Gr 9 Up—Joan discovers her monstrous heritage and is determined to use her ability to steal time to save her
family. This time-travel paranormal is a fun, adrenaline-infused adventure, entwined with deeper questions about
morality and justice as readers follow Joan on her ascent into villainy.

This one is all over the place with nonsensical conclusions off of unrelated information and a lot of very unbelievable reactions and surreal dialogue.
Reading this felt a bit like experiencing a fever dream.

The third-person perspective seemed weirdly distant and removed because of the odd way the MC and her surrounding are described and the time flow seems choppy even without the whole time-jump mess that also makes no sense whatsoever.

I didn't read enough of the book to feel justified in giving this a rating but I am pretty confident it would be 2 stars at most if I kept on reading.

Thank you NetGalley and Harper Teen for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

4.5 stars, rounded up. It was a quick read for me but kept me entertained and drawn in from the beginning. After struggling recently with books not capturing my full attention until later in the book and/or not connecting with the writing style this was a welcome change. After this and "All of Us Villains" I am thinking that maybe really dark YA fantasy books are my thing. I'm excited to see where this keeps going! ( )

3 ⭐️
Not a horrible book but not mind blowing either. I'm unsure if I'll continue the series. I also don't get why the author felt the need to capitalize the word black when describing some character's skin color.....it’s not an ethnicity. Other than that it's a decently written book. ( )

Originally posted on Just Geeking by.

Content warnings:
From the author’s website:

On and offscreen deaths of parents and guardians
On and offscreen deaths of family members
Threats of violence
Violence
Blood
Murder
Weapon use
Brainwashing
Interrogation
Involuntary drug use
Real-world racist microaggressions
Fantasy xenophobia



Only a Monster turns the hero genre on it’s head in so many ways, and goes beyond the simple premise of she’s the monster, he’s a hero, and they’re in love. Way, way beyond. As another review I read stated, this is one of those books that takes a bunch of nice sweet tropes, like star crossed loves, and then takes a massive sledgehammer to them. That doesn’t mean there is no happiness or love in this book, it’s just not a fairytale type of book.

Len has woven a masterpiece of fantasy and emotion, taking readers on a journey through time and this is a love letter to adult YA fans if I ever saw one, especially 90s children like myself. I don’t want to go into too much detail about the powers of the monsters, so I’m just going to leave it as time travel. Naturally, it’s not as simple as that because why would they be considered monsters and hunted down otherwise.

Joan is forced to use her powers to escape Nick and stay alive, doing the one thing she never wanted to do. She ends up in 1993 with Aaron Oliver, the heir of a monster family that hates her family. Some things are bigger than family feuds, and a legendary hero who can kill monsters as easy as can be is most definitely one of them.

It was so strange for me reading about the 90s from a modern 16-year-old’s perspective, and it was also such a nostalgic moment too. The novel is set in London as well, so there were a lot of things that were particularly relevant to my childhood. When Joan was remarking about the London Eye being missing from the skyline, I remember it being built. There was also a nice personal connection for me when a Crystal Palace football kit turned up because I grew up five minutes away from Crystal Palace. That is actually my home team although, in a fit of teenage rebellion I always refused to support them along with the rest of the family because “they sucked”.

I struggled to find a rating I was happy with for this one, and I realised that it was wholly depending on whether Only a Monster was a standalone novel or not. The book ends in a way that it could be either a part of a series or an open-ended standalone. It is a part of a trilogy, so it’s a solid four stars for me, otherwise it would have only been a three because it definitely felt like it wasn’t completely wrapped up. I’d have liked to have given it more, however, I don’t feel like everything was as solid as it could have been in a few places.

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