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snowwhitehatesapples's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
reflective
tense
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
4.0
Also on Snow White Hates Apples.
Cosy fantasy isn’t normally my cup of tea but the healthy dashes of good weirdness, horror, satire and humour have made this reading experience very enjoyable.
Someone You Can Build a Nest In follows Shesheshen, the resident shapeshifter monster of Underlook who falls in love with a kind human girl named Homily. However, despite Homily reciprocating Shesheshen’s feelings, their romance is not an easy one because:
a) Homily is part of the intense, complicated, toxic and extreme Wulfyre family who has made it their duty to slay wyrms like Shesheshen because her kind has somehow ‘cursed’ their family.
b) No matter how well Shesheshen mimics and learns, at the end of the day, she’s no human and a relationship built on lies is not something she can vibe with — and heavens, there are a lot of lies from all sides that need to be dealt with first.
So, what can a monster in love do but try her best anyway, am I right? Which, brings us this oddly lovable story that has humans VS monsters interwoven into everything, everywhere, all at once.
Wiswell has done a brilliant job telling this story through the perspective of a monster. It truly reads and feels alien, but as admirable as I find this (and as much as I enjoyed the other aspects of the story), I feel this has created a great emotional disconnect as well. I get that this is due to Shesheshen’s character and when she becomes more human in feeling and thinking, her narrative reflects that. However, the emotions in her narrative also stop coming to life after the climax and the story returns to this state of emotional disconnectivity. This could just be me, though, as I found the entire bit post-climax too neat. Nevertheless, I do appreciate the care Wiswell has in exploring different types of trauma, love, relationships and identity here.
If romance between a human and monster paired with a direct, unflinching narrative (remember, this is a horror fantasy too) doesn’t give you the ick, I think you’ll enjoy Someone You Can Build a Nest In too.
Cosy fantasy isn’t normally my cup of tea but the healthy dashes of good weirdness, horror, satire and humour have made this reading experience very enjoyable.
Someone You Can Build a Nest In follows Shesheshen, the resident shapeshifter monster of Underlook who falls in love with a kind human girl named Homily. However, despite Homily reciprocating Shesheshen’s feelings, their romance is not an easy one because:
a) Homily is part of the intense, complicated, toxic and extreme Wulfyre family who has made it their duty to slay wyrms like Shesheshen because her kind has somehow ‘cursed’ their family.
b) No matter how well Shesheshen mimics and learns, at the end of the day, she’s no human and a relationship built on lies is not something she can vibe with — and heavens, there are a lot of lies from all sides that need to be dealt with first.
So, what can a monster in love do but try her best anyway, am I right? Which, brings us this oddly lovable story that has humans VS monsters interwoven into everything, everywhere, all at once.
Wiswell has done a brilliant job telling this story through the perspective of a monster. It truly reads and feels alien, but as admirable as I find this (and as much as I enjoyed the other aspects of the story), I feel this has created a great emotional disconnect as well. I get that this is due to Shesheshen’s character and when she becomes more human in feeling and thinking, her narrative reflects that. However, the emotions in her narrative also stop coming to life after the climax and the story returns to this state of emotional disconnectivity. This could just be me, though, as I found the entire bit post-climax too neat. Nevertheless, I do appreciate the care Wiswell has in exploring different types of trauma, love, relationships and identity here.
If romance between a human and monster paired with a direct, unflinching narrative (remember, this is a horror fantasy too) doesn’t give you the ick, I think you’ll enjoy Someone You Can Build a Nest In too.
Thank you so much DAW and Wunderkind PR for providing me a copy of this in exchange for an honest review! Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell will be available at all good bookstores.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Blood, Animal cruelty, Gore, Murder, Bullying, Violence, Toxic relationship, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Gaslighting, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Death, and Child death
Minor: Abandonment, Panic attacks/disorders, Misogyny, Kidnapping, and Alcohol
sarrie's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
TL;DR: Wow the abuse was rampant - while this looks cute and quirky I would not recommend it for anyone who doesn’t enjoy borderline trauma porn.
Someone You Can Build a Nest In has such a fun idea behind it. Shesheshen is a monster that awakes from her hibernation to monster hunters in her lair. She handles them as best she can but she’s awake and cold and most get food. Ultimately she’s having a truly bad day that day and ends up hurtling off a cliff. From there a woman who mistakes her for a human patches her up. She (instantly) falls in love and drama follows.
This started out as a very cute, quirky type of novel but then quickly showed it’s colors as more of a emotional horror show. The biggest conflict in this is that Homily’s family is wildly abusive, physically and emotionally and are hunting Shesheshen while abusing Homily. Shesheshen is caught between helping Homily (eating her family) and avoiding revealing herself to Homily while doing so. If you have any problems reading emotional abuse to wild levels, avoid this. It goes well and truly over the top in some situations and Homily takes it for most of the novel quietly and reacts as you’d expect. It was very rough to read.
Besides that horror show, I also have questions. The more I sit and think on the story the more I’m confused on how things work. For example, Shesheshen is essentially a slime. She constructs forms out of objects around her (a chain for a spine, chair legs for bones). How did Homily not notice this when she sewed up Shesheshen’s wounds at the bottom of that cliff? Also, where did Shesheshen learn to not be… well monstrous in personality. Where did she come up with the idea of her parents ‘love story’?
Overall this was a fast, and… sometimes fun read. It doesn’t stand up to any kind of close examination, which is a shame. But it’s interesting enough.
3 out of 5 bloody ‘hearts’
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Grief, Violence, Blood, Child death, Emotional abuse, and Physical abuse
Moderate: Abandonment
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