Sometimes a family is just a genderfluid paranormal investigator, a chupacabra in the shape of a human toddler, and a sentient magical Winnebago—Reggie makes it work, or at least she’s trying to until her friend
Calvin, a skeptic and podcaster, gets turn into a werewolf and there’s a sudden uptick in UFO sightings. Their weird little family is drawn into the machinations of an agency against all things supernatural, and in order to protect the ones she loves, Reggie must face her demons and her family she left behind.
This book gave me exactly what I wanted out of it, and I liked it way more than I was expecting to! Not that I was expecting to dislike it, but I was a little worried that it would end up being another cozy book without the grit and the angst that I need to get emotionally engaged. Rest assured, this book has angst, and it does a great job balancing the humor and inherent ridiculousness of the premise with the darker moments. I definitely got teary at a few points, especially towards the end. I was reading some of the last chapters in my college library and I’m glad I was wearing a hat that mostly hid my face because I was very obviously on the verge of tears.
There’s a lot to love about this. It’s got a great cast of characters, including an antagonist who has actual backstory and isn’t just evil for no reason. I love Reggie and her weird little family. I love Eldi the chupacabra and Bandit the haunted taxidermy raccoon and Doug and Dave the extraterrestrial Roombas. I love the haphazard combination of sci-fi and fantasy that somehow still makes sense, and I love the idea of a guy who has a podcast where he debunks the paranormal getting turned into a werewolf. I of course always love and appreciate queer rep, in fact I don’t think there’s a quicker way to my heart. I was just saying in my roundup last week that Alex Fierro from the Magnus Chase series is one of the only genderfluid main characters I’ve seen in a book, but now I have Reggie to add to that list.
The only critique I’ll say is that the kind of “flashback” sequence of Reggie’s backstory takes up a weirdly large portion of the book. It wasn’t unimportant and it didn’t necessarily feel dragged out, but for a flashback segment mainly meant to give us context…it’s like 30% of the actual book which is just weird to me. I don’t really know how this would be remedied, but I read so much that there’s a part of my brain that inherently understands how stories are structured and it was a little thrown off.
That aside, this book is a really great time! It kind of reminded me of Monsters & Mainframes by Barbara Truelove (family of lovable misfits, blend of sci-fi/fantasy, ridiculous yet weirdly emotionally intense) which makes sense since they were both published by Ezeekat Press. I will absolutely be on the lookout for Mira González’s next book and I’d like to read more from Ezeekat Press since they’re now 3/3 on me enjoying their books!
Thank you to Mira González and Bindery Books / Ezeekat Press for this ARC in exchange for my full, honest review!
Happy reading!
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