Reviews with content warning for Injury/Injury detail - Celestial Monsters

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Celestial Monsters by Aiden Thomas

31 reviews

nikki_flowers's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Look, I’m a simple lad, give me childhood friends to enemies to lovers (and a queer/trans normative world!!!!!!) and I’ll eat it up EVERY time

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midnightmoon_dreamer's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Loved this book, just like the first one. I just think some of the scenes with a lot of characters could have been better. Otherwise, absolutely loved all the characters and their relationships and the worldbuilding.

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notsobinaryart's review against another edition

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adventurous funny hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

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bonriki's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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evarinya's review against another edition

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adventurous funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I absolutely love the queer-normative world Aiden Thomas managed to create with this duology!
Admittedly, I found The Sunbearer Trials a bit better (the plot in this book felt a bit less... engaging, somehow, despite the urgency of the premise. Also I didn't really like the ending, honestly) but all in all this book still was really good!
Teo, Niya and Aurelio are a funny trio for sure! A pity that it's over already - although I 100% appreciate that this wasn't a trilogy. Trilogies can be quite annoying and the story of Teo was better told in this way.

(spoiler for the ending)

I'll miss Suerte, though... his death really was a gut punch. :(

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barnesbookshelf's review against another edition

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adventurous funny fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

This book is a little predictable in the best ways. I didn't predict the slight twist at the end! I truly love this series. I'm glad we got to see more of Aurelio and Teo's development, and Niya is hilarious as always. This book has multiple instances of one of my favorite queer jokes around pronouns, and it delighted me every time. This was another book I couldn't put down. I think I'll be returning to this series quite a few times in the future to visit Teo, Aurelio, Xio, and Niya.

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corsetedfeminist's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I realized yesterday that my physical preorder of this book wouldn’t make it until next week, so I preordered the Kindle version and read it in one sitting this morning. I plead the fifth, but I promise I didn’t neglect anything important.🙃
I really enjoyed the dual POVs, and I say that as someone who is picky about such things.
Teo continues to be a delight, and I loved how growth in this book and his growing confidence in himself and his abilities. His friendship with Niya continues to be one of my favorite friendships in a series, and his romance with Aurelio is somehow so soft and gentle even in the chaos of the overarching plot.
Also. The birds. Teo’s gift of speaking to bird is so much more important in this book and every time it made me so happy. We also get the reappearance of Peri and Pico.
Speaking of Niya, she was somehow even more endearing in this book. I love the twist of having a female character who could not be more of a Himbo if she tried, obsession with her own biceps and wreckless loyalty included.
Then we have Xio. Xio, my poor baby. I liked them in the first book, but I absolutely love them in this book. Their growth is so raw and gentle in this book, and, without spoiling, I love how they weren’t allowed to escape the consequences of their actions but everyone else came to understand the brokenness and isolation that motivated those actions. My other favorite thing was them changing pronouns in the middle of the book, which twice resulted in them telling the other semidioses of the change mid-argument and whoever they were talking to immediately respecting that while continuing to yell at them. Perfection.
The plot just grabs you by the throat and carries you along, partly a fun fantasy journey rather like Lord of the Rings, but four times as unhinged, partly a journey of self discovery, and partly a discussion of the reality of authority, divinity, and the importance of community support.
I think that one of Aiden Thomas’ strengths as an author is making all of his characters, vivid and endearing, no matter how small their role, and I loved each semidios even more in this book, especially Marino and Dezi.

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betweentheshelves's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Thanks to Feiwel and Friends and NetGalley for an advanced copy of Celestial Monsters by Aiden Thomas to review! Aiden Thomas is always an auto-read for me, and I was excited to jump back into the Sunbearer world. Especially with the cliffhanger that Thomas left us with in the first book! In this one, we got to see more of the world and more of the mythology that Thomas brought to life, which I really enjoyed!

In true Aiden Thomas fashion, the characters shine in this book. They have such a knack for writing characters that you will care about right from the beginning. In this one, we get to see more from Xio, which in turn, fleshes out the world that Thomas has already created. There are beautiful friendships as well as an adorable romance, and I always love to see that balance.

Teo and his friends also learn a lot about their world on the quest, realizing that maybe their world did need changing after all. If you like journey-type fantasies, this is definitely the fantasy for you! After this duology, I can’t wait to see what fantasies Thomas comes up with next.
----

Review to come!

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readingdiversely's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I received a free e-arc of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

This was the perfect adventurous, vivid second half to this duology, following on from The Sunbearer Trials.

It's definitely a book you need to read the other first, partly just to get confident with all the names of the dioses and semidioses. Stepping into Celestial Monsters, it picked up from the moment the last book finished and never stopped. Weaving together two perspectives, you get to see new character development as well as enjoying light moments with old favourites.

Expanding the world gave space to tackle some ethical and philosophy questions I really appreciated and I loved joining the journey.

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ramunepocky's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

“But we could be together in the next world. I’d wait for you.” “We could be together now.”

This review is not spoiler free

It is no secret that this was absolutely my most anticipated release of the year and I’ve been excitedly and impatiently dying to read it every single day since I finished The Sunbearer Trials (and proceeded to read it a bunch more times because I loved it so much) and let me tell you, it did NOT disappoint. It picks up pretty immediately after The Sunbearer Trials ends, and I love that it is told it dual POV so that we get to see both Teo and his, Niya’s and Aurelio’s journey to find the Sol Stone and save their friends, and from Xio’s POV so we can see them grappling with their guilt over betraying the only two friends they’ve ever had, and thinking they’re right for what they did, and how the other competitors are coping in their captivity. It also gave us a nice insight into what the Obsidians are like, even with someone they consider “their own.” It was interesting to see Xio go from proud of the way that they’d catered each prison to the captors specific weaknesses to seeing them feel guilt and regret over it. I also enjoyed seeing Vengaza teach Xio how to use their magic and the way that it manifested and how they could use it.

I really love Teo so much, he makes me laugh even in life threatening situations with his dumb comments and his inability to not be sarcastic. Once a trouble maker, always a trouble maker. He’s so brave and so full of heart, he cares so much about his friends and his mum and the people around him. I did find him frustrating at times though, mostly where Aurelio was concerned, when he didn’t understand why Aurelio was being so “hot and cold” and why he was being withdrawn, like dayum bro, his twin sister, who he is literally never separated from, has been captured and he’s worried about her. USE YOUR BRAIN TEO. I know you’re too busy thirsting after Aurelio but like be for real for two seconds please. There were some really sweet bonding moments between those two and Niya in this book, and so many moments that made me want to sob. I also love that even though Teo was betrayed and angry, he still worried about Xio and didn’t want them to suffer for their actions, and he was the first to want to trust them again when Xio came to help them. I also really love that Huemac packed him his comfort stuffed animal and that he slept with it every night they camped. Bless his little heart.

My favourite character, surprise, surprise, I’m sure, is 100000% Aurelio. He is actually my favourite character Aiden has written, which speaks volumes because I love Julian Diaz with everything I have to give, but I immediately was attached to Aurelio the second we met him in The Sunbearer Trials and the more I read about him, the more I loved him. That boy, bless him, is just so autistic coded. His social skills and the way he can’t tell when/if people are joking, the way he clearly has no regulation over his expressions/emotions and tone, the way he gets clearly overstimulated, the way he stims tapping his gold bands, cooking obviously being his special interest. Speaking of, I LOVE the way that he has cooking videos saved onto his phone and that he offered to show them to Teo when he was having trouble sleeping when they’d made camp. My heart broke so many times for Aurelio in this book, esp whenever they were fighting a celestial and he’d leave himself open to attack because he was so accustomed to having Auristela covering his weak points that he expected her to be there even though he logically knew she was not. And the way he was clearly struggling with her not being there – it hurt me so much. Twins always destroy me. I absolutely sobbed when the two of them reunited. I also think the development of his and Teo’s relationship was really sweet and seeing them so happy in the epilogue made my heart so SO happy!! And the way that Aurelio no longer had to be the revered hero Son of Lumbre, he could just be Aurelio and go to culinary school and be happy and himself. HE DESERVED THAT SO MUCH. Especially after all the garbage his mother put him through, and it was so sad to see him still struggle with that during this book. ALSO, the way that he’d pocketed that obsidian dagger with the intention to sacrifice himself absolutely destroyed me. He was always trying to look out for and protect everyone else, and no one, besides Auristela, had ever thought to look out for him until Teo does. It hurt me so much, and I’m so thankful that Teo talked him out of it and made him promise, and that he never got the chance to attempt to sacrifice himself because I would NOT have stood for it. I also really loved the way his friendship with Niya developed during this book, as she’d decided that since he and Teo clearly liked each other, he was now her second best friend.

There are so many other characters in this book I love so so so so much! NIYA, OCELO, XIO, AURISTELA, ATZI, DEZI, MARINO, FANTASMA, XOCHI, QUETZAL, SUERTE !!! JUST ALL OF THEM !!! There’s such a vast and loveable cast and I just wanted every single one of them to thrive and be happy. That is the case for most of them and they almost all get their happy ending, but Suerte sacrificing himself, and his closing words to Xio, absolutely broke me into a million pieces, and then the Dios/Diosas deciding to retreat and leave the world to the mortals and their kids too just had me sobbing, the way Teo desperately tried to negotiate so he’d still be able to see his mum, bless him.

I really loved the world building in this book !!! It was amazing to see glimpses of the other cities and the way that the Celestials had destroyed them. I loved that seeing Suerte’s city and the way that all the mortals banded together to handle destruction and disasters all the time meant that the celestials didn’t even bother them. And I love that venturing through there gave Teo some perspective and something to think about, the same as when they came across that village of mortals living in the trees that had no Dios and had no heroes, and that they’d never tried to kill the critters they face and had just found other ways of dealing with them. I also loved seeing the way that the Obsidians operated and to learn more about what had happened to the Obsidians mortal cities that had been destroyed during the war.

All in all, this was just a beautiful incredible book and I cannot believe I now live in a world where I’ve read it. I wake up every day like WOW can’t believe I’ve actually read Celestial Monsters!! I am still very eagerly anticipating my physical copies coming and the audiobook coming out so I can reread it many times more and absolutely tab it.

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