Reviews

Monstrilio is a unique read that tackles grief, death, transformation, and sex simultaneously. The novel is split into four perspectives, but halfway through the novel there's an evident tonal and narrative shift. The first half was really strong for me, focusing more heavily on the early stages of grief and the introduction of the titular character Monstrilio. The second half was strong as well, but has a much larger emphasis on kink and sex - it certainly isn't bad, just not necessarily what I was expecting based on the synopsis. In isolation each of these parts were about four stars for me, but their integration (or lack of) left a lot to be desired for me and detracted from my enjoyment.

The time shift in the middle of the novel felt a bit abrupt, and a lot of things change without much background context since you never return to any of the previous perspectives. A lot of the character development established early on in the novel gets mitigated since you lack context to a lot of new behaviours and choices that were made following the time skip. Several ancillary characters leave or enter the narrative at this point, and while the scope never really changes, it made me unsatisfied as a reader since I felt I only half understood a lot of characters. Lena in particular felt like she had a lot of potential and then sort of just...existed as a plot device (how extraordinarily convenient to have a renowned doctor on hand during all of these injuries).

While I certainly get the thematic and metaphorical linkage between grief and kinks (i.e., represented as monstrosities) - it just wasn't what I was anticipating when I picked the book up, and I think other than the thematic linkage there wasn't a lot of depth present other than just preaching acceptance. The fact that the two core themes remain largely disjoint and are narratively separated by the time skip just made me feel like I was reading an anthology about the cast of characters rather than a cohesive narrative. The grief part was more interesting to me (and was what inspired me to pick up the book) and ultimately just held my interest more.

I totally understand why people like this - it is creative and the writing is good (especially for a debut), but ultimately needed a bit of refinement to get a four or five stars from me. I personally didn't find myself particular attached to any characters in this, and other than the concept, it was largely forgettable (though I might be hypercritical because I've read a lot about grief recently).