Character Analysis

She-Wolf

Out of all the other wolves lurking in the woods, the only one we really get to know besides Beck and Sam is Shelby. And we kind of wish we didn't. Shelby wants to be the alpha female, and she'll go to any lengths to make Sam her alpha male… like, say, letting out a pack of dogs to eat Paul, another wolf.

Shelby's one of the few wolves who really wants to be a wolf. But not for the reasons Olivia does—being at peace with nature—but because she likes being destructive. Sam is very vague about Shelby's past and why she's the way she is: “Shelby welcomed the forgetting that came with her lupine skin. Of course, she had plenty of reasons to forget” (16.11). Sounds like he's waiting until the sequel to tell us exactly what happened to her.

We want to feel more sympathetic toward her, what with all her mysterious suffering in the past, but trying to kill Paul and later Grace makes it hard to feel for her.