Book Review: Howl by Meg Alivien

September 11, 2026

Okay, I did not rate this book highly, and I definitely don’t recommend it, but for some reason, I kind of want to read the next book in the series. I am going to be so honest, I grimaced for a lot of this book. I loved the concept and honestly even the storyline, it was just…so poorly executed. The idea of a town that all the paranormals

were sent and live all year in a kind of Halloween-y town is great. I love it. I love the friends to lovers pipeline. I am not a huge fan of the werewolf trope (except for Jacob who was always the better choice for Bella) but I figured I’d give it a shot. Nope. This was not the one. I cringed every time he mentioned ‘shifting’ (which was a lot) and his ‘pack’ (less).

We follow the story of Raegan (later to be nicknamed lemon due to her tacky kitchen decor obsession) and her best friend Jamie. They’ve been besties since high school when Jamie moved to the town due to his development of werewolf shiftings once a month. He wanted to hide it so he never told Raegan, or the town for that matter even though it was illegal to be undocumented, and just avoided her monthly. Raegan works at a bookshop and is the daughter of witches, but much to her mother’s dismay, is just a human. When Raegan decides to break up with her controlling creep of a boyfriend, Patrick, things don’t go to plan. Patty decides that if he can’t have her no one can so he tries to strangle her in a back alley and that pisses Jamie off and all the sudden they both feel a tug to each other  more intense than ever before. Suddenly they can’t keep it in their pants and all they think about is sleeping together. Spoiler: they’re ‘mates’

This book is graphic in weird ways and kind of jumps over things that I wanted a little more explanation on. Again, I would not recommend unless you want a really cringy book to talk about at book club.