REVIEW: How to Help a Hungry Werewolf by Charlotte Stein

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Content notes: bullying and fatphobia, brief references to parental neglect

Seth and Cassie had been thick as thieves, spending almost every waking moment together as kids. Then Seth became one of the cool kids and started hanging out with the jerks and Cassie was bereft. Even so, it wasn’t until he participated in humiliating her at the school talent show that she realised their friendship was truly over.

Now Cassie is back and almost the first person she meets in Hollow Brook is Seth, asking strange questions about her grandmother’s death and even breaking into her house looking for something mysterious. Clearly something is going on – Seth seems desperate, although not physically dangerous. It becomes quickly obvious that Cassie’s grandma was helping him manage his affliction. And by his affliction, I mean Seth is a werewolf.

Cassie is disconcerted by Seth even before she knows he’s a supernatural being. He’s bulked up, filled out and is just about everything she finds attractive wrapped up in a plaid shirt and cords.

And that mouth. How did he have a mouth like that? His upper lip was as plush as a peach. However, his lower was almost mean. It made him look like he was three seconds away from murdering you at any given moment—but in such a soft and seductive way that you’d be really happy about it when he did.

But to find out not only that Seth is a werewolf but there are also all manner of supernatural creatures and beings existing in the world is a shock she’s not ready for.  Seth has a way of delivering the news that if it doesn’t exactly help Cassie deal, was good for making me laugh out loud.

Not only were vampires apparently not real, they weren’t even massive-ridiculous-castle dwellers.

And that was just insult added to injury.

“Oh my god. You take that back,” she finally said, more fiercely than she intended.

But even the fierceness didn’t make him bend reality back to what it was supposed to be.

“I can’t, it’s the truth. There are no castles at all. Or even fancy houses. In fact, I know of one of them who lives in an apartment with two other dudes. And the apartment is pretty crappy. Two of them share one bedroom—and not in the cool way, either. In the sad way that makes me want to ask them how come they’ve been alive for hundreds of years but don’t have so much as a bean between them.” He sighed and shook his head. Then seemed to consider something, before adding, “Though to be fair, I’m not sure I really need to ask them that. It’s pretty obvious, when one of them thinks televisions have tiny people living inside them.”

Added to everything, Cassie realises she’s a powerful witch. Her grandmother had been using Cassie’s own “recipes” to cobble together potions for Seth but with Cassie herself making them, they’re on a whole nother level. Cassie and Seth make a deal; she will help him by providing potions to heal his wounds and stop him from wolfing out and he will help her learn about being a witch and the supernatural world which has just been revealed to her.

It’s obvious that this pair have been in love with each other since high school but neither felt brave enough to say anything to the other. The issue of the incident of bullying Seth participated in during high school is resolved early with a genuine and heartfelt apology as well as some additional context. But Cassie is determined to hold him at arm’s length to limit any harm he may do to her. If he doesn’t know how vulnerable she is to him, he can’t hurt her as much. Which leads to much hilarity as they stumble over their attraction, made all the more compulsive by “werewolf sex hormones”.

Never let him know that you like a single thing about him, she told herself, firmly.

Then she put her shoulders back, and lifted her head, and responded. “Yeah, okay, Seth. I get that you have a six-pack now,” she said, and rolled her eyes. Though it didn’t exactly have the intended effect. He just glanced down at his own stomach with this pleased look on his face.

“You really think I still have a six-pack? I thought I kind of lost it when all this madness made me want to eat everything all the time, and sleep so long it feels like a coma, and also—just generally being this way makes you a lot thicker and burlier, you know?” he said, all affable and blasé about it. While she carried on floundering in this sea of weird feelings.

First there had been that flush and the urge to stare, and now here was another fucking rush of concern. Your entire body and metabolism and sleep cycle changed, she wanted to say. But even after she managed to fight that down, nothing good took its place.

“Well, even if it has, it’s definitely still there,” she blurted out.

And could only thank her lucky stars that he didn’t take it like a compliment.

“Right, but I mean, it’s less defined.”

“Something being less defined is not a bad thing.”

“So you like it thicker like this, you like more of a belly.”

“What the fuck does it matter, Seth. That’s not the point.”

Seth is a goofy and adorable guy who is constantly tripping over his words, earnestly making their simmering attraction worse despite being well-meaning.

At one point Cassie makes a joke about Seth’s (at the time theoretical) huge penis and this happens:

“Probably would have been best for my mental well-being if you hadn’t,” she said.

“Sorry. It just sounded like you knew already. You said it so confidently.”

“I was joking. I was just being funny.”

He nodded, regretfully. “Yep, I see that now.”

“Wish you’d seen a second ago, so I didn’t have to have the image lodged forever in my brain. But you know, those are the breaks. One second your head is empty of your mortal enemy’s potential penis, the next you have to live with it endlessly unraveling in your head like a fruit roll-up,” she sighed, weary and sarcastic enough that she thought this would be the end of the matter.

But oh no. No, no. He kept right on going.

“Well, you know it’s not so long that I have to wind it up. Usually I can just kind of keep it down one thigh and then wear long, tight shorts, and it sort of stays in one place and oh my god I need to stop talking.”

Because of those werewolf sex hormones, their attraction becomes all encompassing. Neither will admit there’s more to it than supernatural compulsion; Seth because he doesn’t believe it’s even possible that Cassie could think of him that way especially after how he behaved in high school (even though she’s forgiven him) and Cassie feels similarly, for pretty much the same reason, only in reverse. But her witchy sense clearly tells her that the only way out is through so eventually (and it takes a long time to get there) they decide that bang they must.

So maybe we should just think of this as you know . . . casual sex. Or scratching an itch. Or any other kind of fun activity we might do together. Like, say, really weird, intense tennis,” she tried.

Not surprisingly, the jerks return to make trouble. It’s also clear there are other people in Hollow Brook who have been and will be an issue for the supernaturals – this is the first book in a series so I expect we will find out more about this in upcoming books. (Here for it.)

For the most part, I found How to Help a Hungry Werewolf (I believe the working title had the word Horny instead of Hungry) to be a delight. It was funny, sexy and charming. I especially enjoyed the worldbuilding, which included such things as a sentient appliances; among them a snarky microwave and an opinionated television, a witchy guidebook which revealed more and more information as the reader became ready for it, plus a talking raccoon. It was wondefully quirky and fun, vastly entertaining.

I did think that the miscommunication between Cassie and Seth went on a bit too long. The point became just a little too laboured for me. It really was so very obvious that they were endgame for each other, each was just too frightened to really believe it.  I understood why they felt that way but eventually I started thinking Cassie and Seth were being willfully dense about it all.

I loved that Cassie was very much the heroine of the story; Seth her faithful sidekick. Yes he will protect her but she can kick ass herself thank you very much. I also enjoyed that both, at base, were just plain kind. Seth had a blip in high school (intent doesn’t equal impact but he was truly remorseful about that behaviour) but apart from that, they are both the sort of people who help, who care, the kind who offer friendship just because, and that is something I have come to appreciate more and more over the last few years.

Charlotte Stein has a particular and distinctive voice – it’s immediately obvious to a reader, no matter whether it’s a contemporary or a paranormal romance. How To Help a Hungry Werewolf is no exception. It has all the hallmarks of Stein at her best.

Grade: B+

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