Wolf by Wolf is a ‘what if’ story written by Ryan Graudin about an alternate history where Hitler’s army won and now controls almost all of Europe and Asia. The story follows Yael, a Jewish survivor who had escaped a concentration camp due to experiments done on her giving her the ability to alter her appearance. After escaping she ends up joining a resistance that plans to kill Hitler, and with their help she may be able to get close enough to do it. The plan set up is to participate in a motorcycle race from Germania to Tokyo under the guise of the previous winner Adele Wolfe, who had been the only person in years able to get close to Hitler. When she wins she will attend the Victor’s Ball finally get close enough to Hitler to kill him live on air and signal the revolution to begin. On this journey however she will need to maintain her cover and not let any of the other racers expose her. The challenge lies in the fact that one of the racers is former winner Lukas Lowe who appears to have an off camera relationship with Adele, and another is Adele’s brother who wants her to quit the race.

The themes in this story are harsh but true, Yael has five wolves tattooed onto her arm to remind her of the people who influenced her life and led her to this moment. Every wolf has a story explored in the story that teaches us something new about Yael’s life and goals ranging from the importance of her skin shifting abilities, to how the ghosts of her past will never go away. The book does a great job of creating serious moments that make you take a moment afterwards to mentally process the scenes that happen. From the start we see the view of a child and the the compact and horrible realities of World War II. To her she sees ‘smoke monsters’ taking away her friends and families and we see how horrifying the situation was for the poor people who were forced into this reality.

Personally I enjoyed the book, it has some very serious conversations about the effect of the war and because of Yael’s skin shifting we see the current world from both the view of a ‘perfect specimen’ and of a ‘dirty Jewish hag’ this book pulls no punches on its phrasing or its depiction of the situation. This book is a good story for people who are interested in ‘what if’ stories and anyone who has an interest in history, however you will also need to test your suspension of disbelief in some parts especially the skinshifting part. The parts of the story that I enjoyed the most were the flashback chapters where they explained the past of one of the wolf tattoos, each backstory in the book clued us in on the finer details of Yael and how she was able to do the things she could do; such as her ability to fight or her skin shifting ability. Overall a great read with some serious themes and scenes. Good for anyone who is interested in the time period.