WereWorld 2: Rage of Lions
Writing: 6/10 Plot: 8/10 Characters: 8/10 Creativity: 10/10
Overall: 8/10
It’s getting better!
Spoilers Ahead!!
Rage of Lions used to be my favorite book in the series. I have very fond memories of this book. Does it still hold up after all these years? Let’s see.
The Plot: King Leopold is dethroned, but he waits imprisoned in the castle, anticipating the arrival of allies from his homeland. Drew is struggling to adapt to his new role as the future king of Westland. While he and his Wolf Council try to prepare him for the throne, Prince Lucas breaks in and kidnaps Gretchen. Against the wishes of Duke Bergan and the rest of the council, Drew and Bergan’s daughter, Whitley, chase after the deranged prince. While he’s doing that, Hector is haunted by his brother Vincent, who is demanding that he give up his title or else, and, on top of that, he is haunted by wandering dark spirits due to his dealings in necromancy. A lot happens.
This is a very truncated description, but a lot happens! I don’t want to go point by point. Just like the first book, the second is very fast-paced. Not a single page is wasted. Funnily enough, this one feels more focused even though it is following multiple characters. Each POV- Hector, Drew, Whitley, Gretchen, and Bergan- follows an arc and all of their stories converge in the end. Drew’s story is about him and Whitley chasing after Lucas after he kidnaps Gretchen. Bergan sends his son Broghan to go after them and bring them back because Drew, being the future king, is the most important person in Lyssia and he can’t just go running after a crazed ex-prince and his band of serial killers. Bergan’s story is about him keeping the Wolf Council together, finding allies, and figuring out what Leopold is planning. His storyline is only interesting because of Hector. These branching storylines become the norm as the series goes on. I welcome it personally. None of the plotlines are pointless or boring and they’re all action-packed. Shit doesn’t stop happening!
The Writing: Same verse as the first. Not much to say here. Jobling is showing more instead of telling which is good. The werecreatures’ descriptions are as badass as ever. The action scenes are fun and easy to follow. The dialogue… eh. It’s fine. The teenaged characters do not talk like teenagers which is a bit jarring, but I personally imagine Drew and his friends being like 18+ just because I have a hard time envisioning a 15-year-old bossing adults around. That’s really it for the writing. Not much to say.
The Characters:
Hector: Oh man, the best character. This book is the beginning of his dark descent. Hector is practicing necromancy. It started with the shaman from book one and now he’s trapped. His dealing with dark magic is causing spirits to haunt him, making him paranoid. His brother Vincent arrives and threatens to kill Hector for his seat on Redmire’s throne. The fear, the pressure, and his paranoia eventually lead to the death of Vincent. It’s the best storyline in the book and it makes Hector an incredibly fascinating character to follow. After he kills Vincent, his brother’s spirit haunts him and whispers in his ear, driving Hector into further darkness. There’s one scene when he’s trying to convince Ringlin and Ibal, Vincent’s henchmen, to join him, and they refuse, he uses Vincent’s vile to strangle Ringlin into submission. He can control his brother’s spirit! That’s awesome and really scary! I love Hector. I love that Jobling decided to go this route for him.
Lucas: Rage of Lions also starts Lucas’ downfall arc. Lucas is a terrifying villain. He’s this spoiled, rotten, violent piece of shit who is also really fucking strong and threatening. I feared for Gretchen’s life while she was dealing with him. He’s unpredictable and dangerous. His downfall kicks off at the end when he, after being manipulated by the real villains, Opal and Onyx, kills his own father. It’s a very shocking scene. I will never forget reading this book way back when for the first time and being floored when Lucas killed Leopold. I thought for sure that Leopold was the main villain but nope! He’s dead! Gone from the story forever. Killed by the son he raised
Onyx and Opal: Whoo boy! Love these guys. Opal and Onyx are werepanthers from Bast, the southern continent that Leopold is from. They’re the real antagonists of the story. Onyx is the Beast of Bast. He’s this huge, extremely imposing guy. He is said to be the best warrior in all of Bast and while he doesn’t do much in this book, he will live up to that legacy in the others. His sister Opal though makes a huge splash. Her introduction is great. She arrives at Cape Gala, home of the Horselords, and immediately commands the space she’s in. Lorimer, the Lord of the Longridings, tries to tell her that he and his fellow Horselords are planning to succeed from the union of the Seven Realms. Opal goes “hm, interesting” and then just kills him and takes control. She then orders Lucas to kill Broghan, who was captured by Lucas’ soldiers. She just waltzes in, brutal as fuck, and starts bossing people around. I love it. As much as I love these characters, I have to talk about their appearance. So Opal and Onyx are werepanthers, (which is cool as fuck. I love it). Panthers are big black cats and so Opal and Onyx have literally ebony black skin, green eyes, and shaved heads. The piercing green eyes are cool, but the literally black skin? Idk about that man… I just think of blackface whenever I picture literally black skin. It makes me uncomfortable. :[ I know what Jobling is trying to do here. Every other Werelord has aspects of their beast visible in their human form. Gretchen the Fox is a redhead, Vega the Shark has pristine white teeth, Conrad the Horse has a long face, Drew the Wolf is scruffy and lean, and so on. Opal and Onyx the Panthers look like panthers. I get it… but why the actual black skin? Speaking of P.o.C, all of them that are mentioned in this book are bad guys. Oof... Djaigo, the only black guy in this so far, is literally working for a slaver. Why???? (I’m just going to spoil this now, Djaigo becomes one of the good guys later on so yay, but still…). We do get more P.o.C on the good guys’ team later on, but I felt like I had to mention it because it bothered the shit out of me.
Whitley and Gretchen: Putting them together because there’s not too much to say yet. Gretchen is yet again a damsel in distress but at least we get a scene of her almost escaping from Lucas. She actually ends up clawing his face, leaving a trio of scars across it, which I like. I like that Gretchen was the first one to really hurt Lucas. Good for her. But other than that, she’s just a damsel in distress. Whitley is way more active. She tags along with Drew on his rescue mission. She uses her scouting skills to help them stay on Gretchen’s trail. She holds off a fucking zombie by herself. She rescues Drew when he was imprisoned by Kesslar the Goatlord. When Drew is captured a second time, she teams up with the Romari people and helps people out of Cape Gala. She’s doing a lot. I really like Whitley. She shines in this book. Plus her relationship with Drew is pretty cute. Drew is all awkward around her, it’s adorable.
Drew: He’s the weakest character out of all of them. He’s supposed to have this arc where he rejects his birthright at first and then slowly comes to embrace it, but it’s shallow. When he declares that he will be the king Westland deserves, it comes out of nowhere. He didn’t think too hard about it before but now he’s all for it. It could have been handled better. I still like Drew though. He’s still a bit bland, but his dedication to his friends is admirable. Something I really love about him is how beat up he gets. Jobling likes maiming Drew. He lost a few fingers in book one and in this one he loses an entire hand. Drew actually bites off his hand to escape a bunch of zombies. It’s an awesome scene and shows how determined Drew is.
Everyone Else: Bergan, Manfred, Mikkel, and Vega are members of the Wolf Council. Bergan is the leader and is running Highcliffe while Drew is away. He has a badass scene at the very end during the siege of Highcliffe where he caves in an entrance to save the refugees from the Bastian soldiers and their Doglord allies. It’s a mystery if he survived. The Stag brothers, Mikkel and Manfred, are not all that interesting, however, Mikkel’s death is really tragic and hard-hitting. I feel so bad for Manfred. He spent the book healing after being attacked by Vankaskan during Gretchen’s kidnapping, but when he’s finally well enough to move, he is greeted by the severed head of Mikkel. It’s a brutal scene. Vega is Vega, doing his thing. I like how much he cares for Hector. He looks after him and after Hector killed Vincent, Vega helped Hector bury the body and keeps his secret. He’s a cool guy. Vankaskan is a creepy bastard. He’s a necromancer who hangs around Lucas. He controls zombies and uses them to attack Drew and the gang. While Drew is tied up by the Catlords, Vankaskan sends a horde of zombies after him. Drew wraps his chain around Van’s neck and strangles him to death, thus starting the one-by-one extermination of the Rat King brothers.
There are way more characters, but this post is getting too long.
The Worldbuilding: We see more Werelords! Horses, goats, and dogs. Kesslar the Goat has one of the more memorable transformations. He is said to resemble a devil. I literally imagine Kesslar’s were-form looking like Baphomet. Canan the Doglord is not described in a lot of detail so I picture an African wild dog, which is badass and I love it. The necromancy and walking dead are delightfully creepy. The voices Hector hears, Vincent’s vile whispering in his brother’s ear, the shambling corpses with burning blue eyes, and the black mark on Hector’s palm growing bigger and bigger the deeper he goes are all fascinating and off-putting. Again, Hector has the best stuff in the book!
Small thing. When Opal lets out her hand to Lucas, Lucas rubs his cheek against it like a cat and everyone is like “ew gross what are you doing?” I found that amusing. The Catlords are genuinely threatening, but besides Lucas, we don’t see any of them transform yet. Can’t wait!
Rage of Lions is vastly better than the first. The stakes are getting higher and higher and I’m here for it!
Recommendation: Well, I mean… if you liked the first one, you should read the rest of the series. It’s good and they only get better from here!
