Broken Monsters

Equal parts David Lynch and Michael Haneke and police procedural and young adult coming-of-age.

Stridently disturbing. So, so good.

Rating: 3 leaves out of 5-Characters: 3/5 -Cover: 1.5/5-Story: 2.75/5-Writing: 4/5Genre: Horror, Mystery, Crime, Fantasy, Paranormal, Supernatural, Thriller-Horror: 2/5-Mystery: 3/5-Crime: 4.5/5-Fantasy: 2/5-Paranormal: 2/5-Supernatural: 5/5-Thriller: 3/5Type: AudiobookWorth?: YeahHated Disliked Meh It Was Okay Liked LovedBroken Monsters is an interesting title for this story. It started out pretty well but I didn't care for being well over the middle mark (past or around the 70% mark) and FINALLY seeing why we had so many point of views. The horror was okay as well and it stemmed more from the description of the monsters and a bit from the atmosphere.All in all it was a goodish read, something to read if you have nothing else.

Overall entertaining and inventive with flawless writing. Suffers from the classic “weird fiction novel problem” (that it's tough to maintain a really eerie atmosphere over the length of an entire novel)–compounded by a little bit too much “Men, Women & Children”-style commentary on modern life and the internets. Felt most acutely at the climax where I could feel the novel drift between “unexplainable Ligotti-esque horror lurking the streets of Detroit” and “blunt metaphor for how our current attention economy is destroying society.”

This one didn't work for me at all. I really should've just dropped it near the beginning. The writing style grates. (Most of) the characters are completely flat. The police procedural style parts are flat out BAD, like the corniest and blandest episode of SVU you could think of.

It had a few great moments that pushed me through, maybe 3 or 4 total? I kept thinking it had to get better, if she could write something as clever and interesting as the scene where the jaded detective/gen-x mom has to have her underage daughter turn off the parental locks on her laptop so she could google crime scene pictures, she MUST be able to keep my interest when the plot threads all start to come together and the tension is at maximum right? Nah :/

Doesn't help that it's written in this style that feels like an old gen-x'er trying to speak like a zoomer. The internet and cultural references are painful. Plus some super unfortunate use of AAVE and a couple of weirdly uncomfortable n-bombs.

I have no idea who this book is for. Do not recommend.

Is very good, less creepy-horror evil, more misunderstood dream world art murder. Plus, daaang Layla, we all wish we could beat up that guy. #bookclub4m

it feels a bit unfinished - but still enchanting. Or maybe it's just me, wanting more.

It's magical realism, supernatural horror, metaphoric thriller set in a ruined Detroit. It opens with a 10 year old boy, cut in half and crudely sewn onto the legs of a fawn. We're introduced to a slew of characters with wildly divergent stories along with the killer himself. He's propelled by a singular artistic vision and struggling to find the means to rip the skin that separates worlds. He's full on crazy town and it slowly begins to infect the rest of the narrative. It's the dream that wants to be made real but needs an audience to truly manifest itself.

There's something there, a grad school dissertation on internet culture. Catfishing, cyberbulling, YouTube fame, Reddit conspiracy theorists, but all I want is David Fincher to get a hold of this a make it into the movie it needs to be.

This is a page turner, but with a few more flaws (e.g. thing I didn't enjoy as much!) than the other two books of hers that I've read. She manages to create modern Detroit as a background character in a wonderful way, even sort of mocking herself in a character who is new to the area, pseudo-exploiting it. The central characters are two women–a mother and her daughter–who have multi-layered personalities, but the other characters feel so one-note that they end up distracting from the main themes, given the multiple-perspective structure of the book. When we get away from Layla or Gabi's perspectives, my interest waned.

That said, it's a solid thriller with a few mystical-horror elements which worked well. I hope we get to see these characters again...?

It's like the first season of True Detective and Stephen King had a really creepy baby.

This is more like a 3 and a half, because I really enjoyed reading it and I think Beukes is an amazing writer.

I read the bulk of the book on a cross-Atlantic trip spit between two flights. My first flight was just over 9h and I got to the grand denouement just before the plane landed. I now wish I'd stopped reading then and never finished the book.

The problem I have with it is that the buildup is so perfect, the plot is just the right amount of mysterious and also perfectly paced, and the characters are all so very likeable — especially the two teens Layla and Cas who are both too cool and too witty to be convincing (think Sorkin) — but the ending spoils it all by being didactic.

There's a moment in the book when the events really start taking off and the whole thing turns symbolic and dreamscapey, which seemed to me really uneven and confusing, and the return to the realistic that happens after leaves many events unexplained.

It's probably the most contemporary book I've ever read, and it handles modernity and the Internet culture with grace (an author who uses words like Creepypasta and NyanCat and Snapchat in the right context is a rare animal indeed), but sadly, it ends up being preachy. I get the author's point but I'm also a Millennial through and through and I can't help but roll my eyes at Gen X'ers getting righteous about our use of social media and about the Internet culture. I felt like in Broken Monsters, Beukes demonises these things in an overly literal and preachy way. I also resented her a bit for turning the characters that I loved so much into puppets in a morality tale.

Really freaky with great pacing. The characters are interesting and complex and the story is expertly crafted. Highly recommend.

I have this sneaky suspicion Beukes is a genius. I never write in books, but I found myself underlining quotes like crazy in this. It took me three days to read this because I didn't want to miss any of the clever lines. I look forward to reading The Shining Girls now.
Now, I really didn't care about the serial killer in the story. I enjoyed the tour of Detroit's art scene and I felt like the story bogged down at some points. The ending is worth hanging in there for.
This is one of those reads that really spoke to me, but I'm not sure who to recommend it to. Normal thriller lovers will lose patience with it, and it's not really horror (although Hannibal came into my mind often while I was reading). I will even go as far as to say there is a touch of Gaiman in here.