Running With the Pack by A.M. Burns and Caitlin Ricci

 

running-with-the-pack

 

From Harmony Ink:

When Finn Ryan’s family moves from Austin, Texas, to quiet Woodland Park, Colorado, the summer before his senior year, Finn struggles to adjust. Even the altitude is hard to get used to. But when he meets Ivan Dubovasky at a farmers’ market, all that changes. Finn begins volunteering at Ivan’s family business, High Mountain Wolf and Wild Dog Center, where he forms a bond with both Ivan and the wolves they protect.

Soon Ivan’s best friend, Adrian, who’s asexual, joins their small pack, and the three of them become inseparable, even after Ivan and Finn begin dating—until a bully’s torment of Adrian goes too far. When Adrian disappears, Ivan and Finn will do anything they can to rescue their boyfriend, including relying on a special wolf to bring Adrian home.

Reviewed by A. T. Weaver

I read an article online after finishing this book about how you sometimes don’t finish a novel for various reasons. Had I not been reviewing this book, it would have been one that I put aside after a chapter or two. However, I’m glad I didn’t give up on it.

It starts rather slowly, but then gets better. Drama builds when Adrian disappears and the families of the three boys learn of the bond they have with each other. The families’ acceptance of the bond is to be commended.

Two things bother me about the plot. The rapid turnaround of Channing, and the fact we are to accept that three seventeen-year-olds will spend the rest of their lives together. Of course that may be cynicism on my part as a senior citizen who has seen too many such dreams be dispelled.4