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A review by ninegladiolus
Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell
adventurous
dark
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
My foremost concern going into Someone You Can Build a Nest In was that it wouldn’t be weird ENOUGH. Not only was this novel wonderfully bizarre and full of the body horror shapeshifting of my dreams, it was also gut-churningly emotional, leaving me choked up at several points throughout.
Shesheshen, the monster protagonist of our story, is brought out of her hibernation at the beginning of the novel by hunters determined to murder her. She flees her lair, badly injured, and wakes to find herself cared for by Homily, an extremely thoughtful and caring human. Unfortunately for Shesheshen, even though Homily would make a great nest, there’s another problem: Homily’s hunting for a monster that sounds a lot like Shesheshen.
There’s so much I adored about this novel that it’s hard to know where to start. First and foremost, Shesheshen was a fantastic protagonist. Sometimes in monster fiction, the monster loses its inhumanness. Not the case in this novel. Throughout the entire story, Shesheshen keeps many of the traits, thoughts, and beliefs that mark her as ‘other’. While a great deal of this resonates personally with me, like her complete bewilderment with confusing human behavioral norms and the fluidity of her body and her asexuality, I stand by the fact she’s a compelling character even without personal relatability.
Homily’s character and arc were devastating at points. There’s a deeply poignant discussion of trauma, the ways it shapes us, and the ways we can learn to overcome it that I wasn’t expecting from my funny, gross monster romance book, yet here it is. I also loved seeing Homily’s fatness through Shesheshen’s eyes. The narrative takes great pains to not only remark on Homily’s size but to paint it in a positive, admirable light; this kind of fat positivity is still exceedingly rare and I appreciate it when I encounter it.
I struggled with the pacing of this novel, to the point where I felt the mental drag as plot elements were prolonged. There are several repeated try-fail cycles that hit similar beats and don’t really move story or character along. I think if it had been just a tiny bit shorter, it would have been perfect.
As it stands, this book just marches to the beat of its own drum. It’s warm, loving, weird, delightful, and emotional. It also elaborates on a theme I can’t get enough of, which is interrogating what ‘monstrous’ and ‘human’ even mean, and the ways in which humans are monstrous and monsters are human.
Someone You Can Build a Nest In won’t be a book for everyone, but I believe it’s a book that will deeply speak to the audience it’s meant for. If a charming sapphic fantasy romance blended with creepy horror elements and deeply emotional character arcs sounds up your alley, give this one a shot.
Thank you to DAW and NetGalley for an advance reader copy. All opinions are my own.
Shesheshen, the monster protagonist of our story, is brought out of her hibernation at the beginning of the novel by hunters determined to murder her. She flees her lair, badly injured, and wakes to find herself cared for by Homily, an extremely thoughtful and caring human. Unfortunately for Shesheshen, even though Homily would make a great nest, there’s another problem: Homily’s hunting for a monster that sounds a lot like Shesheshen.
There’s so much I adored about this novel that it’s hard to know where to start. First and foremost, Shesheshen was a fantastic protagonist. Sometimes in monster fiction, the monster loses its inhumanness. Not the case in this novel. Throughout the entire story, Shesheshen keeps many of the traits, thoughts, and beliefs that mark her as ‘other’. While a great deal of this resonates personally with me, like her complete bewilderment with confusing human behavioral norms and the fluidity of her body and her asexuality, I stand by the fact she’s a compelling character even without personal relatability.
Homily’s character and arc were devastating at points. There’s a deeply poignant discussion of trauma, the ways it shapes us, and the ways we can learn to overcome it that I wasn’t expecting from my funny, gross monster romance book, yet here it is. I also loved seeing Homily’s fatness through Shesheshen’s eyes. The narrative takes great pains to not only remark on Homily’s size but to paint it in a positive, admirable light; this kind of fat positivity is still exceedingly rare and I appreciate it when I encounter it.
I struggled with the pacing of this novel, to the point where I felt the mental drag as plot elements were prolonged. There are several repeated try-fail cycles that hit similar beats and don’t really move story or character along. I think if it had been just a tiny bit shorter, it would have been perfect.
As it stands, this book just marches to the beat of its own drum. It’s warm, loving, weird, delightful, and emotional. It also elaborates on a theme I can’t get enough of, which is interrogating what ‘monstrous’ and ‘human’ even mean, and the ways in which humans are monstrous and monsters are human.
Someone You Can Build a Nest In won’t be a book for everyone, but I believe it’s a book that will deeply speak to the audience it’s meant for. If a charming sapphic fantasy romance blended with creepy horror elements and deeply emotional character arcs sounds up your alley, give this one a shot.
Thank you to DAW and NetGalley for an advance reader copy. All opinions are my own.