The Wolf Gift--Chapter 2

So let's just dive in again tonight, shall we?

So far our protagonist has revealed his name is Ruben and that he is a celebrated journalist at the ripe old age of twenty-three, he's elected to buy a mansion, cash, that he has a girlfriend and family that think he's a naive kid (GEE I WONDER WHY) (something I didn't bring up in the last chapter because OH MY GOD it was bloody boring) and despite said girlfriend, he's screwing the mansion's owner.

Chapter two opens with Ruben waking up.

Folks, I have a rule: the first thirty seconds of a movie and the first few paragraphs of a book tell you what the experience will be like and how good it's going to be. So far, it's a hard rule. I can count on one hand the number of times a movie has started out awesome and ended badly (Looper comes to mind. AWESOME premise but you can totally tell the minute they stopped playing with "time traveling murder victims" and tried to actually have a story) and I cannot think of one movie that started out bad and ended good.

So far in this book we've gotten names, appearances, sex, and a really pretty house.

This book is supposed to be about werewolves. I do not have high hopes anymore.

 Marchant went and got Ruben's clothing out of the car for him and laid it out all neat. Because that's what women do. Ruben spends a few minutes glorifying adultery, and thinking about how betraying his girlfriend "wasn't easy" (...could have fooled me) and how he'll remember it for the rest of his life as a wonderful thing, and how he probably would never tell Celeste, the girlfriend, because that would hurt her feelings and that would be bad.

There are a handful of things that hurt other people worse than cheating on them. Full blown addiction. Your actual death. Ruben has just established himself as an irredeemable POS in my opinion and he will have to save most of the universe and resurrect Elvis to redeem himself.

Oh, and the reason why Ruben just cheated on his girlfriend with the first couple of pages of the book? Celeste wasn't impressed with his writing and this hurt his feelings.

We are supposed to like this guy, right?

Ruben tours the Beautiful House, and of course it has more antique nicnaks than a museam, and of course it has a big library, and OF COURSE we get the Obligatory Listing Of American Literature (Aren't You So Impressed) and of course the titles mentioned are all the ones you had to study in highschool and college.

And now Ruben is fantasizing about marrying Marchant. The woman he has known for all of one day.  IDK if this is Anne Rice's attempt at immaturity (if so, good show Anne) or if she just thinks this is how romantic connections work.

He continues to tour the house. He sees Marchant and thinks about how she is his One True Love, and how Celeste, his other One True Love, will be completely understanding about him cheating on her with an older woman who is a total stranger because Celeste cheated on Ruben with an ex-boyfriend twice, and that means she now has to be understanding towards him, so there.

Using lots of big words while being a self-centered git does not equal maturity. 

Ruben goes back to bed. The chapter ends.

I have no idea what any of that accomplished.

Where the fuck are the werewolves?