John Wiswell: Someone You Can Build a Nest In (2024, Quercus)
English language
Published April 3, 2024 by Quercus.
This is a love story, but quite a messy one. I'm a bit sad the protagonist didn't get to eat more people! Also quite funny, despite touching on a number of quite sad themes.
Adorable, cozy and soft. Disgusting, gory and violent. I loved every part of this book!
I really enjoyed this book. I expected that going in, given how much I enjoyed John Wiswell's short story Open House on Haunted Hill.
Shesheshen is a shapeshifting monster, more an amorphous carnivorous blob, who gets woken up from their hibernation by a group of monster hunters. Shesheshen repels them then sneaks into town to find the town celebrating the killing of the monster. Shesheshen is revealed, then driven off a cliff. Shesheshen is saved by a woman named Homily, whose caring nature causes Shesheshen to begin falling for her. Turns out that Homily is from a family of monster hunters here to kill the monster to end a curse on her family.
The book has a really big theme around the people we choose to be with and those connections as they relate to the families we are a part of by random happenstance of birth. Shesheshen and …
I really enjoyed this book. I expected that going in, given how much I enjoyed John Wiswell's short story Open House on Haunted Hill.
Shesheshen is a shapeshifting monster, more an amorphous carnivorous blob, who gets woken up from their hibernation by a group of monster hunters. Shesheshen repels them then sneaks into town to find the town celebrating the killing of the monster. Shesheshen is revealed, then driven off a cliff. Shesheshen is saved by a woman named Homily, whose caring nature causes Shesheshen to begin falling for her. Turns out that Homily is from a family of monster hunters here to kill the monster to end a curse on her family.
The book has a really big theme around the people we choose to be with and those connections as they relate to the families we are a part of by random happenstance of birth. Shesheshen and Homily both support one another through growth and change over the course of the book. I really like the way that Shesheshen's nature of selfishness and independence to the point of isolation is balanced and countered by Homily's nature of giving of herself to the point of allowing the giving to harm her and how each brings the other closer to their own nature by the end of the story.
Overall, this was really good, especially for a debut novel. I really liked it, really liked what Wiswell did with monster tropes and romance tropes to make something new, and I look forward to the next work Wiswell puts out.
An interesting story told from the monster's perspective. Interesting characters and plot twists that will keep you engaged until the very last page.
