ReadingBifrost

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Have you ever seen a surrealism painting by Salvador Dali? They’re creepy. But, for some reason, you can’t tear your eyes away from it. Monsters All the Way Down is kind of like a Salvador Dali painting. A quick glance just won’t do, because there’re dozens of angles and “reality” is optional.

The story starts with Brennan being accused of murders he doesn’t remember committing. The mysteries quickly start piling up from the very beginning. The reader just met Brennan, and Brennan himself is unsure of anything that’s going on; confusion on top of confusion. Do we trust him? Who are we supposed to be rooting for here? It doesn’t make the reader like Brennan any less, but it does start you out with a heathy dose of paranoia.

On to the mid-point of the book and we’ve already hit enough twists and turns on this macabre roller-coaster to make even the strong-stomached a little nauseous, and where we finally start getting answers, but the paranoia only deepens. But now we have Joan to share in our paranoia.

Joan is a survivor of the murderer. Then she meets Brennan. Joan is a like-able, non-winey character that can stand on her own feet, but I did feel that her character could have been a little more developed. I know specific details about other characters, like ones love of meatball sandwiches, but I don’t feel that same level of connection the Joan.

There’s a bit of romance thrown into the book, of corse. My main complaint here is that because of the situation the characters were in the building of romance between the two was a bit rushed.

The last section of the book is were you just forget everything, throw the rulebook out the window and listen to Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody on continuous repeat because you’re not going to make it to the end of the book with your brains still in place anyway.

Overall, I recommend this to anyone who is a fan of psychological/horror/sci-fi stories which may or may not cause grey matter ooze from your ears after reading. You’ve been warned.