Bored Gay Werewolf
Ratings10
Average rating3.7
Juno Dawson's Her Majesty's Royal Coven meets a Jim Jarmusch movie. A directionless college-dropout deals with sexuality, minimum-wage jobs, lunar cycles, toxic masculinity and the everyday perils of life as a modern werewolf. Brian, an aimless slacker, works doubles at his shift job, forgets to clean his room and lays about with his friends Nik and Darby. He's been struggling to manage his transition to adulthood almost as much as his monthly transitions to a werewolf. Really, he is not great at the whole werewolf thing, and his recent murderous slip-ups have caught the attention of Tyler, a Millennial were-mentor determined to take the mythological world by storm. Tyler has got a plan, and weirdly his self-help punditry actually encourages Brian to shape up and to stop accidentally marking out guys who ghosted him on Grindr as potential monthly victims. But as Brian gets closer to Tyler's pack, and alienated from Nik and Darby, he realizes that Tyler's expansion plans are much more nefarious than a little lupine enlightenment... Big-hearted, goofy, anarchic and funny, Bored Gay Werewolf is a smart take on the doomsday logic of late capitalism and the complicated meeting point of masculinity and sexuality. More than that, though, and like Scooby Doo with Grindr or Stranger Things with sex and ennui, it's a buddy novel about finding your pack, the power of friendship, and learning how to be comfortable in your own, shaggy werewolf pelt.
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The first half of this book is pretty great. It's an engaging look at how people can get sucked into cultish activities. The cult leader (Taylor) starts with genuinely improving Brian's life by providing structure, fitness, and belonging. It's a fun look into that whole Andrew Tate-ish scene as well. Maybe fun isn't the right word... It's a safe insight without needing to feel fully disgusted.
The second half sort of loses it a bit. It all wraps up too neatly and quickly, and Brian comes out with perfectly scripted lines, that yes, we'd LOVE to say, but I wasn't convinced. It very much felt like the voice of the author being inserted (as much as I agree with what he's saying). It affected the narrative flow. Abe's addition towards the end also felt very rushed, as was Brian's friend's immediate acceptance of his lycanthropy. I wasn't quite sure I understood the rules of the universe, and why they were so ready to accept his supernatural state.
Overall, for a first novel this is very solid and the author shows a lot of promise. I think some tightening up at the second half would have improved it a lot. Enjoyable read nonetheless!
pretty fun, a light summer read, but i probably wouldn’t read another book in the same series
first half was 3 stars, second half was 4 stars so I'll round up for this
it feels like it's setting up to be a series so fingers crossed
