Coyote's Creed

All this book really did was making me want to read Seanan McGuire's Toby Daye books again. That or play Changeling:The Dreaming. Both of those at least tell me what the setting is and why I should care.

So our main character is bratty high school student who acts like every 20-30 year old urban fantasy protagonist with a snotty attitude, only with the occasional pause to wail about how he's not going to graduate HIGH SCHOOL, I'M A HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT DID YOU GET THAT, HUH. Turns out he's half fairy/trickster/demigod/something or other that's never explained. He finds out because his dad's apparently dead (and his mom goes into fugue states about which our main character can angst, but which does nothing to help the reader give a fuck about her.) His 50-some odd “uncle”, who is NOT blood related, but WAS daddy since dad took a powder, shows up to tell him all about how, hey, magic exists, and I'm magic and your magic EVERYBODY GETS A NEW MAGIC, oh and yeah, you need to go speak at your divorced and absentee father's funeral.

Blah blah blah AND THEN 50 YEAR OLD UNCLE FIGURE WANTS TO BONE 18 YEAR OLD HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT. WHO HE HELPED RAISE. This raises no eyebrows. Even to mom who, out of her fugue state walks in on our main character and his APPARENTLY HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF YEARS OLD “UNCLE” FUCKING IN THE TUB.

There are a handful of characters in the book who are actually interesting in any way (the more important of whom ended up the brunt of pretty egregious transmisogyny on the writer's part). Those characters do not include the protagonist or his boyfriend. And they definitely don't include the bad guy, who is literally the most boring thing in the book. We know so much about her, and all of it should have added character and world building but I was left more confused about the world and caring less about her every time. The half-dead, relationship-devouring vampire-sorceress who is obsessed with resurrecting her Sorcerer King child SHOULD NOT BE BORING.

The pacing was totally effed the hell up. The plot that was in the last third of the book should have been earlier than halfway through the book. But instead we get extraneous sex scenes that prove the main character and HIS UNCLE FIGURE are, like, sex-bonded to each other forever. Ffffffff.

And lets not get into how shoddy the world building is. Like, there's an entire fairy court, not just phoukas? Wear are they? Are satyrs members? Coyote's a god, and apparently so's Bacchus, are all the magical creatures descended from a god? And what's this bullshit with the fates existing. So there are gods of the gods, or... Seriously, every time I think I'm going to get to learn something, the chance is yanked from my fingers.

And then there's the culturally appropriative racist stuff. Kitsune? Nipponese? They're perfectionists! They can do magic! There's a really pretty boy who passes for a girl? This is neckbeard-level exoticizing, and also if I never see another gay romance fantasy that uses Japanese shit as background decoration, it with be TOO SOON. And COYOTE. I WOULD CHEW MY ARM OFF FOR AN URBAN FANTASY ABOUT COYOTE TO BE ABOUT ACTUAL NATIVE PEOPLE. And don't give me that “well maybe the coyotes other than the main character are native”. Yeah, maybe! But see about re: shoddy worldbuilding. Are there other native magic types? What the actual fuck even if going on. You don't get to have Coyote say a few native words and magically it's a decent depiction of native religons.

Also, that bullshit with Shiko at the end! No, you DON'T get to pull the “surprise, this character you thought was female the entire book has A DICK!” and then not even let her answer the main characters question about which pronouns SHE wants him to use. “What pronouns do you want? Nevermind, I'll just use she.” is NOT cool.

UGHHHHHHHH. Two stars, for Shiko and your mourned potential's sake.