Oh, dang, I thought I had written a review of this one, but going through all my 2022 books to Review Amnesty, I see I have in fact, not done so. Real quick, if you’re looking for a starter horror/starter Stephen Graham Jones, this one might actually be a great book to read. And this book isn’t even all that horrific. It’s only really classified as horror because werewolves and because Stephen Graham Jones, but it’s really a coming of age story about a young boy growing up in a marginalized family. There are moments of gore and weirdness, but the overall point of the story is not scares.
The book is split into two sections, one that is a straightforward first-person POV of our nameless main character as he tells us about his childhood, and about being in a family of werewolves, constantly on the run, constantly shunned by the rest of the world. The other part of the book is a third person POV also telling us about certain instances from the boy’s childhood, but this time he is referred to as different “professions,” i.e. the firefighter, the biologist, the vampire (this one takes place on Halloween) all tongue in cheek and very funny. These sections were my favorite not just because they were funny, and the different audio narrator that narrated them was my favorite, but because they are a really great way to showcase the main character’s search for identity.
Highly recommend this one! Even if you are horror shy.