Reviews with content warning for Domestic abuse - No Gods, No Monsters

Wow wow wow. This took me on quite a ride and made me question what we know about the world.

It dove into the paranormal/supernatural, the secret organizations, the magic and the scientific theories that surround us, the reality that we know, the hardships that people go through, the society and the system we live in.

Another thing that really impressed me is the writing style and the prose. It was dark and eerie and so captivating. And the fact that the author blended horror, fantasy, and science fiction and he did it so brilliantly. 😭👏

There are a lot of characters and it can get confusing/hard to keep up. However, the way these different characters and their perspectives intertwine was so cool and impressive. (And hello??? That unnamed narrator?!) Kudos to the author for creating such an intricate yet satisfying network of point of views.

I really enjoyed reading this y'all. This one surprised me and I loved it!

E-arc from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Full review soon!

Content Warnings

ceilidhwilliams's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Content Warnings

emilyrainsford's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Where on earth to start with this book??

In the M. Night Shyamalan movie "Signs", there is a scene that creeped out a generation. The footage is a shaky, handheld style rendering of a kids' birthday party. Everyone is running to the window. The footage looks out the window and you're looking at an ordinary yard and then BOOM a weird grey alien appears in an alleyway, looks directly at you, then runs away, and everyone starts screaming. It's not big flashy Hollywood CGI - we're talking a 2002 film here. But that's precisely what makes it so creepy - it feels REAL. It feels like it could really be some dad's handycam footage from an average lounge room. It makes you think - omg imagine if that were real?? - in a way that smooth shiny footage wouldn't.

That's what reading this book felt like to me. I would not consider this fantasy, not even urban fantasy. It's more like a kind of speculative near-future realist dystopia that just happens to feature werewolves and a dragon. It's not fantastical. It's CREEPY. I admit I almost put it down fairly early on - the disembodied voice, a child eating hands... it was almost too creepy for me to handle. And yet there was a curiosity I couldn't shake, so I kept going.

The way the book is told feels more like a series of somewhat interconnected vignettes than a truly cohesive narrative. Just as you're getting to know one character, it switches drastically to a different person and story. It requires quite a lot of patience. It's... fractured.

It's so fractured that it's hard to even pin down a short synopsis. Essentially, a video emerges one day in the near future of werewolves shifting back into humans. Suddenly the world is alerted to the existence of things that have lived in the shadows. But then the end of that video disappears from every copy of it worldwide. All evidence of the shifting is gone. Those who didn't see it on live TV think that people let their imaginations run wild. Those who did see it start to question their own memory. But there are shifts happening beneath the surface of things, monsters are being pushed into the light. By whom? And why?

The emergence of that video is known as - The Fracture.

There is a strong thread of social commentary that runs through this novel. Because I'm woefully uneducated on such things, I had no idea that the title was a play on an anarchist slogan - "no gods, no masters", meaning that no human should be held above another. Once you realise that, you see how incredibly clever the title of this book is - "no gods, no monsters", a call to equality, that no one should be held either above or below another. There is an open relationship, characters of varying gender identities and sexualities and races, a few discussions and representations of cooperatives and socialist-anarchist type communities. This book is the very antithesis of a heteronormative, default-white novel and it feels very authentic.

This is a novel that pushes the boundaries of the way things have always been done, and so the structure of it is only fitting, in my opinion. It's not a standard novel because it doesn't WANT to be a standard novel - that, in fact, is the whole point. It's subversive - it wants to challenge you and the way you think things "should" be done, just because they've always been done that way.

There is an omniscient third person narrator who increasingly becomes part of the story. It is quite disconcerting at first. Imagine you're just reading along a seemly standard third person narration, when suddenly one of the characters starts addressing the narrator, a non-physical presence. It's jarring, although it does come together a bit more towards the end.

Speaking of the end, it finishes somewhat abruptly. The whole book is a very slow build up, to a kind of climactic scene, but then it finishes in a way that is still very unresolved. Goodreads suggests this is part one of a "Saga", so I guess there's more to come. Still, it was an unsatisfying ending after such a long, slow book - especially if you're unsure if you can stomach another whole book of this weirdness.

I saw a review that invoked Gaiman's American Gods and that definitely feels like an apt comparison to me, in vibe if not content. There's an eeriness to it all, a sense of mild horror. Have you ever looked up into the night sky and imagined what it would be like if suddenly gravity stopped working and everyone fell off the earth and was burned up in the stratosphere?? The absolute horror of it, the helplessness, the vastness of a universe that doesn't really give a crap? It probably is a little weird that I have, but that's exactly the feeling this book gave me.

I would not recommend you pick this up if you're expecting standard fantasy. This is not it. If you want to read absolutely different from anything you've ever read before, something a little weird and experimental, give it a try. And don't say I didn't warn you :-P.

Trigger warnings include sexual abuse of a minor, domestic abuse, mild body horror, police shooting of a Black man, an active shooter scene.

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