Party Wolves in my Skull by Michael Allen Rose
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars
Party Wolves in my Skull by Michael Allen Rose is troubling, but probably not in any conventional sense. I’ll have to explain that in a moment. But first…
Norman wakes up as his eyes are pushing their way out of his head to free themselves from his oppression. They’ve gained sentience and decided to free themselves and run off to get married. It’s a little more complicated than this, involving freedom of the proletariat and such, but it’s ultimately flavor without being that important to the plot. Anyway, Norman places a vacancy sign on his head, so the party wolves move into his skull, and they go with Norman to pursue his fleeing eyeballs. But the party wolves have a secret of their own. Along the way, they meet Zoe, a woman with a secret of her own who is being pursued by Walter, a giant talking walrus. Are you still with me?
Now for the troubling part: I don’t know if it’s because I’ve read too much bizarro fiction up to this point, but this novel makes a weird kind of sense. No, seriously! As I’m reading this book, I found myself stopping periodically and saying, “Yeah, I get that. It makes sense.” Or I just seriously need medication. I’ll have to figure that one out at a later date and not while working on a book review that involves a man with a wolf pack living in his head falling in love with a woman who previously engaged in human-walrus relations.
At the end, though, what I walk away from Party Wolves in my Skull thinking is that this book was just plain fun. It’s brain candy. It’s short, sweet, and fun. And the reveals of the characters’ secrets are themselves rather fun and add to the story and characters rather than detract from them. They don’t disappoint and add a couple of nice twists to the story and to the character development. Yes, the author manages to get some significant and believable character development here.
Party Wolves in my Skull by Michael Allen Rose earns 4.5 random pills out of 5.
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