WereWorld 5: Storm of Sharks
Writing: 7/10 Plot: 10/10 Characters: 9/10 Creativity: 10/10
Overall: 9/10
Easily the best book in the series!
Spoilers Ahead!
I love this book so much! It has some of the best actions scenes in the series, memorable character moments, and a huge ramp up in stakes. It’s so good!
The Plot: This book takes place on the high seas. Whitley and Drew get separated while sailing their way to help Bosa’s forces and to gain more allies. Whitley gets kidnapped by Captain Deadeye, the Hammerhead shark, and Drew gets washed up on an island seemingly ran by children. At the island, Drew meets up with Casper who went missing alongside Vega after Hector stabbed the Wereshark. Drew and Casper work together to get Vega out of the prison owned by Ghul, the Kraken. Whitley escapes Deadeye’s clutches and takes over his ship. Drew and Whitley meet up at the prison, rescue Vega, and capture Opal. Now with Opal in their clutches, our Wolf crew set sail to Bast in order to convince the Forum of Elders to stop their war. Instead, all they ended up doing was causing a schism amongst the Cats. The Lions and Panthers are at war with each other and with the Wolf. The Tigers have sided with Drew.
Meanwhile, Hector has completely taken over Icegarden. He spent his time looking for the powerful magical staff, the Wrymstaff. Hector is so far gone from the boy he once was. When he finally meets up again with Duke Manfred, Queen Amelie and Lady Bethwyn, he and the duke get into a heated arguement. Enraged, Hector chokes Bethwyn with the Vincent-vile. Mandfred transforms into the Deer and skewers Hector’s lung with his horns while the Boarlord was charging him. Queen Amelie goes to help him but she is accidentally stabbed by Hector’s dagger, killing her. He breaks down completely. He seemingly banishes the vile and attempts to redeem himself by releasing his prisoners and helping the citizens of Icegarden escape the Catlords. However, Vincent did not leave. He takes over Hector’s body, kills Ringlin, retakes Icegarden, and finds the Wrymstaff.
Meanwhile meanwhile, Onyx and his army are stalling out the winter in Icegarden. The Bastians are not used to the blistering cold therefore do not
Like always, this is a gross simplification. A lot has happened and it’s all fantastic!
The Writing: It’s fine as always, however, I really hate how the Wyldermen are written. This is more of a worldbuilding problem but I have to talk about this now to get it over with. I mentioned how the Wyldermen are “savage wild men” stereotypes in my review of book four. It’s even worse here. On one hand, they’re good villains and I do like what they add to the story, but on the other hand, I wish they weren’t native people adjacent. They paint their bodies, they wear animal skins, their leaders are called shamans, they wear headdresses and they have names like Darkheart. They were the “first people to live in Lyssia” (which doesn’t even make sense in context) but they were pushed aside to make way for the white settlers. They’re cannibals and they practice “heathen magic.” This is extremely disgusting and it’s something I hated even when I was a kid reading these books. They didn’t have to be like this. They would’ve worked as a rag tag Vala death-cult in the woods. Taking traits usually associated with indigenous people and portraying them as “savage” is… quite frankly racist and offensive.
Most of the prominent brown-skinned people in this series are antagonists or stereotypes which, as a black woman, bothers the hell out of me. Granted the majority of the villains are/were white (Lucas, Dead-Eye, Ghul, Kesslar, The Rat Lords, etc) but there are a fuck ton of good white people to offset this (our entire main cast is white). There aren’t enough good brown/black people to offset the bad. We got Djogo and Faisal and that’s it. I guess I can add Taboo, but we don’t know what she looks like. I picture her being black for my own sake (I do the same thing with Shah, even though I know she’s canonically white). Onyx and Opal, our two big bads, have literal black skin which I deeply dislike (I talked about why in my earlier reviews) but at least they’re real characters with depth (though Opal does have some Jezebel traits to her, but not enough to classify her as a full-on stereotype. Not in my eyes at least).
The Wyldermen, however, are just harmful and I wish they weren’t like this.
Anyway, let’s get into my positives because there’s a lot!
The Characters:
Drew: He’s still a dull character, but man he has the most interesting plotline. Him rallying the children to fight against Ghul’s lackeys. Him and Casper freeing Vega. Him capturing Opal and then making her lead them to Bast. Him talking to the Forum of Elders and basically breaking them apart. All great stuff. He, himself, though is still very boring. He doesn’t have much of a personality. He’s the good guy. That is all.
Hector: Holy hell, Hector. Hector, man. This is him at his lowest. We saw him at his most villainous last book and now, after accidentally killing Drew’s mother, he finally realizes how far he’s fallen. He tries to redeem himself but evacuating Icegarden but his brother’s spirit possesses him. The death of Ringlin is super sad. Ringlin was a bad dude with a bloody past but he stayed by Hector throughout everything. Before Vincent took over, he told Hector that he will be by his side no matter what. Though Ringlin did assist Hector in his descent into evil, he cared for him every step of the way. I feel if he hadn’t died, he would have gone through a redemption arc, but alas Vincent kills him and turns him into a zombie. It’s sad really.
I’ve said this many times already throughout these reviews, but Hector is easily the best thing about this series. He’s the most complex and the most tragic character out of them all. His arc is endlessly fascinating. Watching him descend and even kill kill his best friend’s mother (accidentally) is shocking and sad. You want Hector to come to his senses, to fight back Vincent’s influence, and just when you think he did his brother possesses him and becomes even more powerful than he already was. I can’t wait to see what happens to him next!
Whitley: As always, Whitley shines in this. This book has two of her most badass moments in the entire series. 1) Her epic escape from Dead Eye’s ship and reuniting with the crew of the Maelstrom. 2) Her confronting Opal about killing her brother and putting the Werepanther in her place. Let’s go over the second one. Opal has been captured by Drew and the Maelstrom gang. Whitley was not at all happy to have her aboard and wanted to kill her to avenge her brother. Drew stopped her from doing so so that they could obtain information about Bast’s ships and whatnot. Opal fucking slaughters the guards who were guarding her. They lock her back up and Vega comes in and threatens to kill children if she doesn’t help them. Opal finally relents. As the guys are discussing what Opal had told them, Whitley goes down to her cell, goes full Bear, grabs her by the neck and makes the Cat swear that she gave them good information. The guys come in and stop Whitley from snapping Opal’s neck. Whitley instantly relaxes and tells then that she was just being cautious.
Say what you will about Whitley’s behavior, I personally found this part awesome. Whitley is somewhat of a foil to Drew. Drew trusted Opal at her word, even though he knows how duplicitous she is. Drew is not the type of guy to threaten lives when he doesn’t need to. Whitley (and Vega for that matter) on the other hand is all for it. She hates Opal for what she did to Broghan. Whitley wanted revenge throughout the first half of this book but instead of just killing Opal, she instead scares her into submission. This is no doubt incredibly cathartic for Whitley. She may not be able to avenge her brother with blood but she did make the woman who caused his death cower before her. Whitley’s not a cold blooded killer but by god she will let you know how much she hates you if you do her wrong. This is a far cry from who she was in the beginning. Book 1 Whitley would have never done this, but war has harden her- more so than it has to Drew.
Gretchen: Gretchen is also a far cry from who she was in book 1. She and Trent have forged a group called the Hedgemore Harriers. They free Gretchen’s home from one of the Ratlords, War Marshall Vorjavik. We get an awesome scene where Vorjavik is about to execute some prisoners when he is interrupted by Trent and Gretchen who has gone full Fox. Great scene. Gretchen and Trent bicker a lot like a married couple and I’m not here for it. Eventually, they get attacked by Lucas and his gang of Wyld Wolves. Trent gets mauled by one while Gretchen dives into the river to flee.
Gretchen is great as always. It’s cool to see her leading her own group and fighting on the front lines. She doesn’t do too much in this book but she’s a treat whenever she’s on the page. Her and Trent’s romance though is boring. Trent is boring, just like his brother. If he was a better character, I would be perfectly fine with their romance.
Trent: Speaking of… Trent sucks. He’s more dull than Drew. He bickers a lot with Gretchen and he gets mauled by a Wyld Wolf and that’s it. Next.
Vega: He’s back! Last time we saw him, he was being stabbed and then thrown overboard by Hector aboard the Maelstrom. Casper jumped in afterwards to save him. Here, we see him chained up in Ghul’s prison. After Drew and Casper rescue him, Casper is thrown off the tower but he saves himself by letting out his wings. Casper is a Hawklord, the son of Vega and Shah. We see Vega crying over his son. It’s so damn cute. This reveal shook me when I first read it. Upon rereading the series, the foreshadowing is evident from the first time we see Casper. The boy was the Maelstrom’s lookout. He had sharp eyes, sharper than anyone else on the ship. Vega treated him like a son and when Vega was thrown off the ship Casper jumped into the freezing water to save him. Any normal human would have died, but Casper isn’t a normal human. They call him the Seahawk, which is cute. The love and protection they both feel for each other is so nice to see. They’re both great.
Opal: Opal is easily one of my favorite antagonists of all time. She’s intelligent, threatening, confident, and sly. She was already a scary presence in the other books but holy hell she’s shines in this. I adore smart characters. There’s quite a few “badass Opal moments.” One of them is when she interrogates Vega while he is chained up in Ghul’s prison. Vega puts on the charm to woo her but Opal is too good for that. She plays along, eventually turning his tactic onto him, luring him in only to threaten his life after. While she’s talking she is carving a heart into Vega’s chest with her claw. It’s such a well done scene. I would write it out but this section would be way too long. During the raid on Ghul’s prison, she is captured. She tries to escape and while doing so, she slaughters the poor guards who were in her way. We hardly see Opal fight. She’s more of a “let others do my battles for me” type, but when Drew and co go down to see what all the screaming was about, they find Opal standing on a pile of bodies, hands and mouth covered in blood. My god, Opal! If you weren’t already scared of her before you would be now! Vega, Drew, and the others need to know about Bast’s flag signals so that they could go through their fleet undetected, so they try to interrogate Opal but she is tight-lipped. Vega goes in and, going full bloodthirsty pirate, straight up threatens to track down and kill her children if she didn’t comply. This is one of the few moments we see Vega being cruel and it’s the first time we see Opal scared. From this point on, Opal hates Vega understandably (no one trusts each other all for good reasons), but she does help.
Now trapped with them, Drew takes her, Whitley, and a few of the Maelstrom’s men to Bast so that Drew can talk to the Forum of Elders. We get another cool scene where Drew and them are attacked by a giant panther. Drew thinks the panther is Opal, since he and us haven’t seen her transform yet, but then Opal fully transformed saves them and kills the panther. After that, they arrive to the Forum of Elders. Opal reveals some secrets surrounding the death of Chang the Cheetahlord. Chang and the Tigerlady Taboo, Drew’s gladiator friend, were courting each other. Onyx loved Taboo too but she rejected him. Being the man child that he was, Onyx fucking kills Chang out of jealousy. He, a coerced Opal, and their father Oba cover up the crime and blame the death on Taboo which got her exiled from Bast. The Tigers are pissed and break off their allegiance to the Panthers. However, the Lions back them up… until Opal reveals that she and Onyx convinced Lucas to kill his father Leopold. The Lions declare war on the Panthers. The Tigers declare war on both of them and side with Drew.
I have mixed feelings about all of this. The leaders didn’t like each other that much anyway so it makes sense for them to fall apart after all of this. However, I am not a big fan of what this did to Onyx’s character. Bro murdered a guy because a girl dumped him. That’s pathetic… speaking of:
Onyx: Despite my complaints, Onyx is great in this! He’s not just some brute. He’s powerful, noble, and intelligent. He doesn’t like how uncouth Lucas’ Lionguard is. He doesn’t like Lucas at all really. He has a deep respect for strong opponents. We get one of the best fight scenes in the series starring Onyx and Duke Henrik. Henrik, the Polar Bear, duels Onyx one on one. Henrik is a formidable fighter, even stronger than Onyx. He beats the Panther down to his knees. Onyx hangs his head, welcoming his defeat from a mightier opponent, but then the crazed Lucas comes in and lops off Henrik’s head. Onyx is surprisingly pissed by this. He chastises Lucas for being wild and lacking nobility. This speaks volumes on Onyx’s character. It’s why I don’t like the reveal that he killed a guy over a girl. It removes all of his honorability. I guess he grew up…
Lucas: This boy has gone mad. After killing his father, he has gotten even worse. He’s more violent, brash, unpredictable, and unstable. He has sided with the Wyldermen, much to Onyx’s chagrin. Using Drew’s severed hand, he lets the Wyldermen conduct a ritual that allows them to transform into bastardized werewolves who terrorizes everyone around them. Lucas is just unhinged and he adds a wild element to the story. He contrasts Onyx’s honor and stoicism with his selfishness and cruelty. He’s a very scary villain. At the end of the story, he and his Wolfmen track down and attack Gretchen’s group. His Wolfmen seemingly kill Trent and Gretchen flees into the river to escape him. The way he talks about Gretchen is truly disgusting. He sees her as “his” and will do everything in his power to obtain her. He’s super scary. Fantastic villain.
The Worldbuilding:
More werecreatures and this time they’re super unique. There’s a focus on marine life in this one. Ghul is a Weresquid which is so strange that I love it. He is the second Werelord we see who can fully transform into his beast. The description of his arms splitting and his head getting bigger and ballooning is disturbing and striking. Just the idea of a red gash cutting through someone’s arm, splitting it into two gets to me. That’s some serious body horror right there. Very cool. I love it. We get Dead Eye the Hammerhead. Very creepy guy and werecreature. There’s Scorpio the Scorpion Fish which is the weirdest one out of all of them. I can’t envision what the fuck a were-fish is supposed to look like. There’s also a Crablord which I also cannot imagine. What the hell a werecrab is supposed to look like? I feel Jobling didn’t do a great job at describing it.
We get to see how Bast is operated. They kidnap noblemen’s children and use them as obedience checks. If a lord were to rebel, the Cats would kill their children. It’s awful. A thing I’m not a big fan of is how quickly Drew can get people to change their minds. Drew can somehow change the minds of rulers who have been ruling shit for years by going “hey, that’s bad. You shouldn’t be doing that” and then the ruler goes “yeah you’re right” and then change their entire culture and way of governing. Knowing how Drew operates, I’m sure he’s going to convince the Cats to change their entire culture by giving a speech in the last book.
It’s silly and it takes me out of the story. But whatever. This is WereWorld. I’m not expecting a lengthy exploration of fantasy politics.
This was great! I love this book so much! Easily the best one in the series. Since I’m rereading this series, I already know how it ends and well…. just wait. I’ll have a lot to say about that one.
