Fight Club with Werewolves
Bored Gay Werewolf is about Brian, a guy whose life has been so upended by his werewolf curse that he’s dropped out of college, doing drugs and working as a waiter in a dead-end bar. He’s got friends, but he doesn’t let them in, and he’s drifting aimlessly through a dull life of empty Grindr pick-ups until the next full moon.
Brian doesn’t have great control over his transformation and in fact he's accepted that he might commit the occasional, accidental murder every full moon.
Then he meets another werewolf: Tyler Gainsborough, whose business card reads ‘Entrepreneur and Business Coach’. Tyler’s looking for other werewolves that he knows are out there, hiding, and he’s got a plan: he’s going to set up an app for them, filled with inspirational articles on how to be an alpha in your personal and professional life. He also offers to coach Brian on how to control his werewolf side better.
Initially, Brian rebuffs Tyler, but slowly falls under his charm. Brian joins a world of start-up business culture, training, protein shakes, martial arts and meditation. He writes articles for the upcoming werewolf website. At first, Brian’s encounter with Tyler’s world has positive effects - he works out regularly, shakes off his rut, and can control his werewolf transformations. Except, he also becomes a jerk to his previous friends as he embraces the new world of masculinity he’s getting into.
Then everything comes to a head when Tyler gets frustrated with his inability to find other werewolves. He proposes another plan - why find other werewolves where you can make them? And what will Brian do when he’s caught between his old friends and his increasingly unstable mentor?
While werewolf urban fantasy has its own little niche of alphas, betas and hot shirtless guys, this book is more at the gay fiction end of the spectrum - exploring more about culture, identity and masculinity. Who are your real friends? How do you reconcile being a tough man in today’s culture when you’re also gay and sensitive?
The book’s written in a heavy exposition, present-tense style that reminded me of Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club, and the satire of bro-culture also balanced by reveals amongst Brians’ friend group and a sense of a deeper fantasy world and community out there that’s beyond what Brian knows. A good read.