Peter the Wolf by Zoe E Whitten
As the other reviews say, Peter the Wolf is brutal tale of a sixteen year old boy who was traumatized well past human limits (his sister was killed in a snuff porn orchestrated by his parents, who employed both the kids as prostitutes, film stars and “trainers” for people who wanted to molest their children but needed them “broken in” first). Peter is a sex addict, and a werewolf (but that part comes up much, much later). And throughout the entire book he is attracted to his gymnastic neighbor, Alice.
What the other reviews don’t tell you is that Alice is ten years old.
What good writing there is has been buried under a progressively smothering pile of abuse, as if Peter must prove to the reader that his abuse was way beyond anything anyone else has ever dealt with, which supposedly justifies his actions. Make no mistake—Peter is a pedophile, a predator, and the long list of abuse becomes farce-like, shutting readers’ suspension of disbelief down in its sheer overwhelmingness.
Not to mention this is not the story of one teen trying not to act on the bad wiring he’s gotten, but instead Peter repeatedly uses his abuse and his “messed-up-ness” to justify his pursuit of Alice the ten year old. Peter bemoans his sexual addiction, but then masturbates to memories of sex with a six year old. He complains about being messed up mentally, but refuses to seek help because psychiatry doesn’t work. He says he doesn’t want to hurt Alice, but then comes the sex scene between them. Peter tries to justify this because ten year old Alice initiates the sexual activity.
At this point I have to interject. My son just turned eleven. He likes attention from girls but doesn’t try to grab them, grope them, doesn’t ask them to date him, and doesn’t try to kiss them. Yet it’s supposed to be realistic that a healthy ten year old girl pushes graphic sexual activity on a sixteen year old guy? This becomes Peter’s justification for a relationship with TEN YEAR OLD Alice.
She wants it so much so that after they’re caught she sneaks out of her house, climbs the window of Peter’s room and makes out with him again. Did I mention SHE’S TEN?
While Peter does find some emotional stability in his relationship with ten year old Alice, enough so that he seeks psychiatric help, the relationship is NOT healthy. Alice repeatedly pushes sexual activity on him and Alice’s uncle actually sets the two up with alone time (which Alice shows up to in lingerie). When the pair get caught the Uncle outright states his consent (for a child that’s not his, and when Peter is seventeen and Alice is twelve).
Meanwhile the whole werewolf plot doesn’t come in until around page one thirty (of one ninety five), which is convenient because it allows Peter to save Alice from a mad woman, prove he really loves her and get Alice’s father’s approval to be with her. In fact Alice’s whole extended family gleefully accepts Peter at this point.
And by the way, Alice is still twelve.
In my opinion, Peter the Wolf is ridiculous. The level of abuse in this book is overblown and ridiculous. The idea of a character that repeatedly fantasizes and sexually acts out on a ten year old being a sympathetic hero is ridiculous. A ten/eleven/twelve year old girl explicitly and obsessively pursuing Peter is ridiculous. And the idea that her healthy, normal, sane family would embrace this is utterly ridiculous. I would like to say that the writing isn’t bad, and stylistically it’s not, but the story is so foul and worse—triggering to any molestation victims who might stumble upon it—that expecting unprepared readers to buy this book is ridiculous as well.
This is not a sassy urban fantasy about an abused werewolf who finds his salvation through gymnastics. Peter the Wolf is an elaborate, sadistic, explicit account of a pedophile stalking and assaulting a victim, but it’s all okay because the child victim wants it and her family approves. This book is a concrete example of the BS excuses real pedophiles use to justify their violation and victimization of others.
And I really wish I hadn’t read it.