Reviews tagging 'Hate crime'

Ordinary Monsters by J.M. Miro

3 reviews

callistag1's review against another edition

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dark tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.5

1.5 stars, rounded up because I'm feeling a bit nice.

This is one of those books that had potential, had intrigue, and even had a compelling start, but it failed to keep that engagement throughout the book and quickly turned into a snooze fest where I was just wanting to get done with this book.

So, for the good part: The beginning was very good at getting you hooked... for a while. The settings and events that revolve around the introduced characters have a great set up, especially for Marlowe (and Eliza), Alice, and Charlie. Their meetings and the events they go through with learning about the two boys' powers and what the mysterious shadow man they are running from, with the help of Alice, to get to an institute that is meant to protect them and help them harness/control their powers gets you hooked.

But after that, the story goes downhill from there. I think it has to do with Alice being split up from the boys, but also there were a lot of things that just made this book feels flat. None of the other characters interested me much besides Jacob and Brynt. Despite how annoyingly long this book was, it felt like the characters got no development and we just saw them on a surface level because we were "told" more than "shown."

Speaking of how long this book was, at least a good 100 pages could have been lopped off, possibly more, because so much of it felt unnecessary. I say this because I remember so little of this book and I just finished reading it. Things felt repetitive at times to the point I just started skimming it, and it felt like everything from the beginning of the book was a waste of a start for a book that became so very boring. 

Also, you can definitely tell this book is written by a man because practically every woman who is around Marlowe is hit with sudden 'maternal instincts,' which isn't how that works. And you also know this was written by a man because Eliza, a "minor" character who helped raise Marlowe, is shown to have deep maternal love for him and care, but when she has a miscarriage of her own baby, the book quite literally says, "And that was that."

I understand Eliza's baby wasn't conceived out of love, but for a character that cares for Marlowe the way she did to have no reaction at all from miscarrying is odd. Even if she didn't mourn the child she lost, you would think she could have had a negative response as this pain would have reminded her of the sexual trauma she went through. But that was just glossed over.

Also Alice's feelings weren't really looked at besides skimming he surface. She learns her mother, who was obviously mentally unwell and had been in an alyssum that she never visited, had been dead for seven years because no one contacted her when it happened. And she has barely any reaction. I wasn't expecting her to burst into tears, but this just felt like these things were more to shock the audience that do anything in terms of the character's response and lives.

Just want to say, if you do decide to read this book, I'd say read a physical or digital copy if you can and not listen to the audiobook. I was doing both, but I mostly read it because the audiobook was not for me. I didn't care for the narrator personality. Some of the accents he did were too thick, as if he was trying to hard, and it made it hard to understand what he was saying.

I don't think I'll be continuing this series. 
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kaiyakaiyo's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

I actually quite liked this. I still call bullshit on the only black character coincidentally being the character that has to kill themselves then heal themselves repeatedly to help the white chars but everything else was pretty good. White authors using black pain to further plot, color me surprised. Surprisingly fluff-less for a book this big, most chapters had a purpose and I liked that! Would read another in this series, but i hope it’s not this big 
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librarianlayla's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

4/4.5 stars.

Prepare yourself for a heartbreaking, raw, ride. Beautifully written, darkly descriptive, and intense.

The only reason this doesn't get the full 5 stars is because there was very little ebb and flow of emotions. It is mostly fraught, with very few light moments to break up the harshness. But I did enjoy it greatly, and am looking forward to the sequel!

For fans of Miss Peregrine's, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and The Nevers.
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