Reviews

*I received both an eARC and an audio review copy via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.*

This book absolutely blew me away. On the surface, it is an urban fantasy with light horror elements about humanity realizing monsters exist. But anyone who picks this up expecting a typical urban fantasy might be put off by what they actually will get.

Similar to Turnbull's debut novel The Lesson, No Gods, No Monsters is more of a literary speculative fiction. There is a wide cast of characters who's connections slowly start to form to a larger story, and there is more of a focus on word choice and theming than plot. Also similar to his debut, the themes in No Gods, No Monsters are not being hidden. The monsters are very clearly a stand-in for other marginalized groups and there were some pretty timely messages about misinformation and the way society reacts to information it doesn't like. For example this response when a main character asks a friend they are a monster denier:

"Okay. You know about flat-earthers, right? Don't get me wrong, I know the earth is round. But I can empathize with the desire to hold things firm in your own hands. I've seen monsters the same way I've seen pictures of space. It makes sense to leave some room for doubt, to be uncertain."

It's hard to say much more about the book, as the beauty of it is unraveling the details as you read, but I think if the reader goes in with the right expectations, they will love this. The prose is sparse and hauntingly beautiful at times. The cast of characters got confusing but never so muddled that I lost trust in Turnbull knowing what he's doing. I hate to use the word enjoyable because the content of this book is incredibly heavy, with content warnings for police brutality, sexual assault, drug addiction, overdose, and more, but I loved watching the layers of this story unfold.

About the audiobook specifically, Dion Graham's narration was wonderful. He remains one of my favorite narrators. Though I will say there is a first person narrator throughout that occasionally got disorienting while listening to the audiobook. I would still absolutely recommend listening to the audio, but it might be helpful to have a physical or e-copy version of the book to follow along.

Lastly, nestled in the acknowledgements, Turnbull states that references to The Lesson in this novel are meaningful so you can bet that I will be rereading both The Lesson and No Gods, No Monsters with my highlighter and tabs readily available before the sequel comes out.

sashahc's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

What a #book! It is written in the first person omniscient, which will make more sense when you read it. It is sort of an urban fantasy and wanders across different intertwined characters and through memories and places. It is queer and anarchist and ACAB and full of were-animals and witches and gods and other things. It’s a glorious puzzle box of a book, and I highly recommend it.

lakea's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

Content Warnings

ccneary's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

3.0

superdrea's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

5.0

jgstewart87's review against another edition

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1.0

This one goes on the "did not finish" list. It's meandering and pointless. 80% of the way in and I have no idea of the plot. There's random conflicts that appear from nowhere then we shift to entirely different characters talking about other random things. It's unsubtly using monsters to discuss marginalized groups and their experiences, but the way it just flips around to different characters and ideas does the message a disservice. No unified story to drive engagement and honestly it was a struggle to even make it as far as I did.

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