I cannot begin to tell you the amount of kicking and screaming that ensued for an entire year as my husband tried to get me to read this book. No, says I, I will not read a book that's written in verse. It's not in verse, try the first page, he says about forty-umpteen times. You'll like it, I promise, he says another forty-umpteen times.
So now he gets to say "I told you so" since I did end up getting past that first page and enjoying the story. It is not difficult to read, in fact it goes very quickly written the way it is. The verse is not in any sense poetry. It is prose, just written in short lines instead of long ones. Although he does get to do cool things with indenting that provide an emphasis he couldn't easily get in regular prose.
Probably not a book for everyone. It was obvious I would like it because tales about otherwordly creatures are fascinating to me. There are so many ways you can frame the problems with our culture and society inside of a fantasy-- heck, that's why I read fantasy. It's reality turned on its head. However, there are some fairly horrific bits, stomach-turning in fact. Me, hard and embittered as I am, didn't have a great deal of difficulty with this. If you have a softer inside (for which I envy you), beware.
It's a bit confusing at times, keeping all the characters straight. There is a cast of characters at the back of the book, which I only discovered once I'd finished. This will help if it's in your copy. In particular, it'll help you keep the werewolf packs straight. Yup, that's right-- werewolves.
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