Reviews with content warning for Body horror - Monstrilio

Ooh this book was good. It defied my expectations in a very fun way, where I was expecting a gut wrenching, grief-driven horror that dragged me to the pits of hell, but what I got was a mysteriously uplifting family drama with a horrific edge. The language is beautiful and concise, the characters are crafted well and stay consistent throughout. I also loved how queer this book is. It’s so good.

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behindherpages's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad slow-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

4.0

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tifftastic87's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense slow-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

4.25

Monstrilio is a tale of grief, told in four parts. The story starts with the death of a little boy and follows the family as they grieve. The first part follows Magos, who cuts a piece of her dead son away and uses it to grow a new boy. The next part follows Len, the best friend of the couple, then Joseph, the father, and lastly Monstrilio himself.

Each of these characters is so unique, all dealing with their own issues outside of grief. Magos has a strained relationship with her mother, Lena suffers from severe insomnia and was abused by her own mother, Joseph has some pretty bad depression and Monstrilio, well he's just hungry. Like really hungry.

Honestly, everyone in this book needed therapy.

Currently I'm listening to Pet Sematary and this is kind of like, if Lewis could have brought Gage back but it all worked out.

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pimaz's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

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year23's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad fast-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

4.5

Going in, I knew this wasn't a horror book (it really isn't, I'm not sure why it's being marketed as such, this is not a scary book unless you have fears around grief). I think it falls into speculative fiction or even magical realism more than horror. There are horrific type things that happen, but that's the case in any book dealing with tragic events, particularly grief.

An excellent queer novel exploring complicated grief. I kept thinking about how there isn't a word for a parent who loses a child - and I think this book explores why that is, the horror of that experience and trying to place yourself when a key relationship that defines you is no more. How that grief also reverberates throughout a family system, a community, and does become its own entity, and in this case, a new being.

I loved the multiple perspectives/pov's - culminating in M's. So many metaphors at play in this story - would be cool to sit in on a class breaking it down.

While this may seem high-brow - far from it. Clear, evocative writing, no purple prose to be found.

Finally - I've been looking for a book that makes me genuinely laugh and there is a scene in here that I just think about and crack up. Personally, that's a feat in any novel - for a story with so many unreal things happening, moments like these, it still felt very human, grounded. This is such a good book - highly recommend to anyone.

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