3 September 2015

Monsters by Emerald Fennell

Series: N/A, Standalone
Publication date: September 3, 2015
Publisher: Hot Key Books
Genres: Thriller
Format: eArc
Source: The publisher through netgalley in exchange for an honest review
Pages: 288


A blackly comic tale about two children you would never want to meet.

Set in the Cornish town of Fowey, all is not as idyllic as the beautiful seaside town might seem. The body of a young woman is discovered in the nets of a fishing boat. It is established that the woman was murdered. Most are shocked and horrified. But there is somebody who is not - a twelve-year-old girl. She is delighted; she loves murders. Soon she is questioning the inhabitants of the town in her own personal investigation. But it is a bit boring on her own. Then Miles Giffard, a similarly odd twelve-year-old boy, arrives in Fowey with his mother, and they start investigating together. Oh, and also playing games that re-enact the murders. Just for fun, you understand...


A book about two twelve-year-olds that is definitely not for kids.

I was invited to read this and I probably wouldn’t have read it if I hadn’t been invited. The summary sounds quite intriguing but the book has left me speechless.

I think the beginning is my favorite part of the entire book; What do to monsters do when they pass each other in the forest? Smile.

Monsters is told from the perspective of a neglected 12-year-old girl.

The main character is a girl, she’s 12 years old and an orphan. In the beginning we’re clearly told that her parents died in a boating accident three years prior. Our main character does not have an easy life; her parents were definitely not loving parents and her grandmother has no idea how to take care of her. Her grandmother made her read the violent bits in gory books out loud to her. Our main character always spends her summer in Cornwall with her Aunt Maria and Uncle Frederick – who are not happy to see her either.
She doesn’t really know how things function and she’s quite macabre and peculiar. When she grows up she’d like to marry her teacher and even though she likes her school she sometimes think it would be better if someone burned the place to the ground.
I didn’t really like the main character at all, I found her way too peculiar and odd for my taste. I did sympathize with her though and I think it’s quite sad that she had to deal with all that growing up and possibly for the rest of her life but it still didn’t make me like her

Our main character makes a friend while she’s at her Aunt’s and Uncle’s place. His name is Miles and he’s just as odd as peculiar as the main character. Miles mother is quite obsessed with him and won’t leave him out of her sight. He always gets what he wants though, spoiled as he is, even though he never speaks up to her.
I didn’t like Miles, he is quite scary and he’s definitely not a good friend to our main character – even though he’s the only friend she has.

I think the first 20% of the story is information dumping. You get to know the main character’s life story, all the gory details and who everyone is. I didn’t really remember a ton since it’s quite a lot of information at once and I’m definitely not a fan of that.

The setting was quite thrilling but that’s really all there is to say about it. The focus lies on the story at hand instead of how it looks and I had a hard time imagining how the scene looked like.

The ending.. It was good, I’ll give you that. I’d thought long and hard about who the murderer might be and I was actually right, if I’d stuck with my first choice, but I was seriously surprised by how it all played out – and a bit sad. But you’ll see why for yourself if you decide to read it.


As you can probably gather I wasn’t that impressed with Monsters. The story sounds intriguing but the characters are hard to love and it’s hard to imagine the story. I settled on a solid 3 berry rating since I did finish it and I was interested in finding the murderer. And the ending did surprise me!


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