This review was first published on our Substack in 2025.
Let’s talk about Bored Gay Werewolf by Tony Santorella. As you might expect from the title, it’s about a bored gay werewolf and his friends. The gay werewolf’s name is Brian.
I enjoy actual horror and weird tales but I equally enjoy stories that are only technically horror. Stories like this one that feature supernatural creatures and thus land in the horror section, while mostly being comedies or dramas or some other type of tale. This particular one is mostly a coming of age story (or a new adult story?) with a werewolf twist.
Brian knew he was gay from an early age. He tried hard to be conventionally successful and fit in with everyone around him, and when he came out and everyone seemed fine he went right on trying to be conventionally successful and fit in with everyone around him. He did well in high school, worked hard in college. His plans were going well until he was cursed with lycanthropy.
After that his life kind of fell apart. With his conventional dreams seemingly dashed, Brian had no idea what to aim for instead. He dropped out of college, moved to a drab little apartment in the city, and now works a thoroughly uninspiring job as a cafe server.
His coworkers are cool, at least. The bartender, Nik, is an aging punk slowly earning her nursing degree. One of the other servers, Darby, is glittery femby butterfly and struggling artist/musician who makes Brian laugh. Nik and Darby are basically his best friends. They’re just normal humans, though, so he’s afraid to get too close. How do you even come out as a werewolf? Will they be afraid? Think he’s delusional? Would it make things just too awkward? Better to avoid the whole thing and keep to himself.
Then, for the first time, Brian meets another werewolf. An older, richer werewolf who seems to have it all figured out and is eager to share his wisdom and cool life hacks with Brian. In fact, Tyler’s thinking of starting a self help program and online community for werewolves and in return for some help with the social media, Brian can get in early and help Tyler test his ideas for werewolf self-iprovement. Hilarity and eventually violent danger ensues as Brian falls down the self help rabbit hole and falls further into Tyler’s world.
Tyler and his buddies are pretty flat characters, aging frat boys and basic bitches. They’re more the embodiment of Brian’s own muddled expectations for himself than people in their own right. He’s been confused and depressed and full of self-loathing because some big part of him thinks he should want to be like Tyler. Rich, slick, always in control. Especially when the whole werewolf thing makes him feel so out of control, being like Tyler is an alluring fantasy. Maybe Tyler’s program can put Brian back on that safe, socially acceptable path he’d been working toward before all this supernatural stuff happened.
Brian really just needs to figure himself out and grow up a bit and honestly, some of Tyler’s advice really works. Tyler’s meditation program makes Brian’s monthly transformations much calmer and easier. Tyler’s intense workout routine helps Brian focus and take some control over his daily routine. Tyler even convinces Brian to rebuild his relationship with his father, which has been distant and strained since he dropped out of college. Of course, it all comes with a hefty dose of “everything is a competition! Learn to dominate!” that isn’t so helpful. Still, it comes all wrapped up with the good stuff so . . . Brian follows along. It’s better than what he was doing before he met Tyler, isn’t it?
Ultimately, of course, what Brian learns is that he really doesn’t want or need to be some rich frat bro. He needs to work on himself, sure, but he doesn’t need to win at life or dominate other people or embrace his inner lone wolf. What he needs is to open up to his warm and caring friends from the diner, really give them a chance to be there for him. Figure out what he really wants and move toward that. And also, um, protect everyone from Tyler’s terrifying wolfy vengeance when Brian tries to go his own way. Oops.
The whole thing is sweet and fun. Brian and his friends are engaging characters that I enjoyed getting to know. Brian is relatable and Darby and Nik both seem like great friends and super cool people. (Too cool for me, probably.) This is also a very queer book without directly talking about it much. Sometimes the werewolf stuff is symbolic of the more toxic parts of the self-improvement sphere, sometimes it’s symbolic of being queer in a heteronormative world or of wanting any kind of alternative life path in a very conventional world, and sometimes it’s just funny horror stuff. It’s not a deep book but it’s got enough layers to be satisfying beyond the obvious jokes and jump scares, and I enjoyed finding good representation in such a fun and fluffy book.
Bored Gay Werewolf also has a dramatic werewolf-laden ending and a surprise that might be hinting at a sequel, so I’ll keep an eye out for new developments in Brian, Nik, and Darby’s lives. If you like fun stories that are only technically horror, you’ll probably want to keep an eye out, too.
