Thabk you so much, NetGalley and Hodder and Stoughton, for the chance to read and review this book in exchange of an honest review.

Only a monster was one of my most anticipated reads in 2022 and I wasn't disappointed at all! Vanessa Len wrote a brilliant book, set in a world populated by morally grey characters, where the lines between good and evil are slimmer than ever and I loved everything!
The story is unique, the characters are so well written and skillfully crafted and the worldbuilding is wonderful and so thrilling! This book is a gem, I couldn't stop reading it and it has everything you could ever dream of!

I really enjoyed this book!!

Normally I struggle with books that are heavily YA, but this one is well written and engaging.

I love that we finally get a book about a villain. We have the monsters POV! But monsters are also misunderstood and not everything is what you expect it to be.

Misunderstandings and forbidden romances - what more could you want?

Loved the writing and found myself heavily engrossed in the story.

I've just finished 'Only a monster' by Vanessa Len and I need a few days to fully recover this. This is such a unique and thrilling YA novel, that I just couldn't put down. Joan finds out that she's one of the monsters from the stories her Gran would tell her and her cousins while they were growing up, She needs to team up with her family's enemy in order to defeat the hero who is hell bent on destroying all the monsters.

This was such a unique and well developed magic system set in an urban fantasy setting. I was sucked in within a few pages, loving the dark tones from this. Len has created a world where, although the monsters are indeed monsters, we learn how to love them and root for them to win. The characters are all wonderful and varied. You genuinely love them all (well, nearly all!) There's romance, but it doesn't take over from the plot. I loved how I couldn't see how it would end up too.

This is part of a planned trilogy and cannot wait for the next two instalments, though as the first isn't published till February next year I may have to wait longer than I want to! Shame I can't travel through time to read how this series continues! I really recommend 'Only a monster' to fans of YA fantasy. It's so different to everything I've read recently.

Thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for an E-ARC of this brilliant novel.

“Dragons need not fear other dragons”

I think I got whiplash from this book. I absolutely loved this book and something was happening every second! Thank you to Hooder & Stoughton for giving me the chance to read this ARC!

16 year old Joan visits her Gran and family every summer. She loves to follow the rules and history- which is how she meets love interest Nick

Before her first date with Nick, the unexpected happens and then it’s dark. Hours have passed and she’s missed her date.

She goes home to find her family is not just eccentric as she thought and she is half human Half “monster” and can time travel by taking time from humans.

Joan is thrust into a new world who everyone she thought she knew have been keeping secrets. Especially Nick.

This novel is jam packed with angst, betrayal and family love that will keep anyone interested!

There were some occasions where I had to reread because there was just so much information that I was trying to absorb and my mind couldn’t take it!

I loved the mix of different families and what they are known for and how they had to come together to stop the “hero”

If you love star-crossed lovers, forced proximity, and world full of magic and time travel, you will love this!!! Could not reccomend enough!!

Vanessa Len is a completely new author to me and since the blurb and the beautiful cover appealed to me, I thought I’ll give her a try. I love the cover and it fits the plot perfectly and the blurb promises a great story. And what can I say, my expectations of the book were definitely met. Vanessa Len has a great writing style. It is easy to read, exciting, humorous and emotional. You get served a whole range of feelings. I couldn’t put the book down and I read it through in one go. It was just so much fun.

The characters were well worked out and I was able to understand the feelings, the behavior and the respective decisions. Sometimes I felt like I was watching the action right next to the protagonists. Both Nick and Joan were very interesting and it was fun to accompany them on their way. I really liked the dynamics and the dialogues between the two of them. But I really liked the supporting characters too and they rounded off the plot wonderfully.

If you like YA urban fantasy, you should definitely take a look at this book. You will not regret it. I had a wonderful couple of hours of reading and can absolutely recommend the book.

Wow, this book was really good..I couldn’t stop reading! It was really unique from other urban fantasies I have read..I loved the magic and time travel aspects. The main character Joan was well written and I liked her from the start! I love the enemies to lovers. It was full of mystery and intrigue..I can’t wait to see what happens in the next book!

this book turned out to be very different than what i thought it would be

plot
let me explain it in two simple words. time travel.

my thoughts
i really liked how this novel explored themes of morality and life and death. the magic system is also very well done. however, i'm not sure why, the writing felt very childish, almost middle grade-ish, and i wasn't really a fan of that. and boy did i dislike all the characters. i personally found Joan, the protagonist, very annoying. Nick wasn't all that great either, and Aaron was just a stuck up little bitch. now let's talk about the romance. i think this was supposed to be an enemies to lovers but i honestly don't think it should be called that. there could've been such a good build up for the enemies part, and i'm talking ATLEAST ONE dagger to the throat scene, but we were deprived of that :(

this novel was decent. don't get me wrong, it isn't too bad, but definitely not one of the better YA fantasy books i've read.

Why do I always love the stand-offish men?!

I adored the mystery and intrigue in this book and even better yet…
That ending had me sobbing.

You know a book is fantastic when you’re trying to tell your partner about it and you start crying because the author has just ruined your life and your emotions are so raw.

Things I loved about this book:
High stakes
High loss
Enemy soulmates
Morally ambiguous characters

There are supposed to be more books and I don’t know if I can handle the emotional trauma that comes with them… but I’ll read them anyway because this was so good.

It does surprise me that this is meant to be part of a series though. It felts very rounded off and complete. BUT I am super excited to see where Len might take this.

The world building, the plot, the characters, all of this was utter perfection. I was completely engaged throughout this whole read and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

ARC received from the publisher on NetGalley. Thank you!

I had fun reading this book! It was so interesting. It didn't only got me out of the reading ditch, but it also got me hooked. The only time I had to take a break from it was at the end of chapter twelve. It scared me! Ahaha. I was honestly scared for Joan.

I love that the main character is part Malaysian, and that the book location is set in England. I'm Malaysian, and I live in England- so I really like that I was familiar with some of the stuff mentioned in this book.

I still can't decide if I like Joan with Nick or Aaron...

I must say I have a love-hate relationship with the ending. I'm hoping that there will be a sequel?

My panic that I'd only be reading one five star book this year has been unfounded because this book has come along and blown my socks off. I'm somewhat tempted to write this entire review in all-caps, because the book was just that good, but I might save it for some pertinent words. For example: THIS BOOK IS AMAZING AND EVERYONE IS GOING TO LOVE IT.
⠀
Writing a positive review is sometimes harder than a negative one. I could waffle on about the amazing characters for hours. Or perhaps speak in-depth about the plot, and how I was pulled into the story from the very first page. Maybe I'll mention that this is nothing like any book I've read before, with so many incredible ideas that it made me envious I hadn't thought to come up with them myself. Or maybe I'll just repeat that: THIS BOOK IS AMAZING AND EVERYONE IS GOING TO LOVE IT.
⠀
I can't stop thinking about Only A Monster, it's burrowed into my brain and won't leave me alone. I wish I could read it again for the first time and soak up every second of this magical story. The people and places seem so really, and I've already spent hours deciding which family I'd want to be in (all of them. It's all of them), and a long time planning my wedding to Aaron (simultaneously lavish and classy).
⠀
I'm not dropping any spoilers at all for this, but I will say that I needed book two, like, yesterday. My only regret is that I don't have a physical ARC of this, because putting it into my 2021 favourites stack is going to be tricky with just an eARC, but I will find a way.
Only A Monster is out February 2022 and you can preorder it now. Why should you preorder it, I hear you ask. Well, because THIS BOOK IS AMAZING AND EVERYONE IS GOING TO LOVE IT.
⠀
Thank you hodderscape for the eARC. I recieved it through NetGalley in return for my honest review.

3.5 stars!! This was a fun ride!!
Thank you to Hodder for providing me with an e-arc for an honest review.

In this book we follow Joan and she is a monster, or so her gran told her. But all she wanted to be was superman.
One day she takes time from an old man's life, which ends in a monster massacre. Apparently the hero from her childhood stories is real and killing monsters, and he was her first date.

The monster concept is very cool. They take time from people's lives in order to time travel. The monsters are each divided into different families who each have a special abilities.
But Joan is only half human and according to her gran she is going to be powerful.
The king rules the monsters and there are rumors of a sacred timeline. Apparently the current timeline is not the true timeline and Joan is going to find out what that means to safe her family and all future monsters from massacre.

Halfway through I though this was going to be at least 4 stars as I loved the sacred timeline concept. It gave me huge Loki vibes! Unfortunately the last 25% felt very flat. The reason behind the timeline was just a bummer for me and I really wanted to meet this scary king. I know this is going to be a trilogy so maybe the was the issue but overall the ending felt flat. Defenitly going to check out this author's future work!

This book was one of my favourite reads of 2021 and it’s not even published until next year! Thank you so much NetGalley and HodderScape for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Joan is a 16 year old girl who always follows the rules and loves history (a girl after my own heart), so much so that she volunteers at a museum in her spare time - this is where she meets love interest Nick.

As she gets ready for her first date with Nick, an incident happens where she blacks out and loses half a day, missing her date. She finds out that she’s half human and half monster, and the monsters from her childhood stories are real. In this world, monsters aren’t as we know them, but are time travellers who are able to travel by taking time from humans.

After another incident, Joan learns that Nick is also not as he seems, he is the famed hero from her childhood stories who’s main mission in life is to rid the world of monsters.

I loved the magic system in this world and how time travel/history was portrayed. I also loved the aspects of the different powers that each monster family has and I can’t wait to see how the story continues to develop.

I loved reading about a main character who isn’t naturally rebellious, I loved seeing how she navigated this new world and how she adapted to all these new situations. I struggled to put this one down and wholeheartedly recommend this to anyone who likes YA, history or anything time travel.

There is plenty of angst, betrayal, mysteries and high stakes as well as forced proximity, star-crossed lovers and other tropes which I’m definitely missing - pick this up!!!

Filled to the brim with a unique magic system and wonderfully filled out characters- very different from other YA fantasy books I have read and I loved every minute of it.

This urban fantasy YA book follows the story of Joan, a half-human half-monster girl who discovers that she belongs to one of the 12 monster families in London who steal time from humans to travel.

This book has an interesting twist on the star-crossed lovers trope across different timelines - the romance does nothing overshadow the world and the plot and only leaves you yearning for more when you reach the end of this short story.

It’s really interesting to read the story from an antagonists point of view because at the fundamental level, Joan was a monster but she was not evil and throughout the book, the writer makes you question whether the hero is the good person in this story.

I also found that the magic system is really unique and cool and not something I’ve comes across before.

I highly recommend reading this light read as it’s very easy and leaves just enough questions at the end to continue reading but in a total agony.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder and Stoughton for the arc.

Thank you to Hodderscape for an E-Arc of this book via Netgally.
I wasn't entirely sure what I was expecting with this book, I went in a little blind!
The story follows Joan, a girl who suddenly discovers the world is full of real life monsters, including herself and her family. Her grandma has always told her stories and one of her favourites was about the hero, a boy born to slay the monsters of the world, monsters like her.
Joan is drawn to a boy who works alongside her at the museum, he seems to be as interested in her and she is to him, but fate has a cruel sense of humour. Joan is thrown into a world of danger, where she must make some tough decisions for the sake of all monsters.
I really enjoyed the theme of this book, it was something very different for me and I loved the fact that so much of London was included. The stakes are high in this urban fantasy, the world building is great and the characters really grew on me throughout, some more than others! Unfortunately I didn't love it though. For me personally there wasn't enough romance, but it wasn't actually needed in the story so this is just something that I seem to be needing in my books lately. In no way is that the authors fault and if you aren't all for the romance then you definitely need to check this out!
I wasn't aware that this was going to be a trilogy but I'm so glad it is as I have so many questions! Maybe there will be more romance in the next 2, there was a hint of a love triangle so we shall see where that goes.

Biggest regards to Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley for providing me with this digital advanced copy. All opinion posted in this review is mine.

Well, that was a ride. My second most-anticipated book of 2022 turned out to be the exact opposite of what I wanted, and I have yet to decide whether it's in a good way or a bad one.

What is this book about?

Sixteen-year-old Joan passes her summer vacation at her late mother's family's place. She has developed a crush on Nick, her co-worker at Holland House. She soon discovers a grimmer and much more terrifying truth. The Hunt family is more than just a prideful one: they're monsters and Nick is not a simple civilian but a legendary monster slayer. As Joan's life is turned over, she soon has to confront Nick and her own identity, alongside a member of an enemy monster family, Aaron Olivers.

My general thoughts

The blurb compares this book with This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab and I was so mad to discover that the similarity between these two books is non-existent. I enjoyed each minute of TSS and I find a reason to love every single character while I have very conflicted opinions about OAM and I have a huge dent against Joan, the protagonist.
OAM is a hard book to review since I don't really like or hate it. Overall, I think it was an average ride, there was an attempt at writing a character-driven story (that failed miserably in my opinion) and the plot is not strong enough to stand on its own. However, I was still able to enjoy the story in a large part, and I am excited to know about the sequel.

Things I like:

The magic system with monsters
Even though OAM is pitched as a dark fantasy like This Savage Song, the presence of monsters is the only similarity between the two books. While TSS was savage and dark, OAM weaves an entire society of monsters that exists alongside humans' one, not very dark as described in the blurb, but mesmerizing, nevertheless. I adore the concept where monsters can steal time from humans by touch alone and where each family has its own unique power. I would have immersed myself completely in this world, if not because of that one cardinal sin I will mention later.

The hero archetype - Nick
I adore books with violent heroes. Nick is the best boy in the book because when he wants to destroy something, he just f*cking took it and I was here for it. His backstory made me want to cry because it was so raw and devastating, yet here he stands.

The gay romance between T.H. and J.L.
That's it, that's my point.

The ending
I have a fun time with the first several chapters of the book, hate most of its middle bit, like the action at 70%, and absolutely love the three chapters. In my opinion, that last 10% saves the entire book for me. I frecking love it because it destroyed my heart and soul. That scene between those two characters made me want to slam my head against the bus window because Vanessa Len has no right to hurt me like that. I also discover a whole new favorite trope from that 10%: star-crossed enemies *evil giggles*

Things I don't like:

Most of the characters:
This is the definition of absent character development. They went through so much, and hardly of them even change.
- Aaron: Oh the grumpy-enemy/rival cliché love interest. He is so boring because whenever he opened his mouth, he only says the same snarky things (I will ignore that conversation with Joan in the end because it is ridiculous)
- Ruth: I like Ruth, but she was nothing but a chaperon to Aaron and Joan. She shouldn't be reduced to only that but sadly I am not the author.
- T.H.: He only deserves rights when he is with J.L. Otherwise, he is one of the more acceptable characters.
- Dorothy Hunt: Don't know if I should hate her or not but I was annoyed a lot by her dumb secrecy.
- Joan: She will have her own section

The romance:
If Joan ends up with Nick I will riot because he deserves better. If Joan ends up with Aaron I pity them because the only way that relationship would end in a messy breakup very soon. And that's because the characters are all annoying that I can't personally handle one of them.

The cardinal sin: Joan Chang-Hunt

Look, I have never read about a protagonist so dumb and so annoying that it physically HURT reading about her. I have lost count of how many times I had rolled my eyes or turned off the phone to avoid the cringe. For a sixteen-year-old, Joan does certainly behave like a spoiled toddler. I get it, she is devastated by the tragedy of that evening, but it doesn't mean that she can disregard everything else, putting her only allies left in grave danger (by bullying them to come with her) because of a ridiculous hypothesis she randomly invented by snapping her fingers. "But this is a YA book, the protagonist can behave like a teenager." Yeah, I agree, but I am thoroughly convinced that a seven-year-old toddler can make more mature decisions than Joan. I can excuse a book full of plot holes, but I draw the line at cringey protagonists that makes me want to bawl my eyes out.

Joan is a Chinese-English mixed child, so obviously, the Chinese side from her father is mentioned a lot in the book, and how this human blood flow affects others' POV in regard to Joan. Joan herself would mention a lot about how she loves her father and how she longs to return home to him, but it seems like not once in the middle bit of the books she thought about her father. Sounds kinda dicey to me.

Conclusion:

Only a Monster could have been rated much higher, maybe a 4 or even a 4.5 if not because of Joan. I honestly hope that Len would care more about characters' development, and maybe she can make Joan (much) less childish, because while I love the world and I am excited to have the sequels (I heard I will be a trilogy which I find suitable,) I can't go through another 400 pages of Joan's whiny behaviors.

I really wanted to like this book, but there was just something about it that was off for me. None of the characters felt well fleshed out, especially the side characters - they felt vague. I wasn't a huge fan of Joan either. At one point she questions why everyone was blindly following her orders, and I had to agree. Also, I wasn't very impressed by how disempowered I felt Joan to be of her powers throughout. She comes to recognize it fully at the very end. I would have liked her to feel that inner strength a bit more.

However, this book did really well with casual representation. It was really diverse without making a big deal of it or couching the diversity in long winded explanatory monologues like some other authors do.

Finally, though there was plenty of foreshadowing, I was so disappointing by the ending. My little heart couldn't take it! There were a lot of unanswered questions, which would set the book up well for a sequel, but I like that this one didn't rely on it.

Source of book: NetGalley (thank you!)
Relevant disclaimers: None
Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.

Okay, the balance of the universe has been restored. After my last YA, where the hero dug up bodies, I am once again back into “love interest is a mass murderer” territory. Although to give Only A Monster credit, it is pretty clear that this is kind of a romantic impediment. Not least because “the heroine’s entire family” is included within the mass murder thing.

And in case my point hasn’t just made itself: holy fuck me, this book is dark. Brilliant but, oh my God, is it dark. Like, read until 5am in a state of heart-gripped anxiety and flailing emosh dark. I don’t know if it’s my lack of familiarity with YA in general that keeps leaving me stranded in what feel like incredibly intense books but … YA seems to be doing SOME THINGS at the moment. I mean, can someone tell me, are the kids all right? I don’t think the kids are all right.

In any case, Only A Monster is one hell of a ride. Its bones feel familiar enough—heroine comes from a family with mysterious powers, there’s a cute boy, there’s an aloof boy, there’s a myth about the past or the future, the heroine might have a special power that is beyond all the other special powers—but when it comes to stories like this, it’s not about the tropes, it’s about how you use them. And this book deploys them masterfully, twists them masterfully, shows you new sides of them, and then totally wrecks you with them. The bastard.

I don’t actually want to talk too much what’s going on here because Only A Monster is super well-structured, doling out knowledge to the reader alongside its heroine at exactly the right pace, and discovering the details of the world, uncovering its mysteries, and being taken aback by everything you didn’t quite put together, is part of the pleasure of the journey. Narratives like this—where the world we recognise sitting alongside a vast and magical one with its own rules and history—are not exactly uncommon (there’s an irritatingly famous example though it’s far from the first or only) but they’re endlessly compelling when they’re done right. For my money, Only A Monster does it very, very right. I would even go so far as to say it knocks said irritatingly famous example out of the park. It’s not fucking twee, for a start, and self-aware, willing to interrogate its own complexities and inequities. Plus it’s effortlessly diverse in a very real and natural way. Queer characters are queer on page, the cast includes multiple people of colour, and the heroine is herself mixed race. Oh, and as a sidenote, it’s set in a London that feels recognisably and specifically like London. I love UK books that make the UK feel like the UK, y’know?

Also: time-travel. There’s motherfucking time-travel in this. If there’s one trope, apart from “this unit has a soul” that kills me absolutely dead in the heart department it’s the whole “we must save the world, but it will make us forget what we are to each other” thing. God. Help. My emotions.

There’s so much to admire in Only A Monster: the world-building, the setting, the plot that doesn’t let up for a moment. But the writing (which is witty and engaging enough to keep the whole thing from spiralling down a plughole of desolation) needs a notable shout out, as does the character work. Joan is a great heroine, out of her depth, but resourceful and determined, the supporting cast are all intriguing and repay emotional investment, and I found myself surprisingly sympathetic to Joan’s two potential love interests. Even though one is a complicatedly damaged poshboy and the other is a complicatedly damaged MASS MURDERER.

All of which said, I have the mixed-est feelings about this being the first book in a trilogy. Part of what’s so successful about Only A Monster is that it feels like a complete (albeit wildly tragic) arc, rather than the first part of a really long three-part story that has just been lopped off from the whole. And, as a reader, I super appreciated that: I’m a bit tired of planned trilogies that leave you with the narrative equivalent of blue balls after book one. This, by contrast, just left me curious and emotionally fulfilled. Which, yes. Thank you for respecting my time and investment, Only A Monster. I can’t deny, however, that there’s part of me, the deranged masochist part, that kind of … likes is a hard word for a conclusion so brutal and compromised, but there’s a powerful coherence to the book’s arc as it currently stands. On the other hand, there is clearly so much more of this world to explore—antagonists as yet unmasked, much still unknown, carefully established themes to be developed—that I will be running not walking the moment book two is available.

I also suggest you run not walk for this one. It's an incredible read.

(Do be wary of the content guidance, though, and protect yourself: I am not kidding when I said this book goes to some places and takes on some stuff).

Wow! What an amazing book! I was so immersed in the story that I could not put this book down and read it in one sitting. Without giving too much away, I'll just tell you that I loved the MC from the start, her character was well thought out and developed. The unique magic system and anti hero pov was a nice surprise. I can’t wait for the next book to find out what happens next.
Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publishers for a free ARC in exchange for a review.

4.5/5
This book was such a good surprise!!

So many things pleased me, so here we go.
First of all, Joan as the main character was great, her determination and bravery really stood out. She won’t let anyone or anything prevent her from doing what she needs to do. If you love morally gray characters, this book delivers.
The novel takes place in London - aka my favorite city - and it was so good to revisit some places at different period of times.
The magic system was so intriguing and rich. I’m sure there is still so much to learn.
We’re introduced to powerful families that don’t like each other and have very different and original abilities - which means rivalry, condescension, feud and we love it.
Last but not least, everything can happen - not only because the stakes are high but also thanks to the time travel concept that offers so many possibilities for the rest of the series. I’m living for those books that play with my emotions and nerves.

The only downside is that it comes out in February and I already need the sequel right now - I have so many questions!