BORED GAY WEREWOLF BY TONY SANTORELLA
       
       2025-06-09
       
 (IMG) Cover for Bored Gay Werewolf by Tony Santorella. It's bright green with a mixture of pink and black uppercase letters, with a colour sketch of the head of a slavering wolf in the centre.
       What can I possibly say about Bored Gay Werewolf, which caught my attention
       with the garish colours of its front cover when I saw it in Waterstones and
       whose blurb suggested that it might, perhaps, be a queer fantasy romp with a
       Buffy-esque sense of humour.
       Werewolf? Sure, it's got a few of those. There's even a bit of fun, offbeat
       humour each time the protagonist reflects on their curious monthly cycle and
       tries to work out whether they attacked or even killed anybody this time
       around. But mostly it's not a story about werewolf: it's a story about a
       slacker who gets suckered into a pyramid scheme, with just a hint of
       lycanthropy around the fringes.
       Gay? I mean: the protagonist's gay, and many of their friends are queer... and
       while the representation is good, sexuality doesn't feel like it's a
       particularly significant issue to the storyline. I enjoyed the parallels that
       were drawn between Brian's coming-out as gay versus his (for most of the
       story) closeted werewolf nature - which even though I saw them coming from the
       first chapter onwards were still well-presented - but apart from that it
       almost felt like gayness wasn't a central theme to the story. A smidge of
       homophobia, some queer culture references, and a throwaway Grindr hookup with
       a closeted MSM dude do not contribute enough homosexuality to justify "gay"
       being the largest, pinkest word on a novel's cover, if you ask me.
       Bored? I was, at some points in the book, but I'm not convinced that's what
       was intended. The pacing's a little inconsistent: a long and drawn-out
       description of an exercise routines overshadows an exploration of the impact
       of werewolf super-senses, for example. And a long-foreshadowed fight scene
       finale feels like it's over in an instant (with a Van Helsing ex Machina twist
       that felt simultaneously like the brakes being slammed on and a set-up for an
       inevitable sequel).
       I sound pretty negative about it, I'm sure. But it's not actually bad. It's
       just not actually good, either. It's a passable, middle-of-the-road
       time-filler with an interesting hook, a few funny set pieces (I laughed out
       loud a couple of times, for sure), and a set of misfit characters who spend
       most of the book feeling a little... incomplete? Though it's possible that
       latter point's at-least partially deliberate, as this is without a doubt a
       "Gen-Z Grows Up" story. Maybe if I were younger and didn't yet have my shit
       together the story would appeal better.
       
       LINKS
       
 (HTM) Bored Gay Werewolf
 (HTM) An inevitable sequel