Only a Monster

Only a Monster, Book 1

By: Vanessa Len

Narrated by: Vera Chok

Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

The sweeping romance of Passenger meets the dark fantasy edge of This Savage Song in this stunning contemporary fantasy debut from Vanessa Len, where the line between monster and hero is razor thin.

Don’t forget the rule. No one can know what you are. What we are. You must never tell anyone about monsters.

Joan has just learned the truth: her family are monsters, with terrifying, hidden powers.

And the cute boy at work isn’t just a boy: he’s a legendary monster slayer, who will do anything to destroy her family.

To save herself and her family, Joan will have to do what she fears most: embrace her own monstrousness. Because in this story…she is not the hero.

Dive deep into the world of Only a Monster: hidden worlds dwell in the shadows, beautiful monsters with untold powers walk among humans, and secrets are the most powerful weapon of all.

©2022 Vanessa Len (P)2022 HarperCollins Publishers

Unexpected Ending

I couldn’t put the book down. It had such a unique plot and kept the reader guessing until the end. It wasn’t the best ending but it didn’t make me mad, just slightly disappointed.

Simply enjoyable story

Overall an enjoyable story. This odd but effective combination of monsters and time travel was pleasantly a good one. Also the hero and monster subplot also a twist to normal stories. I think it worked well.

The reader was good and didn't distract from story.

Glad I bought.

Amazing Narrator

Loved the story, very interesting, I was hooked from the beginning. Looking forward to the next book in this series.

A nice YA fantasy

This book is a nice new entry to the YA fantasy realm and I found the idea of us as readers being supposedly on the side of the bad ones (the monsters) quite original and interesting. The lines between good and bad weren’t obvious and I was debating myself the entire time while reading it. Even though as a whole this book was enjoyable and I liked it some elements were severely lacking. Joan’s power’s weren’t explained properly and I felt like more than anything they were a magical fix instead of a completely thought out abilities with rules and limitations. The timelines also weren’t explored enough, while the notion that the timeline strived to correct itself so that monsters couldn’t change the events that were supposed to happen was understandable enough the fact that some monsters could play with its’ rules and also the question about what happened to the original timeline were left as mysteries probably to be solved in the next book in the series. In addition, the supposedly forbidden romance (or maybe even lost romance) in the centre of the story wasn’t deep enough and instead of letting us get to know more about the love between Joan and Nick we get constant repetition of how they felt when they first met so that when the final betrayal comes it hardly evokes any emotions or sympathy towards them. The same is true for all the relationships between characters in the book. They were all too surface level for my liking and the mission always took priority instead of character building.

In conclusion, this book unfortunately has some lost emotional potential and felt short of my expectations based on early reviews. It’s not that I don’t recommend it, it’s just that there are more complete and well rounded entries to this genre that would likely be more worthy of your time.

love it

great story I enjoy this book I would recommend someone else to read this book it's very intriguing could not put it down I vastly enjoyed narrator was awesome as well

Fun and interesting, but lacking subtlety

I found it really enjoyable, and I'm looking forward to the next book. It's definitely silly and a bit on the nose, but I still found it to be fun.

There are some plot mistakes. For example, someone has an ability. There is an instance where they should use it but doesn't. Turns out much later that they lost that ability years ago, but didn't tell the reader until then.

The voice acting could have been better. I felt that there were a handful of lines that the actress heavily put her interpretation on where I didn't agree. I understand that all voice actors reading books aloud struggle with this, but there were a few times when I think it was just too much.

In summary, read this if you love this genre and want an interesting idea with potential. Don't read this if you want a sophisticated literary work.

Creative and unusual story! loved it!

the author kept me up late! I could barely put this book down. The characters came alive and the world building was amazing. I highly recommend it.

Almost DNF

I just wasn’t into the reading style of the book for some reason. But I powered through it and actually liked the outcome. A lot of history between characters. Looking forward to the next book!

Captivating and Exciting

Such an incredible and enticing plot. Kept me on the edge of my seat from start to finish. The characters were colorful and well written. I would have loved a touch more backstory for the supporting characters.

An intriguing twist to time travel

Not gonna give much details here, because I don’t wanna give spoilers, but this was a unique take on time travel, including a romance and interesting sets of powers. The narrative moves along quickly with good character development, especially for the protagonist, and overall a fun great ride. The characters were different and fully flushed out. The world in which this time travel occurs was a brilliant amalgamation of the real world the designed one. Loved it.