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A review by althea
Monstrous Design by Kat Dunn
4.0
After reading and loving the first book in this trilogy at the end of last year, I have been dying to read the sequel after the explosive ending we were left with, and I was not disappointed!
Monstrous Design starts pretty much where Dangerous Remedy left off, with Camille and Al heading to England to chase down James and Olympe, while Guil and Ada stay behind in Paris to keep an eye on the Duc. The first half of the book was, admittedly, extremely slow and I found myself trudging through it at times, and I think that it definitely suffered from second book syndrome at times, but the second half of the book was just so good and really brought me back to the exciting action that we saw in the first book! I also, once again, really enjoyed the vibes from this one - it really gave me Frankenstein meets Les Mis vibes and it was so, so atmospheric!
I can't really say much about this without giving any spoilers, but Monstrous Design does feature some of my all-time favourite tropes in it (as well as a great My Chemical Romance reference...no I'm not joking!), and I loved how morally grey and complex the characters were. But saying that, I do really wish that this series was told through Guil and Al's perspectives too, as the found family aspect fell a little flat since the two of them aren't really developed all that much. Though we do get to understand a bit more of Guil's past in this book, I really could not tell you all that much about him other than he deserted from the army, so I wish we'd got to read some chapters from his perspective too (and honestly, reading from Al's perspective would just be amazing!).
Overall, though, I'm really excited to see where the trilogy ends, though I know it'll be in pain, and I can't wait for the third book's release hopefully relatively soon!
Want more sapphic books? You can find me here: Book Blog | Twitter | Instagram
Monstrous Design starts pretty much where Dangerous Remedy left off, with Camille and Al heading to England to chase down James and Olympe, while Guil and Ada stay behind in Paris to keep an eye on the Duc. The first half of the book was, admittedly, extremely slow and I found myself trudging through it at times, and I think that it definitely suffered from second book syndrome at times, but the second half of the book was just so good and really brought me back to the exciting action that we saw in the first book! I also, once again, really enjoyed the vibes from this one - it really gave me Frankenstein meets Les Mis vibes and it was so, so atmospheric!
I can't really say much about this without giving any spoilers, but Monstrous Design does feature some of my all-time favourite tropes in it (as well as a great My Chemical Romance reference...no I'm not joking!), and I loved how morally grey and complex the characters were. But saying that, I do really wish that this series was told through Guil and Al's perspectives too, as the found family aspect fell a little flat since the two of them aren't really developed all that much. Though we do get to understand a bit more of Guil's past in this book, I really could not tell you all that much about him other than he deserted from the army, so I wish we'd got to read some chapters from his perspective too (and honestly, reading from Al's perspective would just be amazing!).
Overall, though, I'm really excited to see where the trilogy ends, though I know it'll be in pain, and I can't wait for the third book's release hopefully relatively soon!
Want more sapphic books? You can find me here: Book Blog | Twitter | Instagram