While coated in a constant state of melancholy and near hopelessness, Lee Mandelo's novella is a fascinating take on parasocial relationships and the emotionless nature of scientific study. Sean is a complicated, desperate, and at times unlikable lead, the whole story fueled by her selfish actions and lack of taking accountability. There was never a time where I outright disliked her, though, as I found it easier to pity her as she spirals more and more into loneliness and an odd sense of isolation, despite her connection with the wolf Kate. From the beginning, we see that her relationships are already on the verge of collapsing, as she doesn't have any friendships beyond her work life and her marriage is falling apart at a rapid pace. The link that she has with Kate is the only one she has any semblance of control over, only because she chooses so. 

At several points in the story, characters remind Sean that she is neglecting other methods of connection, that everything else in her life is falling by the wayside without any kind of acknowledgment of how others' feel. Riya, her wife, said it best when she says "Sometimes I'm not sure you see anyone else besides yourself as a person." Every action Sean makes is to satisfy an immediate emotional need, even in actions meant to benefit Kate, as her possessiveness of the wolf comes from a false sense of ownership due to their one-sided connection. I enjoy watching messy characters be messy, so Sean's journey was especially interesting to me.

In the end, both parties end up hurt by the experiment, one that had been obsessively clinging to it since the beginning, the other with no knowledge that such a pact even existed. It's a hard ending, but a necessary one.

Looking at other reviews, I have to say that I wasn't as unsatisfied with where the book left off concerning Sean and Riya's relantionship. Given where it was going, how unwilling Sean seemed to be about the idea of moving overseas, how she jumped at the chance for a way to give into those immediate emotional needs again with the book deal without any input from her partner, it's easy to predict what would happen if the book were a few pages longer. Sure, Sean gets a somewhat neat resolution to her experience, but at a very big cost that's probably been a long time coming.