Jackalopes and Woofen-Poofs

Jackalopes and Woofen-Poofs (2017) Angel Martinez

Alex and the rest of the 77th are dealing with the fall out from the last book, when Kash destroyed the magical working that was creating the attack dust bunnies.

Jason’s work is fine, but his family remains a big problem.

Paul took five uncomfortable seconds to pounce. “You have to stop all this, you know. You’re really making Mom and Dad miserable.”

“Stop all what?” Jason pushed walnuts around his plate, his hackles already rising. He knew exactly what Paul meant, but why make it easy?

“This being gay thing. Bad enough that you’d remind them of it sometimes. Now you have to shove it in their faces with a… a boyfriend? A white boyfriend. Christ, Jason. I just can’t.”

Jason shrugged. “No one’s ever asked you to hide who you are.”

“Of course not. I’m not—” Paul broke off with a wave of his hand. He didn’t need to say abnormal to make his point. “You need to finally grow up. Get a real job. Find a nice girl to start a family with.”

But it’s okay, because there’s a kitten to make things better.

Audacity started on her bacon as soon as Mom set the plate in front of her. She was meticulously polite, only putting one paw on the table and taking a piece at a time. Jason had frowned at encouraging a cat to eat at the table but Mom had said her granddaughter could have something with the grownups if she behaved. So Audacity did.

I’ll be honest, I typically despise it when people refer to their pets as their children, but here, it actually works for me. Regardless of his shape, Alex still thinks of himself as a wolf, so Audacity would become part of his pack–his family–so his mother accepting Audacity as the only grandchild she’s likely to have is endearing and sweet, since it’s a reflection of how she accepts Alex.

Alex and Jason do have issues to work out. Jason’s family doesn’t accept Alex, and Alex struggles with social interactions and understanding what people say (and don’t say). But they are also both willing to work at their relationship, which I very much like.

Jason had discovered after trial and error that Alex refused to leave a kitchen without cleaning up first. Helping was easier on both of them than trying to convince him to leave it until later.

Yes, he’d go to the wedding because Kyle and Kash were good people and a great couple and he was trying to get over his judgmental self about weddings as heteronormative distractions from real issues. They wanted the outward commitment and legal terms of marriage and they had that right.

And yeah, we get Kyle and Kash’s wedding, which is just as lovely as you’d expect.

While this wasn’t going to be a traditional wedding for either side of the family, Jason suspected they were trying to fuse all the important parts.

No, truly, adorable.

Over at Krisk’s table, the coats didn’t eat, though, they seemed to be acting out a story using silverware, while Krisk cut up leafy greens and placed them on a bread plate for Tim. There may have been some guests looking askance at their table, but none of the non-humans paid attention. Besides, how cute was a fuzzy purple ovoid who managed to keep his top hat on while he devoured his tiny salad?

As with the previous story, I very much enjoy how alien Alex and Kirsk are. I think she does an excellent job creating characters who are humanoid, but truly not human.

I very much like this book as much as the previous.

Publisher: Pride Publishing
Rating: 8.5/10

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