Thoughts on Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin

Book description:

The year is 1956, and the Axis powers of the Third Reich and Imperial Japan rule the world. To commemorate their Great Victory over Britain and Russia, Hitler and Emperor Hirohito host the Axis Tour: an annual motorcycle race across their conjoined continents. The victor is awarded an audience with the highly reclusive Adolf Hitler at the Victor's ball.

Yael, who escaped from a death camp, has one goal: Win the race and kill Hitler. A survivor of painful human experimentation, Yael has the power to skinshift and must complete her mission by impersonating last year's only female victor, Adele Wolfe. This deception becomes more difficult when Felix, Adele twin's brother, and Luka, her former love interest, enter the race and watch Yael's every move. But as Yael begins to get closer to the other competitors, can she bring herself to be as ruthless as she needs to be to avoid discovery and complete her mission?

Finished this book two weeks ago and I can’t stop thinking about it so I thought I’d write down some thoughts about it.

This book has made it official that alternative history books are becoming one my favorites genres to read. Ryan’s previous book, The Walled City about a settlement in Hong Kong that actually existed which was largely ungoverned was done so well so I had faith in Wolf by Wolf.

I went in not knowing much except that the setup was: what if someone killed Hitler?

I was pleasantly surprised by the X-Men aspect to it when it comes to Yael’s ability to shapeshift. We meet our main character while she’s on her way to a concentration camp and she’s handpicked by a doctor to undergo experimentation. It felt totally realistic and not hard to imagine that in this crazy time experiments were taking place with a disturbing mix of chemicals that would change a person.

Being able to modify her appearance with just a thought was such a great addition to this story because we get to go see Yael go through an identity crisis that felt entirely believable.

Due to years training with the resistance, Yael learned a wide range of academic and physical abilities. She can fight, shoot, and speak numerous different languages. Because of this and her ability to change her face, Yael is selected by the resistance to pose as a previous victor of the contest that is the setting of the novel; a transnational motorcycle race called the Axis Tour. The collaboration between Hitler and Emperor Hiroto is supposed to maintain this peace between the two countries because in this world, America never got involved and the Axis powers were able to seize control of most of the western hemisphere. SCARY. The race goes from Berlin (called Germania in this) all the way to Tokyo.

We get to go through the journey with Yael when she takes the place of the previous winner Adele. Adele Wolfe stole her twin’s papers in order to race because up to that point, women were not allowed to compete. The mission of course becomes complicated because while she has the mechanical details down like, motorcycle racing, imitating Adele’s behavior or committing her life story to memory, a person is more than just an assembly of details. Adele had some secrets of her own and having to deal with them when Adele’s brother Felix joins the race and Adele’s love interest, Luka makes thing complicated, so the race becomes more of a challenge for Yael.

The most thought-provoking part of the story is that Yael is literally wearing the face of her oppressors so after growing up being treated as less than human, she now has the privilege of being able to walk around freely one of them. Mindfuck much? I think that’s so great because race and privilege are at the forefront of many important conversations that we are talking about currently.

I also enjoyed that this book includes diversity because half of the twenty contestants of the race are from Germany and the other half are Japanese. Ryan takes the time to name all of the Japanese contestants and we get to know some of them past their name and description because of certain situations that happen in the book and it’s just great. At one point in the story, Yael even takes on the face of a woman of color when the race is in Egypt, which is just like yes for the detail. That’s so important to a story about Hitler because he literally thinks of an entire race as less than human so to just highlight the people of color makes for an even better fleshed out story.

Even with all the YA elements, such an important element of the story is the revenge aspect and with everything going on, we never forget that.  With the fusion of alternate history, historical fiction and science fiction along with the growing desperation Yael has to get revenge, we get to know about how unwavering, gutsy, vulnerable and emotional she is. Having to fake emotions turns into Yael beginning to care for the people Adele is close to.  The element of danger is always there because we fear that her cover is going to be blown along with having to worry about the inherent danger of the crazy race going on. I think the tragedy of what happened in this time in history is always highlighted and this was a unique and horrifying twist on it.  

As the book finished, I found myself wanting more. Since this is a duology, there will be a sequel which is exciting because having more of this world will be and excellent reminder of our devastating past and the maybe naive idea that only by knowing our history can we avoid reliving it.