Secure Wolves, Boys And Other Things That Might Kill Me Assembled By Kristen Chandler Readable In Edition

my favrouite contemporary, the romance was iffy and the characters were bland, This is the best book I've read in a long time, By far the best book I've read so far this year, I recommend this book to everyone to read at least once, I know I'll probably pick it up again sometime and read it again because yeah, it was totally that good, I bought this one the day it came out because I've been waiting for it for a while and I like any stories about nature and wildlife.


KJ Carson lives with her dad and has a pretty outdoorsy life, She lives in what is practically the middle of nowhere, near Yellowstone park where she watches wolves, Then the new kid comes to town, Virgil, and here's a surprise: they get to know each other in some place other than biology class! They actually meet in journalism, where KJ suggests Virgil uses some of his photography of wildlife for the school paper, and somehow KJ gets sucked into the plan as the reporter.


The story doesn't center just around KJ and Virgil I'd actually say the opposite, They're romance was just a back story, not really the main thing, The real plot was getting the wolves to stay in the Yellowstone park, so that people don't hunt and kill them, obliterating the species to zero, Which is actually a lot more entertaining than it sounds, I don't read a ton of contemporary YA fiction a lot of times I want the escape that comes with paranormal and fantasy, but every once in a while I will scoop up something more realistic.
The quickest way to get me to grab your book Yellowstone, It's as easy as that, So this book, set just outside the park in Montana and focusing on the controversy that came with the reintroduction of wolves in, was a no brainer.
I've done reports on the subject and spent countless hours sitting on the hill in Lamar Valley watching the Druid Peak pack go about their lives, I've sat on a carcass not really sat on I've sat in pull offs and watched a carcass in the hopes that I will glimpse a wolf or grizzly coming in for a meal.
I've said it before, and will say it again I'm sure, Yellowstone, for me is home, So any chance to visit I'll take, I live a four DAYS drive away, so a lot of times that visit comes through a book or tv show, Needless to say I was excited to read this one, So how did it do as far as visits go

Simply put, it was excellent, I could see everything KJ and Virgil saw and was totally invested in their journey as they tried to figure out who they are and what they believe in.
KJ, a lifer in her small town has grown up with one point of view, that the wolves are both bad for business as far as the ranchers are concerned and good for tourism as far as her fathers guide business is concerned, but she doesn't feel passionately one way or the other.
Other people in town do though, they want the wolves gone, and fast, Virgil on the other hand, blows into town with his mother, who studies wolves for a living and is sqaurely on the opposing side, For her, and by extension Virgil, the wolves are a great thing, When Virgil and KJ and partnered up on a column for the school paper on the wolves they find themselves confronting their own beliefs, the beliefs of the town and trying to find a way for everyone to live together.


I'm going to talk for one quick minute about KJ's come to Jesus moments regarding the wolves, It was good, and for me it was also funny, Here's why. Shortly after the wolves were released from their reintroduction pens in the Lamar Valley my family visited the park as we did every couple years, Of course we were hoping to catch a glimpse of the wolves, There is a road in valley that goes back to a trailhead, camping area and a nice spot to fish called Slough Creek, We were stopped in there scanning for animals when I looked behind me and saw, up on a huge boulder, a black wolf, I looked at him, he stared at me, and then he backed off away from the ledge and was gone, It was my first connection to the wolves and it really does change you, I had no opinion before that moment besides "it's cool", afterwards I was certain of why the reintroduction was good and why we now had to protect the wolves.
KJ's moment seemed to mirror mine, Everything she saw and felt made absolute sense to me, It was pretty awesome.

One thing that I feel the need to mention is that I wonder if people who do not travel to Yellowstone and the area often feel lost in the descriptions of where Virgil and KJ go with Virgil's mom in the park.
To me it's as familiar as walking through my house, but I worry that others might not visualize it as I do, and mabye additional descriptions of what the area looks like might help.
I'd be interested to know what others thought if they are not at home in the park,

Overall though, this was a phenomenal book, Chandler nailed it as far as I'm concerned, Not only did she bring me back to Yellowstone, but she created believable characters who are dealing with an issue that happens all the time around the park.
I thought it was all really well done, Liked it, didn't love it, I thought the heroine's dad ruined the story a bit, There was something wrong with him,

Anyways, very good story highlighting the controversies of the wolves in Yellowstone, It doesn't hold a candle to The Loop by Nicholas Evans, but as this is aimed at the younger crowd, I thought it did pretty well, It's the angry cow owning rednecks vs the hippy wolf loving tree huggers, LOL. No offense to anyone. This is how they come across in the book,

A school newspaper sorta opens a can of worms in town, Things get a bit out of hand, shots are fired, stores are vandalized, Meanwhile, the heroine, KJ has a crush on the new boy, but her dad is just weird about the whole boy and wolf thing, I really didn't like the man, He was always griping and pressuring her, KJ is also making some friends where she didn't expect to make them,

Loved the parts about the wolf "families" and Cinderella Wolf, Good read overall. I probably would've loved it more except for that dad, . Something off about his character, K. J. Carson is drifting through life, Her mom was killed in a car crash when she was three and her father, a lawyer, switched careers, possibly in response to his loss, He's a fishing and hunting guide in West End, Montana, a town bordering Yellowstone National Park and runs a sporting goods store to help make ends meet during the slow times.
He expects K. J. To help out, both in the store and as a grunt on wildlife viewing and fishing trips, He's on her case most of the time and he's unable to show her much affection or emotional support
There arepeople in town, everyone knows everyone else and most of their business.
K. J. has friends, but doesn't feel like she really fits in, When a new boy named Virgil appears on the opening day of school in the fall, she notices a couple of things about him, He has an accent she can't place and he's really good looking, When the two of them are paired on the school newspaper staff, they begin to hit it off, Virgil and his mother have come from Minnesota to study the wolf packs that have grown as a result of reintroduction of the species in the park.
Virgil takes amazing photos, K, J. writes a column to accompany them, They think their effort is pretty innocuous until all hell breaks loose when ranchers and hunters begin blaming the wolves for the drop in the elk population and livestock lost on nearby ranches.

All K. J. and Virgil want is to complete their assignments, get to know each other and do some wolf watching with his mother, but the issue of whether the wolves are causing major problems takes on a life of its own and before the teens know it, they're at the center of a raging controversy that threatens to tear the town apart.

By the time the story concludes, there have been fires set, a person shot and a couple young people almost drown, Virgil and K. J. have to get very creative, not to mention brave in order to survive and keep a relationship alive that both of them realize is pretty special, This book was given to me by a friend whose daughter bought it and passed it on to her, I started reading it and couldn't stop, It's a great book about growing up when the people who should be guiding you have abdicated their responsibility, It also is a neat love story intertwined with an important environmental issue, The author does a dandy job of letting characters on both sides of the issue bring their opinions to life without getting preachy or showing bias, Teens who like stories with real life issues, drama and a neat teen romance will certainly like this book, Campaigning for the wolves of Yellowstone National Park was never in sixteenyearold KJ Carsons plans, Small town, park life and the outdoors is such an inseparable part of her already, how was writing about the wolves in the school newspaper any different Growing up in West End, Montana with a wildlife guide and sports shopkeeper for a dad, her daily life has consisted of rowing, fishing, and going wolf watching and elk hunting during tourist season.
So why would it be seen as taking sides if she simply recorded her observations of the newly reintroduced wolves with the new guy Virgil and his wolf expert mother Eloise But with an apparent cause and a cute boy at her side KJs never been happier.
Until a shotgun blast reminds her that the wolf will always be seen as “the big bad wolf” in West End cattle rancher central, Old KJ would back down, but with more at stake than her life and reputation, shes prepared to stand up for all she

loves, wolf and human alike.


What an unexpected, standoutinacrowd kind of YA novel Wolves, Boys, and Other Things That Might Kill Me WBOT turned out to be, Though some may be disappointed in its lack of supernatural wolves, that is precisely why I even gave it a second look, Add that refreshing premise to a cool, snappy title and a beautiful, exceptional cover and I was sold,

Im happy to say that my expectations held up from the first page until the last, KJ and her dad guiding noisy, ignorant tourists wolf watching in the first chapter had me at “your other left, KJ, ” Their relationship is raw, complicated, and one of my favorite parts of the book, Love her or hate her, KJs very different life is intriguing and her voice strong, Shes sarcastic, shes drywitted, and she has an almost flippant confidence in the obvious lack of care she has for what others think of her, I mean, why would it matter if she only has one friend or people have been noticing lately that she finally needs a grownup bra and has grown her hair out Part tomboy KJ doesnt.
She does care however when the shaggy blondehaired boy from Minnesota notices and she still manages to hilariously screw that up, at least in the beginning, KJs quirky teachers like Mrs, Baby she means Brady and fellow students like Addie and Kenner grew on me, obnoxious hillbilly sensibilities and caricature personalities aside, Youre not really sure if some of these intitially unforgettably distinct types will have more depth as the story progresses, but their vulnerabilities eventually emerge, There may also be a few rural town, environmental, shotgun stereotypes here but on the whole I found the setting authentic and interesting Kristen Chandler grew up near Yellowstone herself and the characterization of WBOT delightful.
Recommended for fans of YA contemp with a little romance and a lot of compelling drama on the side, .