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When I read the description of Make Me a Monster, I knew this book would be something that I would enjoy. I absolutely adored this book. It’s a very creative young adult inspired retelling of the Frankenstein story, That wouldn’t be complete with a shout out to Mary Shelly, and we get a few of those. They honestly made me smile. You can see the authors passion for the original story. It shines through.

This book explores grief and love in depth thought out, subjects that are equally hard to talk about as a teen, but Meka, who is a mortuary assistant, works at her family’s funeral home... to them, death is a part of daily life. She adores her family and her boyfriend Noah. They are all very close until tragic circumstances change things. The characters in this book are easy to love. They all seem so wholesome, and honestly, my sort of people.

This book is eerie, spooky, and full of creative ideas that breathe new life into a classic story. It kept me on toes and held my captivation the whole way, though.

Thank you to Bloomsbury, Netgallery, and the author Kalynn Bayron for such a creative and inspiring story. ✨️

A dark, compelling retelling of the original science-fiction story, perfect for the 21st century and guaranteed to win new fans for Kalynn Bayron.
Our protagonist is Meka, who comes from a long line of undertakers and discovers that she has a special, and disturbing power. The revelation of the truth behind the family's power, was fascinating and held my interest throughout the day as I raced through the pages. I did guess some of the twists but this did not take from my enjoyment of the story.
This is a story that I believe Mary Shelley herself would approve of and enjoy.

Meka is comfortable with death - after all, she's an assistant at her parents' funeral home, she is used to handling dead bodies and perfecting their makeup. And her boyfriend Noah also seems fine with it. But Meka is having nightmares about her mother's death that she doesn’t understand, and her sleep - but when tragedy strikes it is completely unexpected. Then strangers are following her, and strange things start happening with the dead.

I love Kalynn Bayron's books, and I also love Frankenstein which is the inspiration for elements of this story - but not in the way you think - it's not a retelling, but I love how it takes the idea of Frankenstein's work and spins it into a very original take.

This does get pretty gruesome and macabre - in a good way. It has a comfort with death and dealing with the dead, which is taken to fairly detailed and dark places - but never in a grotesque or unnecessary way. And I wouldn't call it horror - I think it's a story with strong horror elements that likes to walk on the dark side. But I loved this - it builds the suspense and parcels out the reveals in this so well - I'm a big fan of the Vanquishers series from this author, and that similarly is masterful in creating a growing sense of unease and growing dread. I want to be really careful about how much I say because I don't want to spoil anything about the plot. But just trust me it's great, it's about teenagehood - first love, families (Kalynn Bayron always does such a good job of keeping parents involved in the plot of YA books whilst still making it 100% the teens story) and looks at the nature of death, and the price of love. It's the darkest of all her books, and I really loved it.

4.5/5

I was absolutely cry laughing for the first 30% of this book, and then things turned heartbreaking and spooky. The Frankenstein twist to this story is brilliant, unique and thrilling. It's not often (if at all) that I read books about funeral homes and morticians, death terrifies me but reading this book brought a new insight. YA horror is always incredible in my eyes, this was done brilliantly.

I thought the characters were great, the plot was fun and clever. It kept giving me The Haunted Mansion and The Addams Family vibes which I loved! I read this in collectively about five hours, I couldn't put it down!

This is actually my first read by Kalynn Bayron, I've been eyeing up her books for a while, but this has made me absolutely want to read more of her writing.

Highly recommend. Especially because this comes out at the very end of Sept, major spooky halloween vibes!!