The Collegio Pittsburg's student voice since 1916
Alyssa Tyler editor in chief
For this week’s book review, I will be reviewing, The Wolfs Den by Elodie Harper. This book takes place in ancient Pompeii and looks at the women who are often overlooked during studies. Amara, the main character, was sold to the infamous brothel by her mother after her father, a doctor, passed away. His death caused the family to fall into poverty, and Amara was sold into slavery.
Although she is enslaved to a cruel and wicked man, she keeps her fighting spirit throughout the traumatic trials. With other women enslaved to the brothel, Amara finds comfort in the other women who are forced to go through the same traumas as herself.
Although Amara is forced to pleasure men, she finds way to make the experience more enjoyable for herself. By partnering with friends to sing, dance, and play music to entertain, instead of their bodies. Throughout the novel, Amara is described as a she-wolf, trapped in the wolf’s den.
Amara also meets countless other people that share her trauma or cause the trauma to herself and to others.
While reading this book I found myself trying to relate to Amara and found it heartbreaking. Especially when you see how the rest of the characters reacted to being enslaved. Many had lost hope of ever escaping and ended their lives before they could go through anything else.
The book is heartbreaking, but extremely slow. I found it hard to stay engaged with the story and the plot lines. Although it was not an action-packed fantasy or anything like that, the dialogue was entertaining, and the descriptive quality kept the story line moving.
I almost did not finish this book countless times, because I felt like I was just reading to read the book, and not out of enjoyment. However, I think that is due to the topic of the novel, not due to the writing.
The idea of women being enslaved to brothels and to be sex slaves, is not an issue that died with Pompeii. That is one of the main reasons why I was able to finish this book, I was trying to pull ideas from the book into the current day.
Overall, I rated this book 3.5/5 stars. As I stated earlier, the dialogue was entertaining, and the writing was well done. However, I found it hard to get through the book, the plot line was slightly confusing, and some of the character building felt flat. Overall, I think it is a powerful novel over a group of women going through an extremely traumatic experience together and keeping their fighting spirit.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in ancient times, or even interested sex trafficking, or the effects of being sold into sex slavery.