Thank you to Net Galley and the publishers for sending me copy of the book in exchange for a review.

I think this book is definitely a sign for me to branch away from YA as this felt boring, obvious and very much same to many others I have read. Not very original to me.

I really enjoyed Vanessa Len's debut Only a Monster. The word was amazing and I love all the characters and the way they interacted with each other. I can't wait until the next one.

Only monsters can travel back in time. Only monsters can steal time from humans. The hero is born to kill monsters.

Kept hidden from the world of monsters, Joan was ignorant of everything related to that side of her family. As a result, Joan ran around alone in a different time period, spoke about things without a care, and lost an important item during her trip. However, this is also a trait that made her stubborn about finding an alternative solution. What’s the use of this time travel ability if she can’t do anything in the past to change the future?

Only a Monster reminded me a little of Loki, the Disney+ series, with the time travel element and the secrets that came with it. The concept of time within this world stated that the timeline readjusts itself even when someone makes a change in the past. This means that Joan will still lose her family when she returns back to her original time. Stubbornly, Joan refused to believe that.

Joan is a well-balanced character which made me both like and dislike her at various moments in the book. Joan’s lack of knowledge of time traveling puts her in immense danger if she were to fade out or be stuck in that place. However, that also meant that she wasn’t locked in by the rules and could think out of the box. Other than her Hunt powers, it seems like Joan has another innate ability.

Something about family in fantasy books just draws me. In Only a Monster, there are twelve great families in London and each of them has a family power. The only thing they share in common is their ability to steal time and travel through time. As usual, not all families can stand each other and there are longstanding grudges between them.

The dynamic between Aaron and Joan, the two surviving rivals, was interesting, to say the least. While their families might have been fighting for generations, that night forever tied the two together. Although Aaron was willing to settle down at a different time, all Joan wants is to change the future and get her family back. Adding in the human hero, Nick, who has a vendetta against monsters, Joan’s love life is increasingly complicated.

Although a love triangle is on the horizon, nothing romantic is in Joan’s mind for now since her main goal is to save her family. Nick and Aaron are both compelling male leads, but I do have a bias for Aaron.

It’s been a while since I read about time traveling as a main element. I really enjoyed Vanessa Len’s debut, Only a Monster, especially with the concept of major monster families in London and how they all have their specific powers. I have no idea what to expect from book two with how Only a Monster ended.

This was an absolutely incredible debut fantasy and I loved every minute of it. Len has created such a magical world that involves time travel magic and I adored it. Don't get me wrong, the magic system is slightly complex and I was left with questions at the end of the book but it didn't bother me because I felt just as confused at the protagonist did and I like that - we learned at the same pace she did. This is the sort of novel where you can't help but like the "villain" but also root for the main character who is made out to be the baddy. The writing was beautiful, easy to follow and I was completely drawn into this world. Cannot wait for book two and I do not know why I waited so long to pick it up!

I enjoyed this book and I think it has great potential to be a brilliant series. In all honesty I am firmly on the 'Only A Monster Book 2 Cheerleading Squad'!
Whilst the beginning was really slow I started to get into the story around about the half way mark. Joan for me was a marmite character, I wish that she had a bit more consistency with her own character development and a little bit more gumption. Aaron for me needs to be end-game... His character was just perfection and I desperately want him to be the one for Joan. There was so much potential for a proper enemies to lovers romance but it just completely fell short and sadly that is where it lost a star. The writing style was easy to read, follow and keep up with especially when there were alot of different timelines involved.

Just one niggling thought for this book: Joan is portrayed as half Asian but I felt like the author could've massively improved her storyline for this aspect of Joan's character.
Overall this book was a 4 star rating.

This book was so good! Why on Earth have I been putting it off for so long????

I read this one super fast, it was so easy to get absorbed into Joan’s world and care about the characters. It was so fast-paced with twists and turns everywhere which kept me engaged!

Joan is a super interesting character and I can’t wait to learn more about her as the series continues, I have so many unanswered questions!

My only real criticism is that sometimes it lacked depth, everything was only surface deep, but I think that the continuation of the series could really iron that out, especially with regard to the world building elements!

The setting was just *chef’s kiss* I was reading it on my way into London and it was just so magnetic. The whole Whitehall bit just blew me away and will love in my head rent free for a long time yet

I really hope that in the next book we will see more interactions between the Hunts and the Olivers, especially Aaron whose grumpy facade has won my heart!

4 stars

Thank you so much to Hodder and Stoughton and NetGalley for my gifted e-ARC, I really enjoyed myself! Xx

Buzzwords: family rivalry, morally grey characters, time travel, magical powers, biracial MC.

Only a Monster was a solid YA read that flipped a lot of tropes on their heads. The story was unique, and full of unexpected twists and turns!

We don’t often get stories told from the villains POV, and I found it to be refreshing and very enjoyable. Len was able to take us on a journey of self-exploration; Joan learning about her monster heritage and the moral questions surrounding what that means for her.

I wish we’d gotten more from certain characters, but I’m sure they’ll be in the next book 👀. I thought the ending was great and can’t wait for more books set in this world!

TW: death, gore, violence, imprisonment

Loved this book. Nice and entertaining. Really enjoyed the overall plot and the story line up. Would recommend it to people who love to read a good plot with lot of secrets

Such a fun concept for a young adult fantasy, Will keep you turning the pages and taps into not only enemies to friends (and more), but also the exact opposite, as well as the main character being one of the 'villains'. A really enjoyable read.

This was a fun YA fantasy which had a unique premise and a cool world. I felt like you could tell this was the author's debut a tad but I overall really enjoyed it. We had a good range of diverse characters and I really liked that they were not stereotypical in this.

We follow Joan who discovers that she is from a family of monsters, meaning she can time travel by stealing time from members of the public. When her entire family is murdered, Joan must use the powers that she sees as monstrous to save them by going into the past to try and prevent the chain of events.

I did feel that the complexities that were needed in the world-building would call for a little more of a detailed and longer read than this, but for a YA audience, it is fine. I think this definitely falls in the younger half of YA, I found elements of it reminiscent of Caraval by Stephanie Garber.

Overall I would be interested in reading the sequel which for me is one of the most t important parts of my review. If the author can convince me to go back into their world or their writing then it is definitely worthy of going into and trying it. A fun, quick and unique YA fantasy for fans on Caraval in my opinion.

This is one of a few book that I have not been able to put down! I stayed up all night to read it now I'm left with a need for a sequel! I fell in love with the unique characters and I adored the enemy soulmates arc. The world was beautifully built and it was able to let me imagine myself within the world using it extremely vivid imagery. I would recommend this book a thousand times over to whoever may want to read.

This is one of the best books I've read in a while. Everything about this book is absolutely amazing. A very unique magic system, an engaging plot, a plethora of interesting characters, and sublimal writing. This book got every single thing right.

I fell so in love with this that despite it being a working day, I read this book in one sitting. Once I started reading it seemed impossible to stop. The plot was very well paced with cliff hangers at all the right spots to stop me from taking a break.

I loved all the characters so much. Each and every one of them - Joan, Aaron, Nick, Ruth, Tom, Jamie, Gran. Despite not all of them having a lot of page time, they were well rounded and layered, with a promise for more in the coming books. Joan was a sensational protagonist and I absolutely loved her. Her motivations made so much sense to me and her desperation to save her family really got to me. I was rooting for her throughout the story and absolutely adored her so much.

On the romance front, as of now there's no one ship I like more than the other, mostly because the romance wasn't developed enough for me to care. I think that will see a change in the next book and maybe I'll have stronger opinions then, but as of now, I don't care who Joan ends up with, so long as she's happy.

The one thing that I don't like, which was why I nicked of a star (pun very much intended) is because it seemed very unrealistic that Joan, the only person in the book with the least knowledge of how the world works, was the one with the best ideas. I get that she brought fresh perspective to the table because she wasn't embroiled in the set way of things the way everyone else was, and that's an advantage, but her understanding the magic better than people who have actually been using the magic for years was very unrealistic to me.

Other than this hiccup, I feel that the book was absolutely brilliant and I am in awe. I'm so excited for the next book in the trilogy and absolutely cannot wait!

I received a copy of Only a Monster by Vanessa Len from NetGalley. I was excited to delve into fantasy novels after such a long time. The blurb of the novel seemed so intriguing that I had to read it, I am glad I got a chance to. Only a Monster focuses on Joan Chang-Hunt, a 16-year-old who discovers that she and her family are not humans.
Joan is sent to live with her deceased mother’s family, the Hunts in London for the summer. All of the Hunts are a little eccentric, Joan loves spending her summers with them. She takes up a job at the historic Holland House, and Nick is her coworker and her crush. When Joan tries to good-heartedly help an older acquaintance, she loses a day of her life and she doesn’t understand what happened. Her grandmother then explains to Joan that the Hunts are monsters. They can travel in time by stealing years from humans.
One fateful night, Joan’s entire family is massacred, and she is left on the run with Aaron Oliver, another monster. The survivors of the massacre are being hunted; Joan and Aaron have no choice but to try and figure out what happens next while hiding. Joan doesn’t know about the monster world and it is through her eyes that as a reader we get to explore this different world and understand it. Joan struggles with a moral dilemma throughout the story. She is half human and half monster, both sides of her pull her into different directions, and making a choice is never easy. It is a completely grounded conflict, the inner struggle she feels and it is depicted with the right amount of empathy.
The story is exciting and intriguing. The world of monsters and humans that is created in the novel is very fascinating. It builds an intriguing world and keeps you hooked from the start. There are moral conflicts, fantasy, adventure, and romance, all packed into one story with a good plot and characters. I enjoyed reading Only a Monster, and I can’t wait to read more books set in this universe.

Wow! This book, I loved it and devoured it over two days. I sincerely hope Only a Monster gets the recognition within the bookish community that it deserves.

The blurb definitely does not give too much away about the plot, in fact I was pleasantly surprised by how the story turns out. I think that's partly why I loved Only a Monster so much because it was truly unique, something that can be hard to accomplish so kudos to Lee! I'll be honest, when I first started reading Only a Monster I did wonder why the term monster was used but the more I read the more the term made sense. I won't spoilt it but I think I was expecting a more traditional monster but I enjoyed Lee's unique spin on monsters.

I loved Joan, I thought she was fab and I'm excited to see how her character develops throughout the series, I hope we see more of her family as well and I'd love to know more of the family histories as well. I liked that the romance wasn't the forefront of the story as well, but I'm intrigued to see if anything develops as the series continues. The characters featured in Only a Monster are absolutely the literal definition of morally grey, so if you like morally grey characters this book is for you!

I thought the worldbuilding was great, the descriptions of locations and buildings were vivid, it's a very fast paced story which I think helps to make it such a quick read, I cannot wait for the sequel!

A huge thank you to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton.

3.75/5 stars (rounded up).

Only a Monster follows Joan, a 'monster' who is capable of travelling in time, though she has to steal time from humans to do so. As a reader, I'm often wary about books featuring time travel – I don't think I'd quite realised, even, that Only a Monster featured time travel before I started it – but thankfully Only a Monster handled it well, with a clever concept, and lots of interesting discussion regarding the moral ramifications that surrounded it.

The characters were likeable, and their dynamics largely very readable. I loved Aaron, and really hope we see more of him in the next book, along with his and Joan's dynamic. The Hunt family dynamic was also a super fun one, and I loved the side characters and relationships introduced later in the novel, My one issue here, however, was Joan and Nick's relationship – while I didn't dislike it, it did feel a little underwhelming, as it had the potential to be extremely interesting (and heartbreaking!) but I found that I wasn't really invested in their dynamic, which was a shame. Unfortunately, it felt slightly underdeveloped, and also sort of forgotten about for the middle third of the novel, which felt odd as a lot of the book's marketing was very focused on the romance element of the plot.

There was also a lot left relatively unexplored, which I have mixed feelings about. I definitely still have questions, which hopefully will get answered in future books (and there's a lot of scope for future books), but I do wish there'd been a bit more world building and discussion surrounding the King, for example, in Only a Monster itself. Despite this, I liked the ending and the questions it posed – it didn't feel entirely inconclusive, but also left me wanting more.

Overall, however, the book was a good start to a fantasy series with a really unique and interesting concept, and I'll definitely read the next one when it comes out, as I'm very intrigued to see what happens next!

*I was provided with an eARC of this book by Netgalley and the publishers in exchange for an honest review.*

Content warnings: mentions of torture, murder, death (including of family members), blood, forced drug use, xenophobia.

I really liked this story It was so different than the usual monster and hero stories and I found it really refreshing.

I sadly did not like the writing style of the book, I found it incredibly disjointed. Content wise it was good but sadly I couldn’t get too far because of the writing.

I’ve never read anything like this before, and it truly was ana amazing read. Think ‘lovers to enemies to lovers,’ but also ‘our families are rivals so we can’t be together’ (not sure if that’s even a trope?) and ‘who do I pick?.’ The book follows Joan, who is possibly the sweetest character to exist, but she’s also a monster. No, she’s literally A MONSTER. And her crush, Nick, is a monster slayer. ‘Only A Monster’ explores Joan’s search to save her family from Nick’s wrath, whilst also dealing with the battles of her heart. Paired with time travel back and forth, and lots of angst. This was such a good read, and I genuinely relished the experience of reading this, and the plot was very engaging and strong. I thought the pacing of the book was good too. True love as a theme was perhaps my favourite. Joan’s true love was Nick, the one who she also loathed the most. Because of this, the ending was incredibly heart-breaking, but also so beautiful. The sacrifices we make for the ones we love are astounding, as are those we make because we love someone. Whilst I did like Nick and Joan’s chemistry, I ADORED the chemistry between Aaron and Joan. Aaron saying, he didn’t want to know Joan in the future timeline because he would hate her there, and he didn’t want to hate her, was the cutest thing ever. 🥺The way time travel was presented in this book was insane, I am incredibly curious to find out how the authors mind works, because creating such an intricate with the setting constantly changing must’ve been an insane task on her brain. I think this helped keep up the pacing of the book, which was a bonus. The setting of London just seemed appropriate, and I liked how Vanessa Lin chose a dark and gloomy London. It worked very well, and I think it made the book dark but light at the same time – I don’t know how to explain this, but just trust me. Overall, a great read, I will be sure to read more of Vanessa Lin’s work.

I don't feel completely right writing a review for this book as I feel that a lot of my issues with it were because I am older than its target audience. I enjoy reading YA fantasy but I would definitely put this on the younger end of the YA scale. Though there are a few tricky topics dealt with its in a very background way.
So with this disclaimer - I did DNF this book as I could not connect to any of the characters at all. I found that main character slightly whiney and annoying and I was constantly wondering where were the adults and why was this kid running the show.
The world and magic system were both super interesting. There was definitely nothing lacking there.
So yes this is why I am giving a four star negative review - I think this is an amazing book for what it is but it really was not the book for me.

I really liked the concept of Only a Monster. The magic components were massively interesting and novel. I thought--here's a take I haven't seen before. Here's something to sink my teeth into. This is a narrative that tries to explore two sides of a coin. What does the "villain's" mindset look like? Let's be honest, no one is the bad guy in their own story.

There is a lot of potential here to explore and to build this world up a bit more intricately. To be honest, there was a lot I liked, but there was also a fair bit of eye rolling. I think the story telling/character rounding/world building could be neater and done with some more... flair! It could do with a bit more exploration of the magic and its history, its origins and its limits, the MONSTERS, instead of quite so much focus on love interests.