You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by sarahbrousseau
House of the Beast by Michelle Wong
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
5.0
Thank you to the author and NetGalley for the audiobook ARC!
I really loved this story! It kind of started a little slow, but swiftly sucked me in. House of the Beast is not a romance. It has a lot of the tropes, but subverts expectations. The main love interest is deliciously villainous and he and Alma are toxically codependent. They feed into the worst of each other with their hunger for revenge. The story is dark, twisted, and complex, full of intrigue and gore. The terrors are truly monstrous, but the worst of them might just be some of the humans. Well done to Michelle Wong on her debut novel. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.
~~~
“‘Liar,’ he said. ‘My sullen, cowardly, soft-hearted liar. You were the worst of the worst, Alma, and I loved you anyway.’”
~~~
Alma is a lonely, poor child who has a single friend, an imaginary prince named Aster. When her mom becomes sick and cannot be healed through any means available to them, Alma finds a way to contact her father and seek his help. Her father is a hand to one of the gods, the Dread Beast, and agrees to help Alma’s mother in exchange for Alma going with him and dedicating herself to the Dread Beast as well. Alma is accepted as a hand of the Beast after enduring a shocking act of violence. In trying to get back to her mother and escape from the cruelty of her father, flees her father’s estate, but is promptly caught. It’s through this that she discovers that not only did her father not save her mother, but that her imaginary friend was never actually imaginary. Together, they pledge to seek revenge against Alma’s father for her mother’s death.
From here, the story skips ahead 8 years to Alma finally being ready to face her father. The servants of the gods must embark on a pilgrimage to kill a fallen star. If Alma is able to kill the star, she will gain immense power and become the head of the family. But everything is far less straightforward than Alma thought it would be. Alma and Aster are thrown into political and religious plots and Alma is forced to face the fact that, despite her desperate desire for revenge, she has a soft heart and doesn’t want to kill. Aster is a chaotic red flag who is utterly obsessed with Alma and has an insatiable bloodlust. He can’t comprehend why Alma feels guilt and drives her to commit increasingly violent acts.
I really loved this story! It kind of started a little slow, but swiftly sucked me in. House of the Beast is not a romance. It has a lot of the tropes, but subverts expectations. The main love interest is deliciously villainous and he and Alma are toxically codependent. They feed into the worst of each other with their hunger for revenge. The story is dark, twisted, and complex, full of intrigue and gore. The terrors are truly monstrous, but the worst of them might just be some of the humans. Well done to Michelle Wong on her debut novel. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.
~~~
“‘Liar,’ he said. ‘My sullen, cowardly, soft-hearted liar. You were the worst of the worst, Alma, and I loved you anyway.’”
~~~
Alma is a lonely, poor child who has a single friend, an imaginary prince named Aster. When her mom becomes sick and cannot be healed through any means available to them, Alma finds a way to contact her father and seek his help. Her father is a hand to one of the gods, the Dread Beast, and agrees to help Alma’s mother in exchange for Alma going with him and dedicating herself to the Dread Beast as well. Alma is accepted as a hand of the Beast after enduring a shocking act of violence. In trying to get back to her mother and escape from the cruelty of her father, flees her father’s estate, but is promptly caught. It’s through this that she discovers that not only did her father not save her mother, but that her imaginary friend was never actually imaginary. Together, they pledge to seek revenge against Alma’s father for her mother’s death.
From here, the story skips ahead 8 years to Alma finally being ready to face her father. The servants of the gods must embark on a pilgrimage to kill a fallen star. If Alma is able to kill the star, she will gain immense power and become the head of the family. But everything is far less straightforward than Alma thought it would be. Alma and Aster are thrown into political and religious plots and Alma is forced to face the fact that, despite her desperate desire for revenge, she has a soft heart and doesn’t want to kill. Aster is a chaotic red flag who is utterly obsessed with Alma and has an insatiable bloodlust. He can’t comprehend why Alma feels guilt and drives her to commit increasingly violent acts.