Reviews with content warning for Death - Only a Monster

Reviews tagging 'Death'

Only a Monster by Vanessa Len

74 reviews

thaliareads's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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

4.0

I loved the concept and the premise of the book. The entire lore and development of monsters was very well done and I found it incredibly interesting.

I enjoyed the majority of the plot with the exception of the ending. While I understand why it had to end the way it did, the whole ending just felt off.

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nagathemanatoo's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad 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

3.75

I adored this book. Especially in terms of its writing style and how it executes its story, it feels like it's wonderfully done and an excellent example of how to hold a reader's attention with breathtaking pacing. The author's development into the reveals never felt cheap or like they were easy to predict and see coming as can sometimes happen in books. Especially as you start to expose yourself to more and more of a certain genre.

Her technical expertise in this regard is flooring.

But where the storyline does struggle is not in the development of the plot, but in the interpersonal development of the characters and their relationships with each other. Everything is one of those situations where it is chock full of potential to be something amazing, but falls just shy of landing that last punch that it needs to hook readers and make the investment worth it. The emotional tones struggle to feel realistic, and that can take a person out.

It says a lot that the relationship that I felt was strongest was entirely devoted to a set of side characters that we don't spend nearly the entirety of the book with the way that we do with the relationship that is set-up for the main character.

It's the sort of book that would really benefit from being okay with letting its plot push out longer, and leaning into the strengths of its plot.

You won't walk away feeling disappointed either with this book. While it may struggle to really develop the relationships of characters with each other, it flawlessly understands the relationship of characters with themselves and who and what they are written to be.

It was unafraid to make plot decisions I think other authors would have shied away from, and I think that there is truly so much more good that we can expect to see from this author as she continues on her path.

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jkneebone's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

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

3.5

Only A Monster follows sixteen-year-old biracial teen Joan, who thinks she is in for a fun summer working at a historical London house with her crush, only to find out that her families' jokes and stories about being 'monsters' are real. Joan is half-human, and has been kept out of the loop about her late mother's family's powers (time travel); however, when it turns out that her crush Nick is actually a fabled hero bent on destroying all monster-kind, Joan teams up with the son of an enemy monster family to defeat him. Throughout the story, Joan (and us readers) meet members of many of the different monster families of London, each of whom have family-specific additional powers and outlooks on monster customs and society. Joan and co. time travel to the nineties in pursuit of their goals, which is also a fun (& trendy) twist.

All the kudos to Vanessa Len for the worldbuilding in Only A Monster!! I thought this was such a unique approach to fantasy and time travel - it was like nothing I've read recently, and I was totally engrossed with all the details. The details about all the different monster families, to the point that they have differing myths from family to family, were so interesting and creative. I would have read another two hundred pages just to find out more about this world. In that same vein, I also enjoyed that the main characters all came from different families and backgrounds, and I felt that they were all pretty well developed for the amount of page time they had.

My only issue with this book was that it is very much the first in a series. The plot definitely came second to the worldbuilding and set up of the dynamics between monsters, etc. and while I enjoyed the worldbuilding, I wish it had been more integrated into the plot. I'd prefer that a first book in a series has it's own adventure plot that is resolved at the end of the book, even if there is a larger arc or 'big bad' that still needs to be tackled - instead, Only A Monster very much felt like a set-up book, and did one of my least favorite things a conclusion can do (spoiler!!):

undoing the entire plot of the first installment at the end of it!! I liked that Joan was faced with and made that choice at the end, and I thought it worked for her character arc, but it's a huge pet peeve of mine in general because now we are going into the second book with essentially a blank slate, at least for everyone other than Joan. It was done better here than other times, but it's still a pet peeve.

I also wish a few things had been explained sooner or better - Joan is learning about the monster world and cultural norms along with the reader, which mostly works really well, but I did have a few head-scratcher moments (Joan never believed her family were really monsters...but everyone in her family can pull things out of thin air?? Joan.).

Despite that critique, I will probably read the second book when it comes out because I do want to learn more about these characters and the world!! It's hard to do time travel well and this was really well done. A creative, fun read, especially if you're a fan of a series!

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calcifiend's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense 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? Yes

4.0

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lena_correia's review

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adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious 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

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milla_b's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

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

3.75

I really enjoyed this book. Not sure why I waited so long to finish it.
Well written, diverse morally grey characters.
Definitely will continue reading the series

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katiemcgregor's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious 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

3.5

To be honest, I've always had a difficult time wrapping my head around time travel stories so I'm, by no means, an expert. But I do think that Only a Monster is well done and clever. It delivers more than I've come to expect from YA and I'm a big fan of the morally grey dilemmas Len incorporates into the story.

Maybe it's my lack of time travel understanding or the fact that this is only the first in the series, but I do wish a few things had a little more explanation behind them. I'm going to assume that my questions will be answered in the next books.

For the most part this was fun. It didn't completely command my attention, but I did enjoy picking it up and immersing myself into the interesting world Len created.

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