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A review by billymac1962
Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes
4.0
Well. I'm not sure where to begin with this one.
First, an anecdote of what it is to be me. This is the second consecutive book I have read to have a character with Ouija board letters tattooed on her stomach. This kind of stuff happens to me all the time. Really, really strange coincidences. So there's that. On to the review.
Lauren Beukes really impressed me last year when I read The Shining Girls. In it, she put her own bent slant onto the serial killer genre with a time-travelling psychopath. A lot of people had closure issues with that one, but I thought it was brilliant.
Now comes Broken Monsters. This, again a serial killer theme, but with...oh, I wish I could tell you...
Suffice it to to say that with two novels that are essentially crime thrillers with a weird turn to them, I think we can say at this point that this lady is a genre unto herself.
This book read like gangbusters.
(It's worth noting that our home office has completed renovations and I am once again working in the downtown core of Ottawa after 3 years in a temporary location. Within that time I have gotten married and moved to a new home and I have decided to give public transit another chance. I now love it. It's a quiet 50 minute commute and I now have 100 more minutes to read every weekday! Thus the ripping through this book.)
Where was I? Yes, the book read like gangbusters and man, towards the later part things seriously become unglued, in a holy shit, everything is happening kind of way. But while the main storyline was of course the main focus, my favourite aspects of the novel were around Layla and Cas, the detective's daughter and her friend, and their social media activity. Beukes is also making a statement on social media in the way it comes into play with the investigation.
Again, Beukes has top writing chops. Her prose is very good and dialogue is very authentic.
I'll listen to any story she has to tell. 3.5 stars rounded up.
First, an anecdote of what it is to be me. This is the second consecutive book I have read to have a character with Ouija board letters tattooed on her stomach. This kind of stuff happens to me all the time. Really, really strange coincidences. So there's that. On to the review.
Lauren Beukes really impressed me last year when I read The Shining Girls. In it, she put her own bent slant onto the serial killer genre with a time-travelling psychopath. A lot of people had closure issues with that one, but I thought it was brilliant.
Now comes Broken Monsters. This, again a serial killer theme, but with...oh, I wish I could tell you...
Suffice it to to say that with two novels that are essentially crime thrillers with a weird turn to them, I think we can say at this point that this lady is a genre unto herself.
This book read like gangbusters.
(It's worth noting that our home office has completed renovations and I am once again working in the downtown core of Ottawa after 3 years in a temporary location. Within that time I have gotten married and moved to a new home and I have decided to give public transit another chance. I now love it. It's a quiet 50 minute commute and I now have 100 more minutes to read every weekday! Thus the ripping through this book.)
Where was I? Yes, the book read like gangbusters and man, towards the later part things seriously become unglued, in a holy shit, everything is happening kind of way. But while the main storyline was of course the main focus, my favourite aspects of the novel were around Layla and Cas, the detective's daughter and her friend, and their social media activity. Beukes is also making a statement on social media in the way it comes into play with the investigation.
Again, Beukes has top writing chops. Her prose is very good and dialogue is very authentic.
I'll listen to any story she has to tell. 3.5 stars rounded up.