Book #3 of 2021: Teen Wolf Academy (and four abandoned books)

* **

* Book 1 of the series seems pulled off Amazon, but book 1 and 2 have basically the same cover.
** Print copy seems gone from Amazon, but the audio book is still there.

Finished:
Teen Wolf Academy by Annalise Clark. Anyone who says you can't tell a book by the cover doesn't read many books. "Shifter" books books have a certain look to their covers. Some "sexy", half-dressed woman, usually with an animal, and always with the same color scheme. So when I saw this cover, combined with the completely unoriginal title, it was a hard pass for me.

But then I went back and looked at it again. "You'll hate it," I told myself. "You know exactly what this book is. Okay, go ahead and read the summary and see." Yep, teenager shifters in magical high school. A plot seen in hundreds of other shifter books. Yawn. Pass.

But then I went back and looked at it again. "No. You know you'll hate it. You know exactly what it is. Pass." But then I went back and looked at it again. And again. And again.

So I finally got it. And know what? I was exactly right. I knew what it was. I knew the exact plot even though I have never read a shifter book before. It had all the issues I knew it would have: Oh no, the sexy main character girl thinks she's ugly and no boy will ever want her, even though all the boys do. Oh no, the sexy main character girl has a unique, rare magical power but she doesn't want it.

But all that being said... somehow I still enjoyed it. I like werewolves, and the idea of sending them all to a private school together, even though far far far far from an original plot idea, worked for me. I rolled my eyes at all the issues it had, but somehow I still enjoyed it.

Abandoned:
Paladins of the Storm Lord by Barbara Ann Wright. Not sure if this one was written poorly or if my mind was elsewhere. I had to keep rereading sentences to try to figure out what was happening. Eventually I gave up and read reviews to see if it was worth it to keep trying. Nope. DNF 4%

BetaLife by David M. Zahn. On one hand, there was nothing wrong with this book. Story was okay. Main character was okay. Writing was okay. Only real problem was it's litRPG (basically an MMORPG as a book). I've been burned by so many other litRPG books, I didn't want to continue with this one even though it was okay. DNF 31%

Wolves by D. J. Molles. In my last post I reviewed The Meek and wrote "End of the world story, but the only people left were the most evil people on Earth or victims for those evil people.". This felt like the same book. DNF 2%

Song in the Rain by Lydia Deyes. A songbird awakes one morning with no memory of its previous life, but odd, human-level knowledge. Also, strange magical things happen around it. The cover was nicer than the story, to me. Writing didn't really work for me and the characters weren't interesting. DNF 4%

Partial book credits:
Point reached in DNF books: 4 + 31 + 2 + 4 = 41%
Previous abandoned book total: 15%
New total: 56% (zero books)