YMMV / The Howling (1977)

• Angst Aversion: Some people find the novel a tough read or put it down a few chapters in because sexual violence and its impact is a prominent subject; the main heroine is graphically raped in the first chapter and spends the rest of the book dealing with PTSD because of it - given this is a horror novel, things also get worse for her from there - and her husband really isn't very understanding and supportive. Oh, and the heroine's cute little dog who serves as emotional support? You can probably guess what happens to her. For some readers, it all hits too close to home or isn't something they want to deal with in what's otherwise a fairly straight-forward werewolf horror novel. A likely reason why the movie adaptation is more popular than the book is because the filmmakers heavily toned down the sexual violence plotline and added more humour, making it less grim overall and more accessible to audiences.
• Broken Base: The early scene where Karyn is raped is one of the most contested in the novel. Some readers (including some who enjoyed the rest of the book) think the scene is needlessly drawn-out and graphic, as it's the aftermath of the rape that's more important to the plot and characters, so the scene just feels like it's there for exploitative shock value. A few readers find the scene so repulsive it puts them off from reading the rest of the novel. Other readers counter that the scene is intentionally written to be disturbing and horrific (as opposed to fetishising it) and it helped them to empathise with Karyn and her subsequent trauma, which is pretty central to the novel. Notably, the film adaptation chose to greatly tone down this scene (including having the heroine be rescued at the last moment) while still getting across the heroine's trauma and distress over the incident.
• Complete Monster: Max Quist is a handyman who resents any woman he perceives as "above" him. This rage manifests in a misogynistic fervor that results in him raping them, the fate that befalls the novel's heroine Karyn. Quist brutally rapes and beats her so badly that Karyn suffers a miscarriage, causing his shadow to linger over the novel as a greater monster than even the werewolves.
• It Was His Sled: The entire town of Drago being populated by werewolves is a big plot twist in the novel, with Karyn initially thinking there's only one werewolf, though it's such a well-known twist by this point (especially thanks to the more famous film having the same twist and revealing it much earlier), most people are aware of this right off the bat.
• Realism-Induced Horror: For many readers, one of the most horrifying things in the novel has nothing to do with werewolves and more to do with the mundane monster that is Max Quist. Having your home invaded by a psycho who wants to hurt you just for the hell of it and being unable to escape or reason with your attacker is something that could - and does - occur in real life.
• Values Resonance: While it's debated whether the novel's depiction of rape needed to be so graphic to get the point across, the emotional and psychological impact of the rape on Karyn gets explored with a fair bit of depth and nuance. Karyn's trauma is depicted pretty realistically (such as recurring nightmares, difficulties being intimate with her spouse, flashbacks, feeling constantly on-alert, disconnected from her body, that there's something 'wrong' with her or that she'll never be 'normal' again, and getting triggered by her friend touching her unexpectedly even though she logically knows he wouldn't hurt her). She's also portrayed completely sympathetically, while her husband is increasingly portrayed as a jerk for not being more understanding and expecting her to 'get over' it in a few months. It stands out given the novel was published in the late 1970s - when there was still an on-going social movement to get wider society to take sexual violence and its impact on victims more seriously, and to show more compassion for victims - and it still resonates today.
• The Woobie: Karyn Beatty is easy to feel sorry for, considering the entire book is basically one long Trauma Conga Line for her. Her seemingly perfect life is ruined when she gets physically assaulted and raped in her own home, resulting in a miscarriage. Although her attacker is caught and put away, Karyn is understandably still traumatised. She's convinced to move to a remote town where she doesn't know anyone except her husband, Roy, in the hopes of recuperating faster, which proves to be a big mistake. She realises there's something sinister going on in Drago, but Roy just dismisses it as paranoia and isn't very supportive at all, expecting her to quickly 'get over' what happened and cheating on her. Karyn's beloved dog is killed by a werewolf and then a nice young couple Karyn had helped go 'missing' and no one in town seems to take her seriously save for her new friend Inez, who is also killed to prevent her warning Karyn about the werewolves. To top it off, every other friend she thought she'd made in Drago turns out to be a werewolf and tries to kill her, while Roy eventually becomes a werewolf too and turns on Karyn completely (save for a brief moment near the end), with Karyn being devastated to permanently lose the husband she loved.
• Woobie Family: The family of shepherds who fall victim to the evil of Dradja in the prologue. Family patriarch Kyust moves his family and their flock near to Dradja, despite being aware of its dark reputation, because a drought forced them from their old home. Something begins preying on his sheep and kills his guard dog. And then it kills his young daughter, with her mother Anya finding what's left of her daughter. Consumed with rage and grief, Kyust marches into the village to seek revenge and never returns. His sister Rachel comes to stay with Anya to support her and sends a message to her brothers telling them what happened. However, on her way back she takes a path that leads her too close to Dradja and is also killed when she learns their secret. Although the brothers raise a mob to avenge Rachel, Kyust and his daughter, Anya is still left to grieve her family alone, with it being mentioned the farm falls into disrepair and the unattended sheep wander away. It's unknown what ultimately becomes of her.

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