kaylabobayla 's review for:

House of the Beast by Michelle Wong

3.75

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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House of the Beast is an intriguing gothic fantasy featuring twisted romance, revenge AND eldritch horrors, accented with beautiful art throughout! This is the story of bastard Alma, forced to live with her father after the illness and death of her mother, and how she finds refuge and partnership in the form of an apparition of her Beast God whom her fathers house has pledged allegiance and devotion. Teamed up with the “prince” Aster that only she can see, she formulates a plan of revenge on the House that has estranged and tormented her. 

Although the plot was extremely intriguing, this book was slightly off the mark. That being said, so incredibly impressive for a debut!! Mood was appropriately dark and literarily gloomy, and the characters are rich in background and varying motivations that unfold as the story grows - and I loved getting to know the side characters! Of big note, author truly shines when invoking their graphic novel background! The art was one of my most favorite things, and is almost alone a good enough reason to preorder the Deluxe Edition. I always looked forward to how the author would sketch a scene, or I’d be pleasantly surprised to see a small feature of a chapter given a drawing between paragraph breaks. Beginning pacing of the story oscillates from fast to medium, and then after about the halfway mark really picks up! I found my mind unfortunately wandering in the beginning, but developments and plot progression would pull me back in over and over! Overall a very fun read, and do recommend checking this out on August 5, 2025! Thank you to Michelle Wong and HarperVoyager for allowing me to receive an advanced reader copy!