There was too much story all shoved into this one graphic novel. For the sake of spoilers I will not elaborate but I will say that I was laughing every time I turned the page and a new plot was unfolding. The concept was good but I think this could have been an entire series and not so rushed.

The artwork and diverse representation of characters gets 4/5 starts.

This book uses a lot of emotional and plot shortcuts that I felt it didn’t earn. Four kids turn into weredogs and learn about their powers from a teen werewolf who is searching for her missing father. Somehow rather than being an emotional story, it becomes about stopping a jewelry robbery and a raging werewolf from killing people for no real discernible reason other than he wants to “take what’s mine”. It needed more world building and authentic character interactions to make the friendships feel natural and the plot shifting focus to make sense.

Mara and the rest of her family are werewolves. By day they live like humans and try to do so the rest of their lives too after the last pack alpha got murdered for leading their pack down a life of crime. The pack is now trying to be respectable humans. Mara's cousin Zev was the alpha's son and doesn't agree with the pack's new way of life and is living with Mara and her dad. Mara tries to go to school and do well for her father. One day her dad goes missing and she gets concerned but Zev lies to the police and says away for work. Afterschool Mara witnesses some classmates get bit by a pack of wild dogs and over the course of the next few days discover they are now weredogs or werewoofs. The group of them discover what happened to Mara's dad and help the peace of their community. The illustrations were nice and easy to follow and the characters seemed like real people with real problems. I think a lot of readers could relate to them, even with their new supernatural abilities.

This one was disappointing because the premise and art are cute, but this text is trying to do way too much which creates problems with pacing and ends up leaving most of its characters feeling too one-dimensional — with the exception of the protagonist Mara, whose narrative about cycles of poverty I found interesting, and one of the side characters, Lorenzo, but only because his casually racist comments/jokes about the black character, Alvern, and lack of healthy boundaries with his crush make him a fully realized, but frankly unlikable character (even though the narrative clearly wants us to like him/rewards him in the end with what he wants, which, without spoiling anything, is a bit yikes in context; this is especially a drag when this character is the LGBT rep in the story).

There is also a major reveal/twist in the story that is too intense and ghoulish for the previously established tone, and so just ground (no pun intended) the ending to a halt for me. The fridge horror of this reveal isn’t treated with the appropriate gravity and so just ends up feeling outlandish, silly, and deeply, deeply weird.

Mara has got things bad. Her father has gone missing and her slacker of a housemate/cousin wants the whole pack to be at his beck and call, and to become the alpha criminals their nature allows them to be. Oh, my bad – Mara and co are werewolves, passing very nicely as humans in plain sight in a small American town. But some of her fellow school pupils have it bad, too – some tampering at the local pet sanctuary has resulted in some rather unusually-powered mutts, and each has tried to take a chunk out of some disparate teenaged kids – and passed some equally unusual powers along too.

What this isn't is some poor man's "Ginger Snaps". It never wants to equate being a werewolf with rampant hormonal teenagerdom. What it wants to do is equate werewolf tics and tropes with all the tetchiness, awkwardness and so on that being a high school student entails. So here are unrequited gay crushes, track and ball try-outs, detentions and groundedness, and so many emotional beats that can provoke the new powers in the leads. And all of this is not only interesting, it actually manages to disguise the way the two pulls on Mara's attention, namely her cousin and her new friends, are set to combine for so long that you're annoyed you didn't see it coming.

What follows kind of drops the teenage metaphors and just goes for the genre read, but it's no bad thing at that. The artwork is pleasant, even if it is a task to keep track of who is who and what is what. I think a kind of LotR "here's one more ending I've thought up, guys! and here's another!!" finishing spell definitely keeps this at four stars and no higher, but it's worth the look – it brings a different dimension to the usual werewolf story, avoiding the classic kind and the urban fantasy kind, to be something very now, and really quite welcome.

This was a great graphic novel that worked well as both a supernatural story and a contemporary story. It was nice to see the everyday problems of high school juxtaposed with the problems of dealing with the supernatural. The art style was fun with well drawn characters, and it helped move the story along. The story does a nice job of wrapping things up while also allowing for the continuation of the series. Looking forward to another installment.

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Charlie's reviewJan 22, 2022 · edit
really liked it
bookshelves: e-arcs-read, read-2022

"Werewoofs" was so fun and was giving me serious throwback vibes to the TV series "Teen Wolf" and the comic "Beasts of Burden", both of which are amazing and firm favourites of mine.
Another positive for me was the beautiful artwork... Val Wise was the artist for "Cheer Up: Love and Pompoms" which is another fab graphic novel that I really enjoyed, so this all added up into a great read for me personally.
I loved the overall story of the werewolves and mystery surrounding Mara's missing dad but I also really enjoyed the high school drama and characters individual struggles such as football try outs, pushy/absent parents, grades and crushes. The only thing I wasn't that keen on was the instant friendship the group had after becoming weredogs even though some of them had been at odds only a few days previously. Despite this I enjoyed seeing them bond and bicker and loved all of their characters.
A great read and I can't wait for volume 2!

Thank you NetGalley and New Paradigm Studios for providing me with a free digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

** I WAS GIVEN THIS BOOK FOR MY READING PLEASURE **
Copy received through Netgalley

~

WereWoofs, by Joelle Sellner, Val Wise
★★★★★
160 Pages


Wow! The world is fully of judgy, moody teenagers. Who are, apparently, weres... Except, they're not.
At first, I was a bit worried, because all the kids seemed to be bratty and annoying, but then...weren't we all, at that age? As the story progressed, you really saw how each character had their own journey, that they grew and matured over the time they spent together.

This was a great YA comic with a lot of heart and touching moments. You've got your jock, your geek, your fierce gay kid, and the loner-loser type that fills every school. Here, they push beyond their boundaries to become friends and we even see some romantic sparks.

The artwork was really nice and fitted the story well. Overall, a great read.

The graphics are pretty good. Reminds me of lumberjanes and that’s why I started reading and besides who doesn’t love werewolves trying to blend with humans. It’s cute and I’d totally recommend it to ppl who like fantasy like that.

NOTE: This review will be published sometime in February 2022 on noflyingnotights.com. If you would like a direct link, email me at lisa@rabey.net.


It’s been a few decades since I was a teen but the memory of what it was like is still prescient. The pressure of getting good grades; figuring out who I was; dealing with trauma like losing a parent, these are all universal themes and something we can all relate to in one way or another.

The kids of the midwestern town of Howlette (get it? Howl-lette) have a lot going on. Jae works for his parent’s jewelry store while twins Isabelle and Lorenzo, whose parents are never home, have unrequited crushes on Jae and Jaxon respectively. Alvern lost his parents and recently moved to Howlette from Philadelphia. Mara’s father, the alpha of the local werewolf pack, has gone missing and her mom has been gone from her life for years. There is a lot going on for the kids, plus the pressure of doing well in school, getting ready for college, fitting in, and just overall being kids. I may remember what it was like to go through some of those things but being right in the moment of them is sharper still.

One day, the kids are attacked by a quartet of vicious dogs. Mara, the lone wolf (get it?) comes in to save them. She directs the kids on how to clean up their wounds and the kids are grateful for her kindness. The following day, the wounds have all nearly healed but individually the kids don’t feel so hot. When Jae turns into an Airdale in the nurse’s office, you know things are going to change and quickly.

With a slight horror twist, Werewoofs is also a mystery to find Mara’s dad who has disappeared. Mara’s familial relationships also come into play in a big way when her cousin Zev takes over as alpha and attempts to turn the pack from peace loving and working with humans to wanting to destroy humans and take over Howlette.

There is a lot going on here as the kids work together and individually on their stuff: Lorenzo becomes a dog to befriend his crush Jaxon to the kids working together to help protect Jae’s parents from a robbery done by Mara’s cousin Zev and the rest of the werewolf pack as well as solve the mystery of what happened to Mara’s dad.

Joelle Sellner is a versatile writer having written everything for advertising campaigns for Lexus and Kleenex to movies on The Hallmark Channel and Lifetime. She also has a long resume of animation writing for such projects as Lego Friends, DC Super Hero Girls, and Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. If that weren’t enough, she’s also written for Blizzard, DC, and Marvel. She’s got the chops and it shows. The script is tightly plotted and the characters are fully realised so you get to experience the pain and joy of all the kids as well as the adults. She leaves no stone unturned and makes sure all the plot points are covered.

Val Wie is an illustrator who has worked on the graphic novel Cheer Up!: Love and Pom Poms as well as anthologies and other works for YA and adults. Wise’s work concentrates on the body, transness, and romance which is evident here. The character come in a wide range of sizes, genders, and sexual identities as well as racial backgrounds. The art feels natural and akin to our daily lives where we come in contact with all sorts of people from a wide variety of backgrounds and in Werewoofs, this is very important. While the kids are fairly self-confident in who they are, there are some struggles such as Lorenzo grappling with his queerness and his single statement to his sister that she doesn’t get what it’s like to be him. (Thankfully, Lorenzo gets his crush.)


This graphic is styled as being volume one and I hope that is true. The kids of Howlette have earned a fan and seeing more stories, solving more mysteries, and learning about themselves and others would make for a great read.

The age range of the book is 12 - 17 but I heartily recommend it for all ages. It will be a great addition to collections that showcase diversity, equity, and inclusion as not only a great starting point to talk to kids about the changes they are about to go through but also to have the representation of those changes.

2 stars. Thank you Netgalley for the arc. This graphic novel had potential but it just fell short. There were too many characters who weren't distinguishable enough and fell flat. The idea of werewolf dogs was a cute idea but the plot couldn't carry the cuteness. There was zero atmosphere and the villain was ridiculous. The art style was great but that's about it.

Werewolves, werewoofs, small town drama…this graphic novel was a lot! It was cute at first then took a dark turn. I’m curious to see how the next one will play out.

Werewoofs is a new graphic novel written and illustrated by Joelle Sellner and Vale Wise. Since I've been craving a good werewolf story (ideally one with a sense of humor), I couldn't resist nabbing this one for a quick read.

High school can be tough – nobody is going to argue that point. But one group of friends in the Midwest is going through more changes than the average teen, for they all have begun turning into weredogs.

No, they don't know why this is happening. But they're hoping to find out. In the meantime, they're going to help their new friend, Mara, find her missing father. Who also happens to be a werewolf, naturally.

Werewoofs is somehow very odd and cute – in almostperfectly equal proportions. There are elements to enjoy from this graphic novel, that much is certain. I personally really enjoyed learning about each of the characters. In fact, I would have loved it if more time had been spent on this element.

I'm going to give bonus points for having cute weredog forms (I love it), a solid sense of humor, fantastic friendships (we could all use a friend group that loyal), and LGBT representation. On that note, I will give props for the art style. Not only was it a ton of fun, but it was the perfect complement to this plot.

Thank you to netgalley for providing an e-galley for review. Werewoofs suffers from younger cover syndrome. This has a lot more going on than the cover suggests. Standing up to your family, death, werewolves and working with people who are different that you.

Mara a lone wolf at her high school is an actual werewolf. Her world is turned upside when her father goes missing and a group of kids mysteriously turn into weredogs. Being an expert on shapeshifting herself, Mara tries to help her classmates cope with their new skills while hiding her true identity. Would appeal to late elementary to middle school graphic novel readers.

A unique twist on the werewolf legend! Werewoofs is a neat cartoon about a group of teens who unexpectedly turn into were-dogs after being bitten by wild dogs. They must learn to navigate these new changes alongside the threat of a new werewolf alpha and his grand plans for domination.

Thanks to the publisher for providing an eARC of Werewoofs in exchange for an honest review.

I think this was a really cute concept but think it needed either a few less characters or to start showing us them bonding earlier on so we can get more invested in them as a group. Still, I think this was a fast, quirky graphic novel.

Werewoofs is a middle-grade graphic novel about a group of kids who all turn into shapeshifters and form a supportive friend group. The characters were diverse enough to be relatable to kids today. I liked the way their interactions with one another were thoughtful and considerate, and when a kid was being rude, they would call each other on it.

There was quite a bit of backstory included and multiple plots were happening at the same time, so it seems like the foundation for a series. This would be a great addition to middle-grade and up graphic novel collections.

This book was, in many ways, not what I was expecting. It overall feels disjointed, chaotic, and like it can't decide what it wants to focus on so it just briefly touches on too many things. I liked the premise of the book, the artwork, and the main character. I'm pretty much always on board with werewolves so it didn't take too much for me to like that part of this book, and I liked the little twist on that idea with the weredogs. The artwork was great! I like the use of the colors and the emotions the characters convey through the illustrations. Mara was one of the best parts of this book, in my opinion. She was opinionated, stuck to her guns, and courageous. I liked her spunk and liked that a vulnerable side of her showed throughout the book as well.

That being said, there was a lot about this book that I didn't like. The pacing was really weird. The dialogue could sometimes be hard to follow because the flow didn't always feel the most natural. Similarly, the timeline from scene to scene was often really vague and it became difficult to track the amount of time that had passed between scenes. On top of that, it sometimes felt like things had been happening in between scenes that we couldn't see but that were still somewhat important to the continuity of the story. the pacing was even weird when it came to the action throughout the book. Things didn't feel very intense in the beginning of the book and then suddenly at the end things are extremely intense. I didn't feel much buildup to this point so it was really disorienting when the change happened.

There are also so many different conflicts that are trying to take center-stage and as a result everything seems to be pushed to the sides. Nothing really got the time that it deserved and it meant that everything felt forced together and was left largely unresolved. The ending was extremely jarring and didn't seem to fit with the tone in the rest of the book. This threw me so off and made me question why the rest of the book was written the way it was. If the rest of the book had been written with a similar tone as the ending I would be much less confused by where it came from.

So really, I just didn't care for this book. Mara and the artwork were the primary redeeming factors in this book. If it hadn't been for the messy plotting and writing this could've been a much better book. I couldn't get into the story and found it too difficult to follow. The pacing was either too slow and boring or escalated from nowhere and threw me off. I can't say that I'd be in a rush to read anything else from this author but I would like to see more of Wise's illustrations.

Thank you to NetGalley and New Paradigm for allowing me to read this graphic novel. It was a cute story about a group of teens who get turned into werewolves. This story was a bit more intense than I expected it to be, but the illustrations were very well done.