WOW just WOW! I was fascinated by this story from the very first few pages. I immediately fell in love with the world and Joan. This book has a very unique story and the plot kept getting better and better. I loved reading every page of this book and there wasn’t a moment where I was getting bored.

I really recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a fast paced story with time travelling and rich world building.

Thanks to Hodder & Stoughton for the digital copy.

4.5 Stars!

This one was such a fun read, with characters that were not overly complex yet very well wrritten, a plot that kept me guessing and an ending that had me reeling from whiplash and shock, making me wish this wasn't just the first in the series!

In regards to the characters, I liked Joan well enough but the real breakout character for me was Aaron and seeing him soften and change was well written. My favourite character had to be Tom, however. You never quite knew where things were going with him and when the truth finally came out, I was left feeling emotional in both good and not so great ways.

The plot was well written and easy to follow, with the world lore written into the book without being an info dump. I feel a couple of bits could have been developed a little more, but I suspect that may come in future instalments.

I also loved how the world came together and the direction the main plot took in regards to Joan and Nick. It left me with a sense of excitement for the next book, but also a twinge of disappointment as it did fall into a trope I am usually not overly fond of. But, maybe it won't follow it too heavily in book 2 so we shall see. All I do know is that whatever direction things are due to go, I am here for it.

Whatever lies ahead in book 2, sign me up because I am ready for the ride.

I LOVED this book ! It follows Joan, a sixteen year old girl who is very normal, although her late mother's family says they are monsters. Until one day, Joan discovers what they really mean and what it truly means to be a monster. In addition to her horror, she also discovers that her crush is a monster killer ! Joan will be alone with a family enemy in a quest to save her family and the rest of the monsters.
The story is full of adventures but also questions the morality of certain actions. I really liked the chararters and appreciated how they grew. There's a little romance and a kind of love triangle that didn't really bothered me as it was very subtle. Joan had more important things to do !
The book will be published on February 22nd and I'm already eagerly waiting the sequel !

Rep : mixed race character (english-chinese), asian characters, gay couple
TW : death, blood, murder, torture, violence

Wow just wow. I absolutely loved the idea of this book and the execution. I thought the plot moved at a good pace.

***Slight spoilers ahead***


I was rooting for Aaron and Joan and I hope that we’ll get another book where they get together and that we learn more about his background, and that we learn more about the other monster families.

What an amazing and magical book!! I love fantasy books that start off with a good pace and grip me till the end and this book sure delivered!!

It had me gasping every other chapter and the plot twists just kept coming. The plot of this book was so gripping and unique, the world building is so rich and this writing is equally beautiful and easy to get through.

There are about another million things that I could list that I loved about this; Joan was such a great main character, the setting is one of my all time favorites: London!! and we also have time traveling; something this book made me realize that I absolutely love.

I could literally go on praising this book,
I honestly cannot wait to read the sequel! Such an amazing debut! If you’re a fan of Ya Urban Fantasy with a unique storyline and fast pacing, this is for you!

A huge thanks to Hodder & Stoughton for the digital copy!

Only a Monster has so much in 400ish pages. Time travelling monsters, escaping through time, court heist, star-crossed lovers, families who are rivals/they despise each other, but they have to work together, family relationships and hero-villain dynamic (I have to kill you, but I like you vs. You killed someone I love and I want revenge, but I can't hurt you).

I think that was exactly my problem with this book. There was just so much information and the book only has so many pages. I feel like the author tried to throw everything she had in here, without leaving anything for a sequel. Since I think this is supposed to be a trilogy, we could've had less things being thrown our way and save something for the next books. Even with all the outstanding questions, this feels pretty wrapped up, because there is no cliffhanger. During the second half, I also couldn't decide if I wanted this book to be a standalone or for it to have a sequel.

The strongest part of this book is the time-travelling aspect and its twist. The "monsters" in this world all have the power to time-travel but they do it by taking time from humans, which die earlier than they are supposed to based on the time the monsters take from them. There are also different families that, along with this main power, all have their special powers (Liu - perfect memory, Hunt - hiding objects, Oliver - knowing which family someone is from). But, even though I loved the way this works, some things needed to be explained better. Most of the things were pretty vague and in turn created plot holes for no reason. This will maybe be fixed in book two, but I see no point for book two, because there wasn't any big twist or shocking cliffhanger that would suggest what will the sequel be about.

I loved the Monster Court, but it feels like we just flew over the events there and the tension was missing. You are really telling me that nobody, except the monster hunter managed to actually catch our group? Not even the skilled Court Guards? In that one scene, when they are almost caught, they all split up and run, we just skip over them running and the next scene is them at the safe place. Where is the danger? I see none. And it was all a fail anyway, so there was no point in any of that.

The romance. I expected to see a bit of a love triangle, but there was none. The enemies to lovers/star-crossed lovers did not deliver. The romance was just barely and it felt so forced and unrealistic, based on sheer moments. The star-crossed lovers trope wasn't even there and it only played into action in the very end, but it felt so lazy. How am I supposed to believe that, based on time these two supposedly spent together, that we didn't even see and one failed attempt at something serious, they say "I love you" at the end of this? Some of the tension is there, but it wasn't enough for any real attachment or I love yous. I was just rolling my eyes at the interactions these two were having at the end. And while their ending was okay and it made sense, it lacked emotion precisely because I saw no chemistry betweent them. As for the other guy, I would prefer him over our first love interest, but their chemistry was only budding and nothing happened there either.


Joan as a character had a lot of potential, but I just ended up being annoyed at her. She doesn't know much about the monster world (plus she is half-human half-monster), because her family didn't want to tell her, but despite this she is constantly trying to save someone or do something that she doesn't have the resources or strenght for. Everyone around her should also be helping her, but they all just talk vaguely and in the end their "explanations" end up being hollow or create more questions.

Only a Monster is simply perfect. A complex tale of identity, memory and grief, Len’s debut transports you to London through the ages with fascinating world lore and deeply human characters. This series starter has all the makings of a new YA Fantasy sensation.

I absolutely loved this book. Depending on how the other two books in the series are (I’ve been burned by sequels before 😅), this has some serious all-time favourite series potential.

I think my favourite thing about Only a Monster was the world and magic system. I loved the idea of all the monster families and their different powers, and their relationships to each other. As a bit of a lore nerd, it’s something I really hope to see more of as the series progresses.

The characters in this book were great too. Even the side characters had their own goals and motivations. Joan and Aaron were probably my favourite, and there were definitely times when I was rooting for them to get together. I’m still not sure who Joan’s ultimate/endgame love interest will be. I think there are definitely strong arguments for both Nick and Aaron (their chemistry was so good! So much tension there.), but given the ending of the book, I’m left unsure as to what will happen next.

Only a Monster also tackled themes of identity (both racial and otherwise), grief and memory. As a white person, I can’t offer too much commentary on the book’s discussion of identity, but I can say that Vanessa Len did an excellent job in her portrayal of grief. Joan’s grief for her family, and desperation to hold onto their memory and find some way - any way - to save them was palpable, and drove every decision she made.

The plot of Only a Monster was action packed and fast paced, and took Joan and her friends to London’s throughout history. I get that some people really don’t like time travel, but I’m certainly not one of them! I could never tell what was going to happen next - this book totally kept me on my toes, and even in the quieter moments, there was always something going on.

The book’s ending gives some clue as to the sequel’s set up, and I’m SO looking forward to it!

Overall, I can’t recommend Only a Monster enough. It’s hard to believe this is Vanessa Len’s debut. Do yourself a favour and pick up a copy once it’s out!

Oh what a well thought out plot!. The main character.Joan finds she is a monster who has the power to travel, but to do this she must steal time from humans. She can't steal much as the time she takes reduces the life of that particular person, so she must steal from lots of people if she needs lots of time. This blows her mind understandably, as she finds this out quite by accident!. There are characters in the story who become close to.Joan and together they work out a way forward to solve the problem that Joan now has..There is also a handsome boy who she had started to date and is not as he seems .......
There is so much going on in this book that you will not be disappointed that you chose to buy it!. In fact, I hope and pray that there will be a sequel!.
Thanks to Netgalley for the free ARC book for an honest review.
#hodderbooks, #Netgalley #vanessa.len_writes

First of all, I would like to say thank you for the review copy, which was provided to me by the publisher via Netgalley. This fact does not in any way affect my personal opinion of this book. This post contains advertising and the rights for the book belong to the publisher.

Of course, is this only my personal opinion on the book and just because I give this rating to the book doesn't mean, that everyone will have that opinion.

If you liked Ruby Red and are a fan of morally grey characters with blond hair - this book might be perfect for you!

"Only a monster" had me hooked after the first sentence and maybe that's why I read it almost in one sitting. When was the last time I did that? I don't know to be honest.

Len has a really beautiful writing style and it's easy to understand even for non-native English speaking persons. The plot is really fast-paced and you are sucked into the story. In my opinion, the book could have been one hundred pages longer but this is the first book in a trilogy so I think we will see more.

I really liked the characters. Especially a certain male sidekick, which we will hopefully see more of in the next book.

This was an awesome book and I don't have any think to critic. Hopefully, we don't have to wait very long for the next book because I am now hooked on these characters :D

I was super intrigued by a story where we're from the point of view of the "monster" rather than the "hero". What it doesn't take long to work out is that Joan is good. She might've been born into being a monster but she doesn't have the traits of what you'd assume a monster to be. But at the same time, in terms of the shared power between all monsters, that power IS monstrous. The "monsters" in this story are all born into what they are. The common aspect between these monsters is that they can all time travel, but it's the way they time travel that makes them considered bad. Other than that, powers differ between families, and it's so exciting learning about all these different powers, especially Joan's, considering she had no idea what her power was until the very end, and the way she used it had me tear up. There is no redemption arc so far for the monsters but yet you still somehow can't see the majority of them as evil. Pretty clever!

“Monsters look like giant spiders,” Joan said. “Or like robots.” She'd seen enough cartoons to know. Gran sometimes told jokes without smiling. Maybe this was one of those times.
But Gran’s eyes weren’t shiny with a held-in joke. They were serious. “That’s pretend monsters,” she said. “Real monsters look like me and you.”

Nick is a monster slayer, a myth—or so they believe—told to all monsters growing up, but the story differs between families. A hero looking to avenge his family. A hero who falls in love with Joan. Every situation is so tense between them both as they fight between who they are and how they feel.

But Nick isn't the only potential love interest, and although I feel this book is set up for them to end up together, I can't quite help but back the underdog.

There is a bit of a... trope i.e. the love triangle. BUT it's written in such a refreshing way. You have the two mains who don't deny their love for each other, or should I say can't deny. Then, you just have the third, who doesn't say much in terms of feelings and is just always... there. He backs every decision Joan makes, he gets himself into bad situations for her, he's ignoring the feud between their families for her... but Joan can't quite seem to see him yet. I feel like that's why I'm backing him so much. He's not all over her, not fighting for her full-on, he's just always there and always on her side. It's like a fight between passion and stability.

This is definitely a trilogy where I would like to continue with reading it! There is a lot of action within this book but I'm somehow being more driven by the characters despite this.

There’s been a lot of hype about this book in the YA community and it is mostly justified, it’s really rather good and it certainly exceeded my expectations.

Joan is a normal 16-year-old girl. She belongs to a rather unconventional family and has the hots for Nick, a boy she volunteers with at a stately home in London. So far, so normal. But what we soon learn is that Joan belongs to a family of monsters and her life is about to change drastically. Nick isn’t just any old boy; he’s a monster hunter and Joan is a monster. This sets us up almost immediately for some truly delicious angst.

The history and powers of all the different monster families were done really well although I didn’t quite get how the monster mechanism worked in terms of time travel. Essentially, they steal time from humans e.g. stealing one year of a human’s life enables them to time travel back one year. That said, there were examples of people travelling back to Ancient Rome so were there monsters going around touching hundreds of people? Can they bank time? I wasn’t entirely sure how that side of things worked but as you can imagine humans that are aware of this fact are a tad miffed about it, thus the monster hunters. It opened an interesting moral debate. Monsters sometimes time travelled accidentally, particularly their first time, so is it actually their fault? Some time travelled to escape from monster hunters or other dangers but required human time to do so etc. It raised some interesting questions.

The book also served as a love letter to London past and present. It was fun to time travel through London’s recent history and the modern-day sections were portrayed really effectively. There was a heist plotline that was thrilling and lots of twists and turns throughout the course of the book and some hints about future mysteries still to be unravelled.

I mentioned the angst earlier, I think this could have been ramped up even more to be honest. There was a lot of potential which fizzled out a bit before roaring back towards the end. There’s also a hint of a love triangle (I think?) but if you are a weirdo that hates that kind of thing it’s subtle enough to not be annoying. There were a few little plot holes that may be wrapped up in the next book e.g. why didn’t she look for her mother in the past, but nothing catastrophic.

This book also did my new favourite thing which is to wrap a story up in a way that you know there is more to come but it isn’t left on a cliffhanger. I think a book should always end in such a way that it can stand on its own as a self-contained piece of work even if there is more to come and the author definitely achieved this.
I’m a bit annoyed that I read this book so long ago as it feels like I now have to wait for ages and ages for the sequel but suffice to say I’ll be snapping it up when it’s available. The hype is real for this one folks.

I flew through this book and loved the storyline. Its a little slow at the beginning and a little repetitive in places but once I got used to the style of writing I really enjoyed it. I think I read it’s the first book in a trilogy?

Only a monster was pitched as a morally grey book with villains at the core, which is something I have been dying for in the fantasy world more.

Many Thanks to Hodder and Stoughton and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Plot summary:
Sent to spend the summer with her late mothers family, Jean is determined to enjoy herself. With a cute co-worker asks her on a Date it feels like everything is going great.

But a good Samaritan attempt goes wrong and Joan gets taken through time. It turns out her family aren’t just eccentric. They are Monsters.

And Monsters always have slayers, who will do anything to bring them down.

Review:
Plot and World Building – This was a great premise for a plot, but honestly it felt very rushed at the beginning to set everything up and a bit of an information dump, followed by a slow pace story that seemed like a bit of a struggle. Honestly a lot of the plot I could kind of guess pretty easily.

Overall pacing of the story was slow and I struggled to stay engaged, which was a shame as I was honestly quite excited for this.

I feel bad giving this the rating I have, but honestly it might just be that the style is not for me. As much as I adore the premise, it just didn’t work as I was reading it and I had heard such great things.

I’m quite a quick reader- it’s taken me well over a month to get through this because I pushed myself through it with me getting fortunate to get an eARC. I may reread it in the future and see more than I did during this read, but this is my rating at present.

Characters and Development- Joan annoyed me to no end throughout. I understand why she acted as she did, but it was frustrating to read and I almost flung my kindle at some of her decisions. Most of the secondary characters I didn’t get much of an impression of to be honest but I feel there is definite room for them to get more development in a sequel.

Final Thoughts:
A fantastic premise and great original idea, it just didn’t quite work for me.

If you could time travel where would you go? And could you if you had to steal time from another person?

Only a Monster is the first book in the Monsters trilogy. Joan is 16 and is living the perfect summer when she’s about to go on a date with her crush, Nick when something happens and she wakes up several hours later. When she tells her grandmother she finds out she’s from a family of monsters, who can travel in time but only by stealing time from mortals and her crush, Nick, is a monster hunter determined to kill all monsters. After a tragedy Joan has to team up with a rival monster family member Aaron Oliver in an attempt to change the timeline.

This book just had everything, morally grey characters, enemies to lovers, magical underworld, heist, time travel battles. It was such a unique concept and my favourite read from January! I cannot recommend it enough and I can’t wait to see where it leads us in the next books.

Thank you to NetGalley for sending me a copy to review

Thank you Netgalley and Hodder & Stoughton for the eArc in exchange for an honest review.

This book was such a refreshing read. I have never read anything like this before and was such a great and original concept. Joan was such a great character that considering her situation she showed her humanity towards everyone. No one person was truly evil to her and she saw the good in everyone. Trying to navigate the monster world sounds truly horrendous at the best of times so it was nice to see she had guidance.

I loved the fact that there were different families of Monsters each with their unique skill. My only downside to this was the beginning felt a little choppy but the rest of the book more than made up for it.

Loved everything about this book, the characters felt so real. The story itself was fast and forever changing and twisting, I’d think I’d worked it out and then something would happen to change that. I loved the ending as well al the time travel, it kept the book so interesting and different to other books I’d read. I can’t wait for there to be a second book. This was an amazing read that had me hooked from the start, finished it in a day as I wouldn’t book it down. THE ENDING THOUGHT…unreal!

Very original and lovely story.

I loved the main character and her constant fight for being good even though she is seen as the bad guy in her story. I also loved the setting and the magic in here. I love a good London setting especially when the author knows the area. The world of the monsters was a fun place to be and poor Joan trying to find her place in this world she didn't know about. I love those books. When they did go back in time to the 90s I liked who it was mostly referencing the fashion and the architecture or smaller things rather than cultural and entertainment stuff. I felt more inclusive really.

The whole plot was mesmerizing and the journey they took to get there was fun. The ending was not traditional but it made perfect sense. I wonder what effect this ending will have on the rest of the series. Only time will tell.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the second book in the series takes us.

ONLY A MONSTER is a fantasy that starts off contemporary and then gains a really fun time travel twist (which is not represented at all in the blurb, which sounds like it's about a completely different books!) As well as their family-specific powers, monsters can time travel, by stealing the equivalent amount of time from humans.

This book is not a romance. Nick is not even there or even in her thoughts for most of the book. He's a threat with a vague (very underdeveloped) attraction for her occasionally mentioned (which is explained on the ending.)

Time travel is such a tricky device to play around with in media because of the deceptively simple problem of "OK, if time travel is a thing, how come the character doesn't just go back in time and solve the issue?" You need a hard, consistent rule that stops people being able to just go back (and thus undercut the tension.) Preferably that also comes with a "this is what happens/what we think happens if you break that - and it's not good" to convince the reader that it really can't be done.

This book is all about this rule, about someone trying to find a way to break it. To save her family once they've been killed, Joan has to find a way to undo it. And that takes her through the Monster's parallel society living under human noses, with enemies in the shadows trying to stop her. Except the people trying to stop her should be the ones trying to help her.

that was such a fun premise, tangling Joan in the secrets and past of this new-to-her world. Of course, it's the start of a series, so it's not all explained, but enough is to make the book satisfying - and there's enough hanging to intrigue me about the later books.

It had been so long since I had read a book so unstoppably- like completely binge read it, without ever being bored for single second.

It was exactly what I had been craving for these past few weeks. I am a huge mood reader, so just sticking to set TBR never works for me. But the moment I picked up this book I was hooked.

“Monsters look like giant spiders,” Joan said. “Or like robots.” She’d seen enough cartoons to know. Gran sometimes told jokes without smiling. Maybe this was one of those times.
But Gran’s eyes weren’t shiny with a held-in joke. They were serious. “That’s pretend monsters,” she said. “Real monsters look like me and you.”

The plot moves at the speed of light- not a single boring moment or anywhere be at all where it seems like it's dragging.

The magic system was fascinating. It kinda reminded me of Doctor Strange, or maybe if you are a fan of time travel and timelines, then you'll have a lot of fun with that.

“Olivers see. Hunts hide. Nowaks live. Patels bind. Portellis open. Hathaways leash. Nightingales Take. Mtawalis keep. Argents sway. Alis seal. Griffiths reveal. But only the Lius remember.”

It also gives a twist to monsters by adding a vampire-like twist on their powers.
Another thing that Vanessa Len does differently is with love triangles. I think it's a common trope that frustrated some readers when in a love triangle, the girl always goes for the dark, broody guy who's not the nicest to her (*cough* darkling *cough*) instead of the actually-nice guy. Ok, sorry, I couldnt that more eloquently than that, but you know what I mean.

“I mean it,” she said. “You’re dead.”
He gave her his familiar solemn smile, the one that he’d given her all the time at the house. “Aren’t we all,” he said. “Somewhere on the timeline.”

Well, in the case of the this book, yes there's is a love triangle.
No, it's not a spoiler.
YESS, it's actually well-done.

And quite interestingly, I might say, neither of the guys are completely "good" or "bad". Both of them have very deceiving appearances and I was in a dilemma about who I'm rooting for, and only made up my mind at the end.

From what I can speculate, there is equal chance of her ending up with either of them and that is as frustrating as it is keeping me up on my toes.

“You’re a hero and I’m a monster,” she whispered. “There’s only one way that story ever ends.”

Another thing that I noticed was that even after the protagonist experiences a very tragic ordeal at the beginning of the book, she doesn't get a lot of time to just dwell in the magnitude of the situation well.
Not to say that they don't experience it at all, but she just doesn't get a lot of time to sit in their feelings and just go through it.

To be fair, it's more like whenever she tries to be sad, something goes wrong and she has to go up and running.

In a very unique subversion of tropes, this time we side with the monsters and try to save them instead of the hero. It is a pretty interesting dilemma since even though our protagonist, is a monster and the way they survive isn't exactly moral you want heard to succeed. It brings immense shades of gray that just add to the emotional turmoil.

“We believe that if people belonged together...then our timeline tries to repair itself by bringing them together. Over and over and over....”
"Like soulmates?"
"Yes. If you believe in fairy tales,"

I’m at a loss for words.

Only a monster was a whole rollercoaster of emotions which took me to places I could scarcely think of.

First thoughts about it- I found the start slightly confusing and jumpy. Some of the action happened very soon afterwards though and I think that kick-started the book for me.

I’d say the book was very plot-driven in comparison to some books that purely focus on characters and I think it worked really well in this case.

For the main section of the book it was fast-paced and action-filled and I didn’t want to put it down. I was so attached to what could happen next and I found it really thrilling.

The ending I was entirely gripped to but scared for where I thought it was leading to since I didn’t like Nick and Joan together that much. In the end I was so shocked and in denial of the book because it was so brilliant.

Writing style was amazing and easy to read, only thing I’d say is the formatting was kind of messed up on my phone when I was reading it but other than that it was great.

Overall- 4 stars and I would recommend it!!

Thank you @netgalley for the chance to read and review this. I’ve already preordered it, can’t wait.