This is a fun comedy horror story with some really great original ideas. However, for me there was a bit too much going on, almost like it was trying too hard at times. A decent read all the same.

Derek Stabbers and Paxton Hellswood have no reason to be near each other at all - until after a number of violently unfortunate events Paxton finds herself sharing Dereks body and they're stuck together for the forseeable future now.

Derek wants nothing more than for Paxton to be gone - the monsters were the reason his parents were wrongly convicted of murder and blamed it on mental illnesses. Paxton wants to go back to her life alone, she's spent the last hundred years since she rose from the dead minding her own business and she'd much rather be alone than with him.

Now Paxton and Derek need to take the next steps of their journey together whether they like it or not and maybe they'll learn something about what a monster really is along the way.

This was a very funny horror-comedy with excellent world building and a really sweet, poignant message about human connection and loneliness. For me, it moved so quickly that at times it was hard to get invested in the story and I found it personally jarring at times but this was still a fun read and anyone who loves zany, vibrant versions of a classic monster story will absolutely love this!

I’m really glad I gave this a chance and stuck with it. The story was a little hard to get into and the ending is A LOT. However this turned out to be a very smart and funny satire of monster stories. It was immensely enjoyable.

If you've ever entered the world of Travis Betz, then you likely won't be much surprised by his latest effort "Everyday Monsters." I first became acquainted with Betz through his work as an actor on the indie film "Little Big Top," a dark yet sentimental film in which the Indiana-born actor excelled and set the tone for the career as an actor and filmmaker to follow.

He's directed such films as "Lo," "Joshua," and "The Dead Inside" while his work on the "Paper Cuts" series is imaginative and awesome.

Betz is a unique voice and once you know that and accept it, the complex yet surprisingly simple story that unfolds in "Everyday Monsters" won't be a surprise at all.

At his best, Betz taps into both intimate and universal concerns rather sublimely. The same is true with "Everyday Monsters." It's also not surprising given Betz's film background that "Everyday Monsters" is an incredibly visual film to an almost exhausting degree. I personally had to read the book slower than I usually read because, quite simply, it's a book that requires energy and investment in its story and in its characters.

The characters start with Derek Stabbers, a young man left alone to live with his slightly older brother after his parents are institutionalized following their conviction for brutally murdering several neighbors. The State called it mental illness. Derek knows otherwise - he blames monsters.

The characters continue with Paxton Hellswood. She's barely been out of the house in at least a 100 years since she was afforded a second chance at life that she's perfectly fine wasting away on the comfort of her couch.

After a series of violent mishaps, Paxton's incorporeal form becomes stuck inside Derek and the two enemies have to find a way to semi-peacefully co-exist.

Together, they embark on a weird but wonderful journey that that is simultaneously dark and violent, a little perverse, and frequently rather sweet.

In other words, it's a Travis Betz creation.

The truth is I've always had an appreciation for the worlds created by Betz. Perhaps it's a result of my own frequently dark life turned into something resembling Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, but I love the way Betz is able to explore both the best and the worst of us as human beings and as monsters. While Betz is an experienced writer, you can tell at times he's still sort of fumbling his way around figuring out how to make the images and the story in his mind fit within the confines and structure of an actual novel. It's safe to say Betz has a very freestyle sense of creativity and, at times, you can sense that he's feeling his way around how to make that creativity fit within the novel format.

While the book's description sounds rather straightforward, rest assured that "Everyday Monsters" actually gets quite a bit more complex. For the most part, however, "Everyday Monsters" stays cohesive as characters intertwine and storylines crossover and eventually the story itself winds down with something resembling resolution for darn near everyone involved.

The truth is I enjoyed "Everyday Monsters" quite a bit. While it required quite a bit of an investment, it was worth that investment and characters like Derek, Pax, Lotti, and Jordan linger in my mind still. This is really not a book for children, though late teens and young adults won't read anything in here they haven't talked about in school or with their buddies. Admittedly, they probably haven't actually done these things. At least I hope not.

With "Everyday Monsters," Betz continues what in many ways has been an underlying theme of many of his works - there really are no monsters other than the ones we create and the vast majority of us are just really starved for something resembling genuine connection. It's a theme that's particularly powerful in this pandemic-influenced world and it's a theme that Betz has brought to life in a dark, humorous, violent, sexual, sentimental, sarcastic, and weirdly sweet way in "Everyday Monsters."

While entertaining at times, there is a lot going on in this book. So much so that it’s hard to follow exactly what’s going on. I love comedy horror, but I feel even if this were a movie I’d struggle keeping up.

I do feel the worldbuilding was not bad. It felt like an east coast counter part to Sunnydale. In fact the whole book made me think of Buffy the Vampire Slayer mixed a bit with the Umbrella Academy, though with more bizarre situations.

All in all I think there was promise in the book but it would’ve done better with “less is more”.

I wanted to love this book, but it was all over the place. It has a promising premise of a vampire hunter and a vampire stuck in one body on an adventure. But it quickly becomes a confusing mess. A world in which monsters are supposedly a secret and tons of humans know about them. It makes an attempt to be a romance, adventure, sci-fi, horror, adult and YA? I wasn't sure what to make of the confusing plot, in which a werepire is killed and her spirit goes into a vampire hunter and her shade and him (them) try to figure out what to do to have both their needs met. I'm all about suspension of belief when it comes to supernatural stories but the solution was so nonsensical that I was honestly speechless. Overall, it wasn't very well written and I was over it maybe 15% of the way in. It reads like an angsty teen fanfiction of classic horror or an EARLY draft of a b-movie.