MOONGLOW

A teenage girl is cursed with lycanthropy.

The morning after her 16th birthday, Dominy Robineau wakes up, naked, next to the mauled corpse of her best friend. She has no memory of what happened but knows she is the killer. This is the culmination of weeks of weirdness, marked by sudden-onset hirsutism (especially painful for the pretty, popular girl), uncontrollable rages and violent outbursts—all of which her friends somehow forgive. Far too late to be helpful, her father tells her of a crime from his youth and the subsequent Native American curse placed on him: that his firstborn child would become a werewolf. Dominy and her miraculously understanding friends must find a way around the curse and the witch who cast it, Luba—who is dubbed the “Psycho Squaw” by the shamelessly politically incorrect Dominy. The monstrousness of the werewolf curse is, surprisingly, the most believable aspect of the story, a break from the usual “monster with a heart of gold” trope. Some sprawling subplots involving a mysterious set of twins and Dominy’s comatose mother don’t go anywhere. Instead, they, and hints at other supernatural creatures, remain underdeveloped in a resolution-free ending evidently set up as a teaser for further books.

The glimpses of monstrous action from the werewolf’s point of view don’t make up for the trite human interactions.