that was – and their father freaked and bailed out. The kids are in the overly capable hands of their grandfather, Arthur.Now, as you can imagine, this small town they move to is pretty weird. Poor Lou gets bullied at school because she’s the clumsy one in the family. Mel is the exact opposite: popular and always likeable. However, that’s not what I meant about the town being weird. See, there’s a super-rich kid named David Zardinsky Junior. He owns a company called ZardCorp, right? ZardCorp has spent the last year building a desalination plant out on Dokey Cove Island – an island near our little weird town – in order to provide clean drinking water for the whole country. Following me so far?One night – THE night - something goes really wrong. Their house gets attacked by a wild animal of some sort. Her sister is missing and Adam, the little brother, disappears after a stupid mistake that Lou makes. While trying to find her brother, Lou stumbles upon a herd of wild bikers. A bunch of teenage angst-filled moments later Lou finds out that these bikers are called the Keepers because, surprise surprise, they “collect and execute” werewolves in order to keep the town folk safe. I’ll give you five bucks if you can guess who the leader of the bikers is.Anyway, a bunch of non-important events later, Lou manages to find Mel, and they join forces to find their little brother and to uncover the truth behind Dokey Cove Island.I did not enjoy Howlers: First Bite as much as I would wish to. The start was really slow and boring. My wish that the pace would pick up was never granted. The characters are difficult to like – I could not even pick one as my favorite – which is a major minus in my dictionary. The story is extremely silly and made me feel like I’m watching the Disney Chanel – which I hate with all my heart (unless they play Kick Buttowski, but that’s on Disney XD so it doesn’t really count, does it?). Overall, I would say it’s a rather mediocre book.3 stars