Monsters by Ilsa J. Bick
My rating: 4/5 cats
so, apparently, THERE IS A WHOLE BACK-MATTER SECTION of this book with a refresher-list of CHARACTERS and THINGS THAT HAPPENED in the first two books. it is not as complete as it could be—you are still going to have to sort out the whole jarvis/jasper/jayden situation yourself, but THIS MIGHT HAVE BEEN USEFUL FOR ME TO KNOW BEFORE i read the whole 600-plus page book. had i been reading a “regular” book, there is a chance i would have flipped to the back of the book and said “AHA!”, but e-books are just not designed to have exciting hidden treasures at their end. so i am telling you this now, in case you are in the same boat i was in and you have no idea what is going on. CHECK THE BACK!!
you’re welcome.
now that’s that out of the way.
so, yes—do visit the helpful reader’s guide at the end of this book, because bick has a lot of confidence that you will have remembered everything that happened in the first two books and ignores the fact that an entire year has elapsed between their release dates full of other, equally complicated books. and she is not gentle to your failing memory.
this is all woe and whining that i covered in my review for Shadows but it does deserve to be reiterated, because phooo! she sure does write thick books—thick in pages and thick in detail and actions, and it took me about 300 pages to find my bearings.
but even though i frequently felt confused and cursed with forgetfulness, that doesn’t mean that i wasn’t enjoying it for those first 300 pages. this is a tremendously violent book. and i like tremendously violent books. and i remembered enough that even in those instances where i was doing the “huh?” thing, i was still really digging the story and the characters.
bick is great in that she doesn’t write down to her audience. there is so much detail in terms of weapon-capabilities, medical details, and military strategy, that it makes the story seem more plausible than it might otherwise, and even though i got lost in a few of the action sequences, i know that this is another one of my readerly-weaknesses and not a fault of her writing, which is, again—very very thick. plus—bonus: several near-drowning sequences, and like the second book, one involving ice which is something that kills me every time.
her characters are equally complicated. they aren’t all heroic or noble; they suffer from self-doubt and fear, and even though many of them are very strong and have skills beyond what regular people have, there are completely believable explanations for their special knowledge and specializations, so you never feel like they are unrealistic. there is a difference between superheroes and people with training.
she doesn’t wrap everything up as far as what the root cause of the situation in the books were, but she cheekily skirts the issue a few times, saying something like “well, if this was a book, thus-and-such would happen now, but it’s not, so…” but it doesn’t read cop-out, it just reads “this is the part of the story i am telling.”
i think the ending is perfect. it is a great blend of hope and realism and ambiguity, and i didn’t find it unsatisfying at all, despite it ending on a shadow rather than a spotlight.
there’s not a lot more i can say—this is one of those books that if you have read the first two, you will probably read the third one, and i think it is a really strong conclusion to the trilogy. i cannot be more informative without spoiling. i love the sensitivity with which she treats her characters while still being totally willing to kill ’em off if need be. it is a difficult balance to achieve, but she succeeds completely.
read it.
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