Book Miner - The Shapeshifters' Library: Released by Amber Polo - Chapter 2

Let’s talk about Chapter 2 in The Shapeshifters’ Library: Released by Amber Polo.

Synopsis

Prior to a meeting with an architect, Cutter decides to investigate the academy. Here she finds a distinct dog motif and briefly reflects on the lack of dogs and the surplus of dog catchers in Shipsfeather.

The academy seems to be an ideal candidate for the new library, having a pleasant mixture of knowledge and character.

In her investigation of the school, she encounters an Old English Sheepdog in the basement. Their meeting is cut short, though, by the honking of a horn outside, signaling Cutter to meet with the chairperson of library commission, Harold Dinzelbacher.

Outside, Dinzelbacher and Foly O’Hurley, the architect, discuss their desire to demolish the academy, including several lupine references (e.g., huffing and puffing and blowing the academy down) in their discussion. It is revealed that they are werewolves and that they are at war with the dogs who are apparently trapped in the academy by a curse. This same curse keeps the wolves out, which they discover first hand when they are prevented from setting foot onto the library grounds. They signal with the car horn for Cutter to come meet them outside.

Meanwhile, the sheepdog, named Chronus, holds a discussion with some other dogs about enlisting the librarians to their cause. In they end, they decide that an alliance with the librarians would be the best way to overcome the werewolf curse.

Analysis

Again, this is not a book I would probably have picked up on my own. I’m one of those people who’s weirded out by most fiction regarding shapeshifters. I think it has to do with the fact that, like in this book, they seem more comfortable in their animal forms, but at the same time, hold human discussions while in this form. It’s a little too Animal Farm-y for me.

Nevertheless, Polo’s writing is very readable. It does have a few rough patches from time to time, but fortunately, the exposition here was minimal. Aside from the fact that some characters were discussing their inability to enter the academy because of the curse, when by all rights, they should have already been aware of this long before they ran into it’s segregating force field.

Polo definitely is a fan of puns without being too annoying about it, thankfully (I’m looking at you, Piers Anthony). In a building inhabited by shapeshifting dogs, the predominant foliage are dogwood trees.

So far, it has not become a chore to read, for which I'm glad.