Basic info: Only a Monster
Author: Vanessa Len
Genre: Fantasy / Young Adult
Tropes: Fated lovers, Time travel
Series: Monsters #1
Publication date: February 1, 2022
Edition I read: Paperback (Hodder & Stoughton)
Pages: 368
My rating: 3/5
Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53183779-only-a-monster
Did I buy this book because ok BookTok and the gorgeous cover? Yes.
Do I regret buying and reading it? No.
Did I find it "unputdownable" as it says on the cover? No.
Do I think it was amazing and will I read the next books in the searies? Sadly also not.
What is Only a Monster about?
Only a Monster has a really cool and unique concept, where our MC is kind of the villain: she's one of the monsters who take time from the lives of humans to travel in time. And in this book, she's supposed to embrace her monstrousness to kill the hero. Except she's in love with him.
Joan and the other characters
However, I felt like Joan (our main character) didn't really embrace being a monster in this book. Yes, she reluctantly stole time from a couple of people, but she hated every second of it, and really didn't want to do it again. She yearned for travelling, but hated the idea of actually doing it. It felt like we had this morally almost perfectly good girl, and slapped on the label "monster" on her, without actually giving her a flaw or questionable morality.
As for characters in general, I feel like Joan's character was the only one that was somewhat built up. All the others lacked substance for me. Nick especially. He felt more like a prop than a main character.
The "romance"
The other problematic part was the love triangle.
It's one thing that I rooted for Aaron and Joan to be together, which hopes were crushed, at least for this book. I get that it's a fated lovers trope, and that they were together in another timeline -but how they were head over heels in love the minute they first saw each other, without any chemistry or building up of their relationship... That felt boring, unrealistic, and like lazy writing for me.
Unanaswered questions
I realized about halfway through the book that this is going to be only the first part of a series. But considering that it kind of ended with a proper closure, I felt like it still had so many unanswered questions. We still don't know:
◽ Why was Aaron disowned?
◽ What happened to his mom?
◽ What happened to Joan's mom exactly?
◽ Why did they say Joan's mom was Dorothy's estranged daughter?
◽ How did Dorothy get the necklace and find out about Joan's power?
◽ What monster family is Joan really from?
◽ Who's the king and what's his deal?
It'd make sense if I was now really looking forward to the next book to find out. But even though it was a relatively fast-paced book, I didn't enjoy reading it very much, so sadly I don't think I'll pick up the next parts in the series.