Book Review: The Sight

God, I've wanted to do this for ages, and now I've finally gotten round to doing it. Here is a book that I almost religiously carry around with me everywhere I go. Not literally, of course, but you get the picture. I am that much in love with it. I read this book at the perfect time, when I had just finished Prisoner of Azkaban, found Werewolf Apocalypse, and when my obsession with wolves led on to a minor case of therianthrope. So yeah, this book added gasoline to the fire, along with 'Blood and Chocolate' with found its way into my arms not too long after. And for a touch of historical value, I'll bet none of you know this~

'The Sight' is the first book that I have ever bought with my own money! All my previous books were daddy-sponsored, but this one looked too much like a children/teenage book to my dad that he refused to fork out even a single penny for it. I don't mind though. I wanted the book enough to pay for myself, and it set me down the dark, dark road of allowing Kinokuniya to drain my allowance.

Personal stuff aside, 'The Sight' is an awesome, awesome book. It revolves around a female wolf, Larka, who has been endowed with the gift of the Sight, a rare ability among wolf-kind. It is at about the time of Larka's birth that the wolf Morgra has taken command of the Balkar (a group of vicious male wolves), and decreed herself as the 'First of Wolves'. Being the power-hungry bitch that she is, Morgra isn't satisfied with just being the ruler of wolves. She wants Larka's power to aid her go much, much further~ to discover the secret of Man and to rule above all Lera (the word used for 'animals'). Larka's family isn't too keen on handing Larka over though. And so the first half of the book narrates the trials and hardships the family has to go through while fleeing Morgra's wolves. Eventually though, Larka realizes that for the safety of all she holds dear, she has to go off on her own and learn to master her power, so that she may challenge Morgra and liberate her kind.

Don't get me wrong though, 'The Sight' isn't set in a fantasy world. It's set very much in our world, and manages to relate to actual historical events, like the activities of Vlad the Impaler for example. But with the social heirarchy, history and politics of the Varg (the word used for 'wolves') constructed so thoroughly, it feels real enough to pull you in and drag you along for one heck of a ride, where everything ties off just nicely enough at the end.

'The Sight' has its fair share of drama and suspense. And it helps that the characters feel very much alive for you to feel for and love. Even the 'evil' characters aren't truly evil, or without motive other than pure world domination like most stereotypical villains. It's about time that the 'Big Bad Wolf' image be thrown away, I think. This books does justice to the often victimized wolves by portraying them as they really are instead of making them bloodthirsty killing machines.

And the cover's pretty. As Nicholas puts it, the way things are, the saying 'You can't judge a book by its cover' is not useable anymore. Bestselling books normally bring in enough cash for the author to hire better artists to make really, really pretty covers. As a result, most of the bestsellers are the ones with pretty covers. His Dark Materials, anyone?

Despite the amount of time that has passed since I've read this thing, it remains solid on my top ten favourite list.

10 out of 10. Possibly 12.