Reviews - Ordinary Monsters

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2.35k reviews for:

Ordinary Monsters

J.M. Miro

3.74 AVERAGE

ketchupzamo's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective 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

The plot of this book is great and so are the characters. I loved all of the characters even the evil ones (except for the one guy f you). My only complaint is the writing. Some of the sentences were entirely unnecessary and others felt like they were trying to give the vibe of walking in slow motion away from an explosion, like you are unfortunately not as cool as you think you are. However, I do think this would be an AMAZING movie. I wish it were a movie so bad would be in my top 4 for sure.

Also not sure if I will continue on in the series, I really want to know what happens to the characters (my son Marlowe I will miss you) but I know the next book must be sooo long so idk if I can get through the writing again.

macmcfleetwood's review against another edition

3.0

3.5

geneezy's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous dark 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

carolinetew's review against another edition

4.0

When I was halfway through this I thought this was a guaranteed 5 star read. I was absolutely loving the characters, the magic system, the historical setting, and the plot. Even though it's got a lot of pages, I felt like I was flying through it whenever I sat down to read. I do think the plot got a little murky towards the end. There was a lot of action and the big final confrontation (and the imminent build up to it) took what felt like 150-200 pages, which was just too long to spend in the chaos of constant action/fighting/discovery. And despite the fact that this was a really long time to spend in a climactic part, it actually wasn't that complicated of a finale. There's just a lot of repetition and I feel a little underwhelmed. I don't know if certain aspects are meant to remain mysterious because this is the first in a trilogy or if it just wasn't explained well enough for me. This sounds like a bummer of a review but that's only because I thought for 300+ pages that this was going to be a new fav of the year!

longwalkahead's review against another edition

3.0

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

It's a bit of an unusual book. There is a unique mix of horror, fantasy, x-men comic, historical fiction, supernatural, and mystery elements.
The biggest strength is probably the eerie and creepy tone throughout. There is this underlying sense that something bad is always about to happen. It's set in the 1800's so there is that pre-modern times feel throughout too.
Things start out strong with a couple investigator type characters in the united states tracking down these kids with special abilities to take them back to a sanctuary in Scotland. Gradually you get everyone's backstories. There are also the mysteries of where the special abilities come from, what's going on with the figure following trying to capture the kids and the threat there, and what the reality is of the Scotland sanctuary.
Pacing is a mixed bag. Some parts are gripping and awesome, while many others feel very drawn out into a slowness that drags everything down. With almost all the characters getting a specific backstory there are all these interludes to cover everyone. The multiple back and forth jumps from present events to past ones and covering so many characters like that separately really breaks the suspense and flow at times. Some of it is also quite drawn out and seems like it could have been edited down a lot for better focus. I think if we'd gotten the villain's background earlier in the narrative it would have helped a lot too.
So overall the ideas are quite interesting and cool, the characters and story are mostly compelling, but there are repeated stretches that the writing makes it hard to wade through. I wanted to like it all more then I did.
The sequel seems like it could go interesting places potentially.

_el_reads's review against another edition

5.0

I finally finished it, and I enjoyed every moment of this story. I might need a couple days to recover because that ending…really got the waterworks going.

I can’t really put my feelings into words. But reading this book I really had to take my time with it. I wanted everything to soak in and the last 200 pages were the most surprising and emotional. I loved the characters, even the ones who weren’t all that morally good. Marlowe and Charlie are by far such beautifully written characters and are definitely my favorite.