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azrah786's review against another edition
4.25
**I was provided with an ARC through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review**
CW: violence, blood, torture, death, death of parent, confinement, emotional abuse, racism, grief
CW: violence, blood, torture, death, death of parent, confinement, emotional abuse, racism, grief
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Never A Hero is just as exciting and full of time travel shenanigans as Only A Monster and I had so much fun reading it.
Considering the circumstances from the end of book 1 I was super excited to see the characters in a new light and I was not disappointed. All the angst and tension that comes with one character remembering everything whilst everyone else is in the dark was written so so well. Yes there was less Aaron in this book thus less banter between him and Joan but I just loved seeing how fate brought all the characters together again.
Joan was a bit repetitive in her inner monologue and musings and of course having to bring everyone up to speed in order for them to face the wider threat that is still lurking and this did make me feel like I probably could have skipped the book 1 reread beforehand. However, this also allowed us to rediscover and learn more about the Monster world. From more details on the history and lore, to understanding more about the Monster court and seeing more of the Monster families with their distinct powers coming into play in the narrative the worldbuilding was enriched in the best way!
The time travel elements were once again really interesting and regardless of the plot feeling a bit messy (as time travel stories quite often are) and slowing down towards the middle there were some great curveballs thrown into the story keeping me just as hooked as I was with the first book.
The ending was particularly engrossing and has laid out the foundations for what will no doubt be an thrilling finale! I can’t wait for book 3!
Final Rating – 4.25/5 Stars
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence, Blood, Death, Torture, Racism, Murder, Confinement, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, and Grief
booksthatburn's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
tense
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
5.0
Joan's actions the end of ONLY A MONSTER created a version of the timeline where those she came to love and trust don’t remember what they went through together, and several don’t even know who she is. The actions of monsters and heroes need context in order to be intelligible, but ways timeline was changed have removed that context. Joan and Nick meet early on, drawn to each other yet again, despite Joan's efforts to stay away from this person who is achingly close to someone she wants, but doesn’t remember what the other Nick did to her family or what they went through together. Normally, I dislike stories where someone is arbitrarily not giving someone information that they need to know and which would change the context and emotional valence of the situation. But, in this case, there isn’t really a good time to tell someone that they were tortured and rewritten over and over until they were fine murdering anyone with a particular characteristic. That is something so detached from current-Nick that by the time he even has the context to understand what that would mean he knows too much for Joan to feel safe telling him about it. Her trepidation is completely reasonable, and it’s true to her as a character and to her understanding of Nick even in this changed version. Similarly, Aaron has a very good reason to hate Joan on sight, even if that anger is misplaced once its origins are understood.
Something I appreciate is that Joan cares intensely for both Nick and Aaron without any attempts to frame it as a choice between two guys. So much is in flux, and their stories are so complicated that I could be happy with an end stage for the trilogy, where she’s together with either, neither, or both of them in some fashion. She cares about their well-being, but not specifically in relation to her. This is very obvious early on with Nick, where she’s been trying to stay away from him so he could have a normal human life, not a hero. For Aaron, she’s trying to understand his history, and why exactly he’s so hated. She seen good and bad sides of him in the previous timeline, but she finds him understandable and relatable in ways that are difficult to articulate to the others. Her efforts to convince Ruth of Aaron’s potential goodness are repeatedly stymied by Ruth’s loyalty as a Hunt, and by her insular tendencies, disliking the very idea of trusting members of other families.
I like Jamie and Tom as a couple. There’s a lot of care and attentiveness between them that comes through even though the narrative isn’t told from either of their perspectives. Jamie has the Liu power of remembering, which in his case means he remembers how he was tortured in the previous timeline. Tom doesn’t remember his own efforts get Jamie back, but he has lived with Jamie’s nightmares as they intensifying in step with what previous iterations suffered.
One of the nice things about a great book where only a handful of characters remember what happened in the previous one is that it’s very easy on me as a reader who read the first book a year ago. I vaguely remembered what happened in ONLY A MONSTER as I began NEVER A HERO, remembering the ending, who most of the characters were, and what was driving Joan. The timeline reset creates this interesting zone where someone who wanted to align more with Nick’s perspective could try starting with NEVER A HERO, but they wouldn't understand what Joann is talking about. This does mean that this is one of the few trilogies I’ve read where someone could have a good and interesting experience starting with book two, but it’ll be a fundamentally different kind of story experience.
The main mysteries left from ONLY A MONSTER are the identity of the villain who turned Nick into the hero, as well as the shape of her current plan. NEVER A HERO does a great job of answering both, with the characters piecing together their best understanding of what’s happening, and then eventually getting clarification during the villain speech. This is a new storyline from the previous book because the timeline change means their tactics and goals must be different. I’m not sure if anything is technically both introduced and resolved in this book, as the wobbly and overlapping nature of the narrative in the timeline means that things are answered which were questions in the first, and questions are raised here that have yet to be resolved. Joan’s narration is consistent with the first book, the biggest change is that unlike the first time, she already knows how monster powers work.
I loved everything about this! I became very emotionally invested to the point that it was stressful to read at times because I didn’t know how things would resolve. The ending works very well for the second book of three, and I want to know what happens next.
Something I appreciate is that Joan cares intensely for both Nick and Aaron without any attempts to frame it as a choice between two guys. So much is in flux, and their stories are so complicated that I could be happy with an end stage for the trilogy, where she’s together with either, neither, or both of them in some fashion. She cares about their well-being, but not specifically in relation to her. This is very obvious early on with Nick, where she’s been trying to stay away from him so he could have a normal human life, not a hero. For Aaron, she’s trying to understand his history, and why exactly he’s so hated. She seen good and bad sides of him in the previous timeline, but she finds him understandable and relatable in ways that are difficult to articulate to the others. Her efforts to convince Ruth of Aaron’s potential goodness are repeatedly stymied by Ruth’s loyalty as a Hunt, and by her insular tendencies, disliking the very idea of trusting members of other families.
I like Jamie and Tom as a couple. There’s a lot of care and attentiveness between them that comes through even though the narrative isn’t told from either of their perspectives. Jamie has the Liu power of remembering, which in his case means he remembers how he was tortured in the previous timeline. Tom doesn’t remember his own efforts get Jamie back, but he has lived with Jamie’s nightmares as they intensifying in step with what previous iterations suffered.
One of the nice things about a great book where only a handful of characters remember what happened in the previous one is that it’s very easy on me as a reader who read the first book a year ago. I vaguely remembered what happened in ONLY A MONSTER as I began NEVER A HERO, remembering the ending, who most of the characters were, and what was driving Joan. The timeline reset creates this interesting zone where someone who wanted to align more with Nick’s perspective could try starting with NEVER A HERO, but they wouldn't understand what Joann is talking about. This does mean that this is one of the few trilogies I’ve read where someone could have a good and interesting experience starting with book two, but it’ll be a fundamentally different kind of story experience.
The main mysteries left from ONLY A MONSTER are the identity of the villain who turned Nick into the hero, as well as the shape of her current plan. NEVER A HERO does a great job of answering both, with the characters piecing together their best understanding of what’s happening, and then eventually getting clarification during the villain speech. This is a new storyline from the previous book because the timeline change means their tactics and goals must be different. I’m not sure if anything is technically both introduced and resolved in this book, as the wobbly and overlapping nature of the narrative in the timeline means that things are answered which were questions in the first, and questions are raised here that have yet to be resolved. Joan’s narration is consistent with the first book, the biggest change is that unlike the first time, she already knows how monster powers work.
I loved everything about this! I became very emotionally invested to the point that it was stressful to read at times because I didn’t know how things would resolve. The ending works very well for the second book of three, and I want to know what happens next.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement and Kidnapping
Moderate: Grief, Xenophobia, Blood, Murder, Death, Violence, and Torture
Minor: Death of parent and Child death
kassidyreads's review against another edition
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence and Death
Moderate: Death of parent and Emotional abuse
Minor: Torture, Confinement, and Racism
amyslittlebooknook's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
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? It's complicated
4.25
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Murder, and Kidnapping
Minor: Violence and Death of parent
justgeekingby's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
In Never a Hero, Joan is living in a timeline that she created by unmaking the hero, Nick, the boy that she fell in love with. The boy who murdered her family. At the end of Only a Monster we were left wondering what would happen to Nick, and Len doesn’t leave us hanging. He appears on the first page of Never a Hero, having popped back into Joan’s life as a student at her school. His entire history has been remade, his family now alive. What hasn’t changed is Joan’s feelings for him, and once again Nick is drawn to Joan, completely unaware of their history.
When someone attacks Joan at her job at a bakery they end up stuck together on the run. As they try to work out what is going on, and who’s after Joan, the chance that Nick might find out everything is terrifyingly high. As Joan struggles to keep her secrets, and stay safe, she gets some help from some familiar faces. But one familiar face isn’t amongst them. Aaron warned her that if they ever met again they would be enemies, and he was right; he’s one of the people hunting her down.
While I enjoyed Never a Hero, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of déjà vu and not in a positive way because the problem is we’ve been through all this before, dear reader. It’s a slightly different plot, but essentially book two is a rehash of book one. That’s not to say there’s no interesting scenes, and there’s some great dialogue in there. However, as a Doctor Who fan I’ve been spoiled with some amazing time travel plots and quite frankly this just doesn’t cut it for me.
I was also intensely aware that this book was written by a non-British author, which was surprising as I loved the attention to details in the first book. The first thing I noticed was the way that Len referred to Nick as captain of the football team, a very American attitude as captains of our sports teams do not have nearly as much celebrity status in UK school hierarchies. Then, when they were in a historical period, it takes Joan a moment to realise that people are staring at her and believes it is because she is mixed race. It felt a little odd that she was so surprised to find racism in a historical period when I’m aware of how racist modern London is, especially post-pandemic. I feel that sometimes people look at the UK and don’t realise that it can be as racist as other countries just because it’s not talked about as much.
One of the aspects I enjoy about the Monsters series so far is the powers that Len has created for her universe. They are diverse and interesting, however, in Never a Hero she introduces a new power of one of the families. I’m going to pop this under a spoiler tag before I go any further.
The Liu family have the power to remember anything perfectly and in Never a Hero we gain some more information about how this works exactly. They gather information from any available source, such as phone records, CCTV, social media, drone photos and databases, and they only need to see something once to remember every detail perfectly. It is then added to the memory of the entire Liu family.
It makes sense then that some of them have the ability to remember previous timelines as those memories would be stored in their collective memories. In Never a Hero Len introduces an additional power, the ability to remember things that haven’t happened yet. Yes, that is as it sounds; they can see the future timeline. While this makes for an interesting plot, I’m not quite sure how it’s justified in a world-building sense as we’ve suddenly jumped from perfect memory to clairvoyance which is a completely different thing.
I did find the big reveal of the big bad to be as tension filled and thrilling as it should be. I did see some things coming, and then well and truly had the wool pulled over my eyes! It was that ending that saved this book for me, and makes me hopeful for the third (and final?) book. While Never a Hero was rocky in places I have high hopes for the third book out next year!
When someone attacks Joan at her job at a bakery they end up stuck together on the run. As they try to work out what is going on, and who’s after Joan, the chance that Nick might find out everything is terrifyingly high. As Joan struggles to keep her secrets, and stay safe, she gets some help from some familiar faces. But one familiar face isn’t amongst them. Aaron warned her that if they ever met again they would be enemies, and he was right; he’s one of the people hunting her down.
While I enjoyed Never a Hero, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of déjà vu and not in a positive way because the problem is we’ve been through all this before, dear reader. It’s a slightly different plot, but essentially book two is a rehash of book one. That’s not to say there’s no interesting scenes, and there’s some great dialogue in there. However, as a Doctor Who fan I’ve been spoiled with some amazing time travel plots and quite frankly this just doesn’t cut it for me.
I was also intensely aware that this book was written by a non-British author, which was surprising as I loved the attention to details in the first book. The first thing I noticed was the way that Len referred to Nick as captain of the football team, a very American attitude as captains of our sports teams do not have nearly as much celebrity status in UK school hierarchies. Then, when they were in a historical period, it takes Joan a moment to realise that people are staring at her and believes it is because she is mixed race. It felt a little odd that she was so surprised to find racism in a historical period when I’m aware of how racist modern London is, especially post-pandemic. I feel that sometimes people look at the UK and don’t realise that it can be as racist as other countries just because it’s not talked about as much.
One of the aspects I enjoy about the Monsters series so far is the powers that Len has created for her universe. They are diverse and interesting, however, in Never a Hero she introduces a new power of one of the families. I’m going to pop this under a spoiler tag before I go any further.
The Liu family have the power to remember anything perfectly and in Never a Hero we gain some more information about how this works exactly. They gather information from any available source, such as phone records, CCTV, social media, drone photos and databases, and they only need to see something once to remember every detail perfectly. It is then added to the memory of the entire Liu family.
It makes sense then that some of them have the ability to remember previous timelines as those memories would be stored in their collective memories. In Never a Hero Len introduces an additional power, the ability to remember things that haven’t happened yet. Yes, that is as it sounds; they can see the future timeline. While this makes for an interesting plot, I’m not quite sure how it’s justified in a world-building sense as we’ve suddenly jumped from perfect memory to clairvoyance which is a completely different thing.
I did find the big reveal of the big bad to be as tension filled and thrilling as it should be. I did see some things coming, and then well and truly had the wool pulled over my eyes! It was that ending that saved this book for me, and makes me hopeful for the third (and final?) book. While Never a Hero was rocky in places I have high hopes for the third book out next year!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence and Death
Moderate: Racism
lisashelves's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
tense
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
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Murder
Moderate: Violence and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Death of parent and Torture
isabeltavares's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
sad
tense
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
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence, Death, Emotional abuse, Racism, and Vomit
Minor: Torture
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