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fruity999's review
challenging
informative
reflective
fast-paced
3.5
This book has given me a lot to think about
tasmanian_bibliophile's review
4.0
‘I can’t write this story in a straight line.’
A fractured relationship with a sister provides the starting point for this reflective narrative. From the individual (who am I, and where do I fit within the smaller world of family) through the present (including the privileges bestowed by place of birth and colour of skin) to the historical (the impact of British imperialism with its underlying racist and sexist behaviours). And, when these influences are considered and weighed, what of the future? Do we recognise the need to revisit (some at least) of our attitudes? Can we change?
In trying to understand her place in the world, Ms Croggon raises some serious and uncomfortable questions. We each occupy a life shaped by custom, culture, and history. Many of us accept, without question, both the constraints and privileges we are born into. In questioning this for herself, Ms Croggon invites the reader to do the same.
‘I need these narratives that give me a larger picture of who I am.’
I want to reread this book. As I shifted between memoir and essay, between the impact of a fractured relationship and the power structures of the British Empire, my thoughts kept straying to some of the related and painful contemporary issues in Australia.
Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Scribe UK for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
A fractured relationship with a sister provides the starting point for this reflective narrative. From the individual (who am I, and where do I fit within the smaller world of family) through the present (including the privileges bestowed by place of birth and colour of skin) to the historical (the impact of British imperialism with its underlying racist and sexist behaviours). And, when these influences are considered and weighed, what of the future? Do we recognise the need to revisit (some at least) of our attitudes? Can we change?
In trying to understand her place in the world, Ms Croggon raises some serious and uncomfortable questions. We each occupy a life shaped by custom, culture, and history. Many of us accept, without question, both the constraints and privileges we are born into. In questioning this for herself, Ms Croggon invites the reader to do the same.
‘I need these narratives that give me a larger picture of who I am.’
I want to reread this book. As I shifted between memoir and essay, between the impact of a fractured relationship and the power structures of the British Empire, my thoughts kept straying to some of the related and painful contemporary issues in Australia.
Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Scribe UK for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
scribepub's review
A marvel of a book … Croggon spares no one, least of all herself, as she unearths colonial history and family complicity to scrutinise those demons that both torment and shape us. This is exactly the kind of book I have longed to see white authors write, and I love it for its refusal to provide easy answers to the dilemma at the heart of the modern human condition.
Ruby Hamad, author of White Tears/Brown Scars
Croggon is an autodidact and digs deepest into issues which interest her most. Her writing on femaleness and the patriarchy is excellent and follows her own feminist evolution … This is a unique blend of memoir and critical theory.
Bob Moore, Good Reading
Croggon’s background as a poet is tangible, and her language in Monsters is flavoursome … she is witty, self-reflective, raw.
Anna Westbrook , ArtsHub, starred review
What makes Monsters distinct, from opening bars to melancholy coda, is the nature of the pain it describes. Not the physical kind which holds at least the potential for relief, but the emotional distress emerging from a breakdown in the author’s relationship with one of her two younger sisters: a connection that has grown increasingly poisonous over time … Monsters becomes the effort to draw a global map of human hurt using the fractal experience of one woman’s domestic discord.
Geordie Williamson, The Weekend Australian
Monsters is a hybrid memoir about family, colonialism and how external forces invisibly shape us, by renowned critic and impressive brain Alison Croggon.
Jo Case, InDaily
Steady and acute self-scrutiny such as Croggon’s is necessary to a widening interrogation of privilege that underpins the illumination and refusal of racism and sexism and promised a historical pivot away from overt and covert violence … Monsters is full of gloriously expressed insights, such as the image of the internet as ‘a trauma machine, recording and reproducing millions of psychic wounds’ and, on the subject of #MeToo, the way an accumulation of incidents can contribute to a ‘deformation fo self’ … stylistically, the rhythms and sonic patterns of Croggon’s prose are a poet’s.
Felicity Plunkett, The Age
With Monsters, [Croggon] tackles one of contemporary literature’s most electric (and eclectic) forms — a kind of glorious literary mutant that braids socio-cultural contemplation and memoir; anchoring high-theory with visceral intimacy. She joins a sorority of glittering thinkers … whose work mimics what it feels like to stretch an idea out in your brain. True to type, Monsters is digressive, kaleidoscopic, and alive with questions.
Beejay Silcox, The Guardian
Sometimes it is in the gulf between what we value and how we act that we are truly revealed … Croggon cares deeply about this idea, of sitting with complexity … in every scorching appraisal of hierarchy and patriarchy, there is a central thought: there must be some explanation … For Croggon, the legacy of British colonialism is the notion that you can take someone’s story away from them. Monsters fights to reclaim the narrative.
Sarah Walker, Australian Book Review
In language at once fiery and elegant, [Croggon] reckons with the collective failures of her imperialist ancestors and the personal shame of their legacy. It’s a book I will return to often for its power and its truths.
Marina Benjamin, author of Insomnia
The searing opening spares no one, least of all Croggon as she details a toxic relationship with her sister … Woven in and out of all this are other ugly but very differently scaled relationships, from colonialism through which she details her own history, to the patriarchy and how it distorts the way we see even ourselves. Croggon is a talented writer, librettist, playwright and thinker, and her focus here is to understand and, in some ways, reconcile with all this dysfunction.
Penelope Debelle , SA Weekend, starred review
Monsters brings up interesting insights on trauma, power relations and the pathology of families.
Alastair Mabbott, The Herald
Young Adult author Croggon grapples with both personal and historical demons … [she] asks probing questions about self-perception and trauma … The monsters of the title are plentiful: throughout the essays she addresses her British colonialist ancestors, her abusive mother, the “traumatic tedium” of her relationship to her sister, and herself … Lyrically rendered, this reckoning will leave readers with plenty to think about.
Publishers Weekly
Ruby Hamad, author of White Tears/Brown Scars
Croggon is an autodidact and digs deepest into issues which interest her most. Her writing on femaleness and the patriarchy is excellent and follows her own feminist evolution … This is a unique blend of memoir and critical theory.
Bob Moore, Good Reading
Croggon’s background as a poet is tangible, and her language in Monsters is flavoursome … she is witty, self-reflective, raw.
Anna Westbrook , ArtsHub, starred review
What makes Monsters distinct, from opening bars to melancholy coda, is the nature of the pain it describes. Not the physical kind which holds at least the potential for relief, but the emotional distress emerging from a breakdown in the author’s relationship with one of her two younger sisters: a connection that has grown increasingly poisonous over time … Monsters becomes the effort to draw a global map of human hurt using the fractal experience of one woman’s domestic discord.
Geordie Williamson, The Weekend Australian
Monsters is a hybrid memoir about family, colonialism and how external forces invisibly shape us, by renowned critic and impressive brain Alison Croggon.
Jo Case, InDaily
Steady and acute self-scrutiny such as Croggon’s is necessary to a widening interrogation of privilege that underpins the illumination and refusal of racism and sexism and promised a historical pivot away from overt and covert violence … Monsters is full of gloriously expressed insights, such as the image of the internet as ‘a trauma machine, recording and reproducing millions of psychic wounds’ and, on the subject of #MeToo, the way an accumulation of incidents can contribute to a ‘deformation fo self’ … stylistically, the rhythms and sonic patterns of Croggon’s prose are a poet’s.
Felicity Plunkett, The Age
With Monsters, [Croggon] tackles one of contemporary literature’s most electric (and eclectic) forms — a kind of glorious literary mutant that braids socio-cultural contemplation and memoir; anchoring high-theory with visceral intimacy. She joins a sorority of glittering thinkers … whose work mimics what it feels like to stretch an idea out in your brain. True to type, Monsters is digressive, kaleidoscopic, and alive with questions.
Beejay Silcox, The Guardian
Sometimes it is in the gulf between what we value and how we act that we are truly revealed … Croggon cares deeply about this idea, of sitting with complexity … in every scorching appraisal of hierarchy and patriarchy, there is a central thought: there must be some explanation … For Croggon, the legacy of British colonialism is the notion that you can take someone’s story away from them. Monsters fights to reclaim the narrative.
Sarah Walker, Australian Book Review
In language at once fiery and elegant, [Croggon] reckons with the collective failures of her imperialist ancestors and the personal shame of their legacy. It’s a book I will return to often for its power and its truths.
Marina Benjamin, author of Insomnia
The searing opening spares no one, least of all Croggon as she details a toxic relationship with her sister … Woven in and out of all this are other ugly but very differently scaled relationships, from colonialism through which she details her own history, to the patriarchy and how it distorts the way we see even ourselves. Croggon is a talented writer, librettist, playwright and thinker, and her focus here is to understand and, in some ways, reconcile with all this dysfunction.
Penelope Debelle , SA Weekend, starred review
Monsters brings up interesting insights on trauma, power relations and the pathology of families.
Alastair Mabbott, The Herald
Young Adult author Croggon grapples with both personal and historical demons … [she] asks probing questions about self-perception and trauma … The monsters of the title are plentiful: throughout the essays she addresses her British colonialist ancestors, her abusive mother, the “traumatic tedium” of her relationship to her sister, and herself … Lyrically rendered, this reckoning will leave readers with plenty to think about.
Publishers Weekly
bookalong's review
A mix of memoir and critical theory in this deep dive investigation of one families history of colonialism and white supremacy.
MONSTERS is a driven narrative and tough to review. An important takeaway from this I think was that all us white people need to look back like Croggon has at our own families history with colonialism, and aknowledge how white privilege has shaped you, benefited you and how it impacts your relationships, especially with people of color. Realizing what white privilege is and how it affects people of color and their opportunities in this world is a good starting point for change. We are very much shaped by where we come from, our parents, our parents parents, and so on and so on. Being honest and critical about where we come from and the role that plays in our own lives is so important if we are going to create equality for the future.
Thank you so much to the publisher for sending me this book opinions are my own.
For more of my book content check out instagram.com/bookalong
MONSTERS is a driven narrative and tough to review. An important takeaway from this I think was that all us white people need to look back like Croggon has at our own families history with colonialism, and aknowledge how white privilege has shaped you, benefited you and how it impacts your relationships, especially with people of color. Realizing what white privilege is and how it affects people of color and their opportunities in this world is a good starting point for change. We are very much shaped by where we come from, our parents, our parents parents, and so on and so on. Being honest and critical about where we come from and the role that plays in our own lives is so important if we are going to create equality for the future.
Thank you so much to the publisher for sending me this book opinions are my own.
For more of my book content check out instagram.com/bookalong
wtb_michael's review
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
2.75
I was a bit frustrated by Monsters - Croggon is incredibly smart and well read and bravely examines her privileges and blindspots in an attempt to understand the failed relationship she has with her sister. This underlying problem remained weirdly hard to grasp for me - I could never quite understand what their issues were and was mostly unconvinced by the attempts to excavate them. The more abstracted sections, dealing with the bigger picture impacts of colonialism, patriarchy, capitalism had some really excellent moments (if occasionally bogging down in detail).
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