The Belly of a Wolf

'The Belly of a Wolf' is a striking YA verse novel about the aftermath of youth suicide and the particular loneliness of grief in adolescence. Six months after the death of her best friend Wolf, Red returns to high school carrying guilt, anger, and a sense of identity that has been broken open. Their friendship began when they were cast as Little Red and the Wolf in a Prep play, and Negri uses that fairytale allusion to explore how easily young people can become trapped inside the stories others (and they themselves) have written for them.

The verse form suits Red’s fractured state. Rather than offering a smooth account of recovery, the novel moves through fragments, memories, and sharply observed moments of self-destruction. Red pushes away care, makes poor choices, and struggles to believe in the possibility of new connection. This makes the book painful at times, but also convincing. Negri does not soften grief into a lesson, nor does she exploit the darkness of the subject.

The novel’s compressed form occasionally leaves some secondary figures lightly sketched, yet its emotional focus remains clear. 'The Belly of a Wolf' is a sensitive, unsettling, and carefully written account of losing someone to suicide, and of trying to live beyond the question of what might have been seen or done differently.