teen fiction. queer, new-in-town teen is attacked by werewolf-type monster and no one in small southern town of Merritt wants to believe him (or even acknowledges that he may have suffered trauma.

TW: lots of re-living of trauma from the monster's attack, as well as that of a sexual assault that occurred earlier on the same night.

this was ok for suspense, though not the funnest to read. Even if you don't find it particularly triggering, having snippets of descriptions of the trauma interspersed throughout each chapter (almost on every page, it felt like) was not the most pleasant (maybe even tedious?) and after awhile I found myself just skipping all the bolded text parts.

But otherwise the characters and plot was fine--a little complex and suspenseful enough, with plenty of bitter humor mixed in. ( )