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A review by aclopez6
No Beauties or Monsters by Tara Goedjen
5.0
Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read an arc version of this book!
“The bees had left, vanished completely, and it scared him enough to send him inside.” -- this line startled me from the first chapter, and I had to reread the first section, trying to figure out who or what Ethan was (one of many mysteries the reader will encounter). One chapter later, we start hearing about the “commune killer”, and people going missing in the desert (another mystery to unravel). Things are definitely what they seem at first glance, and I was not prepared for the twist.
No Beauties or Monsters focuses on Rylie, a high school senior, who moves back to Twentynine Palms, although she has not been there in four years. It is revealed early on that Rylie and her friend Lily saw an accident take place that involved Rylie’s brother, Owen, Rylie’s dad, and her granddad. Since then, her brother has lost his sight, and her mom continues to work on secretive government projects. Once Rylie arrives at her home, odd things begin to happen in the desert, and one of her old friends has gone missing. With the help of memory regression/hypnosis and her friends, Rylie begins to uncover more and more information about her granddad’s role in the missing people.
Overall, I enjoyed this book a lot, and I would recommend it to students and have it in my classroom library (I think this is very accessible for high schoolers and more mature middle-grade students as well). This book would be great for reluctant readers who prefer a plot-driven book, with some character development, but are more focused on a mystery or conflict being resolved. I also loved that the set-up was more gradual, and the reader was given snippets of information about each character but was not told upfront (ex. You can begin inferring Rylie’s age based on the fact that she is driving, but do not find out until a chapter later that she is in her second half of senior year, etc).
“The bees had left, vanished completely, and it scared him enough to send him inside.” -- this line startled me from the first chapter, and I had to reread the first section, trying to figure out who or what Ethan was (one of many mysteries the reader will encounter). One chapter later, we start hearing about the “commune killer”, and people going missing in the desert (another mystery to unravel). Things are definitely what they seem at first glance, and I was not prepared for the twist.
No Beauties or Monsters focuses on Rylie, a high school senior, who moves back to Twentynine Palms, although she has not been there in four years. It is revealed early on that Rylie and her friend Lily saw an accident take place that involved Rylie’s brother, Owen, Rylie’s dad, and her granddad. Since then, her brother has lost his sight, and her mom continues to work on secretive government projects. Once Rylie arrives at her home, odd things begin to happen in the desert, and one of her old friends has gone missing. With the help of memory regression/hypnosis and her friends, Rylie begins to uncover more and more information about her granddad’s role in the missing people.
Overall, I enjoyed this book a lot, and I would recommend it to students and have it in my classroom library (I think this is very accessible for high schoolers and more mature middle-grade students as well). This book would be great for reluctant readers who prefer a plot-driven book, with some character development, but are more focused on a mystery or conflict being resolved. I also loved that the set-up was more gradual, and the reader was given snippets of information about each character but was not told upfront (ex. You can begin inferring Rylie’s age based on the fact that she is driving, but do not find out until a chapter later that she is in her second half of senior year, etc).