Week 16 Review: Only a Monster

From Goodreads:

With the sweeping romance of Passenger and the dark fantasy edge of This Savage Song, this standout YA contemporary fantasy debut from Vanessa Len, is the first in a planned trilogy.

It should have been the perfect summer. Sent to stay with her late mother's eccentric family in London, sixteen-year-old Joan is determined to enjoy herself. She loves her nerdy job at the historic Holland House, and when her super cute co-worker Nick asks her on a date, it feels like everything is falling into place.

But she soon learns the truth. Her family aren't just eccentric: they're monsters, with terrifying, hidden powers. And Nick isn't just a cute boy: he's a legendary monster slayer, who will do anything to bring them down.

As she battles Nick, Joan is forced to work with the beautiful and ruthless Aaron Oliver, heir to a monster family that hates her own. She'll have to embrace her own monstrousness if she is to save herself, and her family. Because in this story . . .

. . . she is not the hero.

My Review:
This was such a great read! The idea of a family of monsters, living their lives, is such a cool concept. I wasn't sure if it would be dark or not, like if they would be dark monsters, or not. Because there is the threat of monster hunters, so it could go either way!

Basically, they're monsters because they steal time from others, so they can travel forwards and backwards. But Joan had no idea about it, even though her family is one of them. To then have her family be killed in a pretty dramatic fashion, by Nick and his group? Yeah, that was pretty brutal!

Getting to explore this world with Joan, learning about how things work, the history and the politics of monsters, was so interesting, given how things work. But that she seems to be just a little bit different, well, things happened, and it'll be interesting to see how that plays out! 

And oh, that ending? That has me dying for the sequel, because the way things ended with Nick hurt, and the fact that nobody remembers what happened besides her and the Liu family, including Aaron...I need to know what's going to happen next! Plus there's the fact that whoever was behind all this wasn't found out yet...

I had a really great time reading this book, and I'm so excited for the sequel! 

Author: Vanessa Len
Series: Monsters #1 
Read: April 18th, 2022
Source: Edelweiss 
Reason Why: Sounded really great, and it's a DAC Book, Prequel & Sequel Challenge 2022 Book and a WoW Book! 
Publisher: Harper Teen
Published: February 22nd 2022

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars