FROM THE BEST SELLING AUTHOR OF THE SUPERVILLAINY SAGAJane Doe is a weredeer, the least-threatening shapechanger species in the world. Blessed with the ability to turn furry at will and psychically read objects, Jane has done her best to live a normal life working as a waitress at the Deerlightful Diner. She has big dreams of escaping life in the supernatural-filled town of Bright Falls, … Falls, Michigan, and her eighteenth birthday promises the beginning of her teenage dreams coming true.
Unfortunately, her birthday is ruined by the sudden murder of her best friend’s sister in an apparent occult killing. Oh, and her brother is the primary suspect. Allying with an eccentric FBI agent, the local crime lord, and a snarky werecrow, Jane has her work cut out for her in turning her big day around.
Thankfully, she’s game.
Set in the same world as Straight Outta Fangton.
“I can’t recommend it highly enough.” – The Bookwyrm Speaks
“Urban Fantasy at its finest” – The Booknest.EU
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I’ve enjoyed Phipps supervillain series so was happy to give this novel a try, hoping he would bring his quirky way of looking at the world of comic books to the realm of lycanthropy. Boy did he ever. I Was a Teenaged Weredeer is a fast-moving romp that mixes a very serious, thoroughly engaging mystery with a lot of snarky teenaged attitude and about five million pop references that really solidified the setting and the story. I never wanted to put it down.
The setting is also well thought out with different sorts of were-creatures living together in a world that includes vampires, ghosts, old gods, and lots of monsters. (I suppose I should consider were-creatures monsters too, but since the heroine is one, they don’t come off feeling that way.) This is a world where something new is being discovered at every turn and where the crime is deeply intertwined with a highly credible setting. Can’t wait to read the next book in the series.
I received this book from Free Audio Book Codes.com in exchange for an honest review.
I am going to admit something very geeky about myself. I often have these little scenarios play through my head where I wonder what would happen if you pitted one mythical or fictional creature against another. How does a pack of werewolves fare in the zombie apocalypse? Could Conan beat Darth Vader in a sword fight? How would Roland fare against either of them? Yeah, I have precious little free time, and this is what I do with it, folks.
So while it’s not my normal thing by a long shot, “I Was a Teenage Weredeer” by Charles Phipps and Michael Suttkus is a mythical and pop-culture mashup that hit my sense of the strange and humorous right where I needed it. After grueling days of code-slinging and bug fixing, I was really ready for something lighter for a change, and this one fit the bill.
How to describe it? In a mixing bowl, combine equal parts “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, “True Blood”, and “Twin Peaks”. Mix thoroughly, and garnish liberally with puns, and you’ll have something a lot like “I Was a Teenage Weredeer.”
Jane Doe (Yes, it starts right in on the puns) has just turned 18. Also, she is a weredeer, but that’s not what’s important. What’s important is that she identifies as a Baratheon, and her werewolf best friend Emma is team Stark. Oh, and her brother, who is not a weredeer or were-anything-else, has just been collared for the murder of Emma’s sister.
Thus begins a pun and popculture filled trip into a world where disliking vampires and werewolves is “kinda racist”, and solving mysteries might require a literal trip to Hell and back. Armed with a big mouth and little control over what comes out of it, and the ability to read impressions from objects, Jane is ready for action to prove her brother innocent.
He is innocent, right? As she uncovers the seamy side of what she assumed to be an idyllic refuge for werefolk, she begins to have her doubts, and not just about her brother.
A lot of what makes “Weredeer” really cute are the cameos and tips of the hat to other media, so I’ll not go into that deeply, but lets just say you could make an unwinnable drinking game out of this book.
One caveat. Despite what you might think, this is not really a Young Adult book. It seems like it is, but as I mentioned, there is a fairly seamy side to this tale, so if one is expecting kid-friendly, it ain’t. (Yes, it’s ok to say “ain’t” when you’re making a point. Tell them I said so.)
5 of 5. I’ll have the cherry pie, please.
This book threw me for a loop, in that I found it in a grimdark forum, which set my expectations in one direction, but the title suggested some sort of parody (“I Was a Teenage Werewolf”). In fact, it’s a YA novel that shows what the Twilight series might have been if only it had been better written and more imaginative. Indeed, I can easily see this as a television series and hope someone in the industry takes a good look at it in that capacity. It’s certainly more interesting than the hackneyed “Grimm.”
As for the story, without giving away too many spoilers, it’s about a town full of shapeshifters and other monsters that must solve a murder mystery and resolve their various power struggles/personality conflicts. Part of the fun is derived from meeting all of these monsters and seeing how they interact, which trumps which, etc. But the story is also chock full of sly winks and easter eggs that will cause an occasional LOL.
I teach what I believe is the book’s target audience for a living, and I can’t wait to see how they respond to it.
Got deer? Jane Doe does. WEREDEER, at least. ‘Cause that’s what she is—a Weredeer: one who is a bout to get in a world of trouble. That’s because her best friend’s sister is murdered right off the bat, and worst of all, her brother is the primary suspect in the supposed ‘occult’ killing. What Jane will soon discover, however, is that this isn’t a typical murder—not by a longshot—and that Bright Falls, the town she has lived and grown up in her whole life, will be anything but Bright.
I’ll admit that I was initially drawn to I Was a Teenage Weredeer by its gorgeous cover, but I was initially concerned by the tone. Weredeer is, in a word, very lighthearted—at least, most of the time. The protagonist is somewhat bubbly, very funny, a self-described ‘rude person’ at times, and has a tendency to make deer puns often (though she claims it’s a part of her DNA.) However, as I was swept along within Jane’s adventure, I soon found that the lightheartedness was a smokescreen for a much darker tale, one that kept me reading consistently during one of the worst book slumps I’ve ever had.
I am extremely happy to state that Weredeer is one of my favorite young-adult books I’ve read in a long time. It’s dark, funny, dramatic (both in the good and bad sense,) and holds your attention the entire way through. It is, in a word, deerlightful. And yes, I just used a deer pun to describe it.
What an odd, and yet oddly entertaining, read I Was a Teenage Weredeer proved to be. Not that I am entirely surprised. I’ve been reading C.T. Phipps for about 4 1/2 years now, following him from the urban fantasy of The Red Room through the superhero humor of The Supervillainy Saga, the post-apocalyptic Lovecraftian horror of Cthulhu Armageddon, the epic fantasy of Wraith Knight, and so much more, and he has never once failed to entertain. He has an imagination to match his wit, and while he plays to the familiar tropes, he does so in ways that are always surprising.
This is a book that plays very much in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer realm of storytelling, as told by way of an Agent Cooper/Agent Pendergast sort of hybrid. It’s a weird, eccentric, quirky tale that often manages to be funny and horrifying at the same time – and completely pulls it off. Seriously, there are scenes here that will give you emotional whiplash, especially when dealing the Jane and Emily’s respective families and their dark, violent, sometimes abusive histories. The whole subplot about dealing vampire blood as the latest illicit drug was particularly creepy and inventive.
There were at least three points in the opening chapters where I figured I had my finger on what kind of story this was going to be, only to have some thematic twist thrown at me a few pages later. At its heart, I Was a Teenage Weredeer is a mystery but it’s one with so many facets, suspects, and storytelling tangents that it really becomes something of a soap opera where you are more inclined to settle in and enjoy the drama than you are to obsess over solving the murders.
Personally, what tickled my fancy right from the get-go is the fact that Phipps & Suttkus drape this in puns as much as they do blood – and that’s not just narrative license. The entire shifter community is rather pun-obsessed, leading to things like Jane Doe of the Deerlightful Diner, who, despite her distaste for puns, ends up wearing a Got Deer t-shirt with a horny buck, all while fending off threats of “bleating some answers” out of people, some of whom get “more bang for their buck“, and others who are not “fawn” of such puns. It’s self-aware punning, which somehow makes it even more amusing.
In a world where vampires and shifters are recognized and legally accepted, you might think there wouldn’t be a lot of tension to explore, but racism abounds both within and outside the community. It’s nothing heavy-handed, but it is prevalent, and it does have a bearing on so much of the story. Some of that is humorous (like doing a find/replace on the Narnia books to make Aslan into a stag), some of it is kinda of faery tale meta (such as the racist jackasses who killed the Red Wolf’s family), but even more of it is Jane calling out casual racism and institutionalized persecution, especially when she’s at fault.
As for the characters, Jane Doe is a fantastic heroine, a strong young woman full of wit and empathy. Her narration is really what moves the story along, and her power to pick up on visions or psychic impressions from others is what reveals so much of the backstory. Emma, her best friend, was a little bit all over the map, and I had trouble deciding whether I liked her or not, but she has her moment. Lucien Lyons, the beautiful tattooed crime lord, is an interesting character who plays against the usual tropes, and his connection to Special Agent Alexander Timmons (my favorite character next to Jane) makes them both that much more interesting.
If I were to have one complaint about I Was a Teenage Weredeer, it would be that the pacing and balance felt a bit off in the middle of the story, but that’s the critic in me talking and not the fanboy. I feel kind of guilty about it, but even as I knew the story had stalled, I was enjoying the characters and the humor so much that I was willing to give it a pass – especially since the climax, with all the spiritualism and revelations about loved ones was so unexpected and so well done that it really caps a strong story.
Normal is overrated…
I Was a Teenage Weredeer (Bright Falls Mysteries Series, Book 1) by C. T. Phipps & Michael Suttkus and narrated by Arielle DeLisle is a fun, well-written book! I recommend if you enjoy books with shifter and mystery elements or books that contain a hint of snark and darkness.
What’s it about? Jane Doe, an eighteen year old weredeer, is working at her family’s diner when her best friend’s sister is murdered. Her brother is arrested for the crime, but Jane knows he didn’t do it. Enter detective Jane (or is it deertective?) who uses her shaman skills to solve the murder. While she’s investigating, she meets some rather colorful characters. There is plenty of twists and turns along the way. In this world, supes are known to the public and discriminated against. The often humorous pop-culture references and puns add to the uniqueness of the story.
The narrator, Arielle DeLisle, did an excellent job. Voices were distinct and easy to listen to. Would listen to another book by her no problem.
Overall I’d recommend and I’m quite fawn’d of this series- it’s deerific! Ok, I’m done…listen to the book, it’s a winner.
“I was given this book at my request and have voluntarily left this review.”
I Was a Teenage Weredeer (Bright Falls Mysteries, #1)
by C.T. Phipps and Michael Suttkus
I was given this book to read and the review is voluntary, but boy would I be a real jerk not to tell everyone I could about this fun book! This book had me smiling or smirking or laughing or groaning frequently. Jane Doe, are gal of the story, yes… Jane DOE, is a shifter in the Deer family. All shifters in the area have a gift, hers is ….well you have to read the story…this isn’t a book report!
This book is sooo clever and fun, so full of puns too that apparently deer don’t like, who knew?
There were moments of suspense, battling evil but not like I have ever read before. Nope, not like I have ever read before. This book is certainly a hoot. There is murder and mayhem. There is craziness and fun, all based around an ancient legend and spell. Mystery, twists, turns, adventure, magic, creatures, shifters, and more. This book is a fun book to read and I enjoyed it tremendously!!! I can’t wait for book 2!