A fantasy of werewolves among us paralleled with comparisons on race. Thoughtfully done but stronger on the fantasy dimension than the political one.

I struggled through this one. There are a lot of threads and it makes it difficult to follow the story. There is a second book, however, I don't think it should mean that you spend the entire first book confused, waiting for it to make sense.

I knew there would be violence but I wasn't prepared for the sexual abuse against children and domestic violence. I can handle gore, but its the details about abuse against children that really put me off the series

No Gods, No Monsters
(The Convergence Saga #1)
by Cadwell Turnbull

This book is one of the strangest books I have read! That's not bad, I love strange! It just makes it difficult to review and make sense to anyone reading the review. I will try to avoid spoilers, there might be a hint of some but in this book you wouldn't have a clue what I am talking about anyway.

Here goes. Werewolves have decides to come out. Maybe someone is making them? But our gal of the story finds out that her brother is killed, shot by a cop. What the cop's body cam reveals is stunning. She wants to find out what is going on. The video goes viral then disappears.

No monsters, No gods is the protest saying as the marches go through towns. But there several monsters and gods in this book and we meet some of each. Not just werewolves but powerful mages, shifters, and more. Gods that walk with nebulas for eyes. Gods that purr. People that teleport between places and some teleport between time. A boy, that is very much not a boy, and he is kind but used as a weapon.

The story unfolds slowly, one person at a time until they all come together. Then it bounces between places, time, and people's lives. This was the difficult part for me. That and Hugh's life. I really got a bit bored there.

This is a different kind of fantasy book then I have read in a long time. Lots of great things going for it. Other than the above mentioned issues, it was great. It is something I had to concentrate on. Not a book to rush through. A book to soak up, to simmer, to bathe in, and let it baste my brain.

I had to wait a few days to review it to really think it over. I did enjoy it and it was the strangest and oddest book I have read this year but that is certainly not a bad thing.
I want to thank the publisher and NetGalley for letting me read this intriguing book!

Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read this arc in exchange for a honest review!

For me personally, this was the type of book where you need to pour your full attention into it. That being said, I was confused with the various storylines for a majority of my reading experience. It took me up to around the 60% mark for me to just accept that if need be, I could take a few minutes and try my best to remind myself of the characters and which storyline they were a part of. Once I gave myself that grace, things seemed to click together a little easier. I enjoyed getting to see the different types of monsters and how they see the world from before things were made public and after.

What do we have around here? Apparently monsters have always lived among us, even organized in secret societies (with all the internal struggles that accompany that), and suddenly everything explodes and comes to light. And that is what some want and others do not. The reason for that precise moment we do not know.

I am going to try to organize my ideas, but I want to say that the novel does not present the plot that way so neatly, which is a problem; it is like a pile of threads that you are pulling and pulling trying to untangle the skein, and you find different stamens, and without finding the end of the skein that you were looking for, I must say it. (There is a second book.)

It is a choral novel/ensemble. It has various perspectives of different characters, at different times, and jumps back and forth. The various narrators themselves are not too dense inconvenient, what I did struggle to understand was the perspective of the 'all-knowing' narrator, which is not. He is another character. And it is difficult to me, difficult to make this distinction. Someone may consider it a brilliant, interesting literary device that borders between that 'fourth wall' and what seems to have been perhaps a stream of consciousness, but it definitely does not make it easier to read. As I mentioned in one of my comments, this will probably improve if the novel is read more than once, to understand all these times and perspectives.

The book has a strong level of violence, sexual abuse against children and domestic violence. And its good bit of gore.

I suppose this could count as a kind of allegory about minorities and how in a moment social conflicts erupt, that they are all the same, or something like that. But all this violence and manipulations, without even finding a clear objective, did not end up liking me.

Some real people are mentioned in relation to this story, mainly in relation to cults and secret occult societies that actually exist.

-Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
https://www.grunge.com/296071/the-tru...

-L. Ron Hubbard and Jack Parsons
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thelema

-Marjorie Cameron and Thelema
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjori...

The fictional part that it puts, reminds me of some famous horror tales.
---------------------------

Me gustó? No.
Cosas interesantes? Sí.

+Digital ARC gently provided by Netgalley and publishers in exchange for an honest review+

I was interested in the premise of this book- what happens when monsters or supernatural beings reveal that they've been among us all along? But I had difficulties.

The book jumps around a lot. There were at least three or four different storylines happening when I put the book down. Some of them might have been tangentially connected, but I couldn't tell. It seemed like one character (who spoke in first person) would insert themselves into the middle of other storylines like they were observing, but they were either dreaming, astrally-projecting, or somehow being there without any other characters noticing. I wasn't sure what was happening. The breaks between the storylines themselves were abrupt in transition. Maybe the copy of the book I had didn't have breaks marked as clearly, but I had difficulty with the changing storylines. Also, the characters themselves didn't seem to have distinct voices. There were different characters introduced, but I had a hard time keeping track of who was who because they "sounded" similar to me. Sondra and Sonya, for example. They were introduced in the same sentence and I couldn't distinguish them personality-wise.

Tone fluctuated, too. There was a young woman agonizing about her brother, who had been molested as a boy, and how she failed to save him. Then a quick change to a scene about a secret semi-cannibal cult- horror, sort of? Then a character having a beer in St. Thomas reminiscing about old times.

I couldn't seem to concentrate enough to get a handle on what was happening, and I ended up putting the book down for good.

Such a unique novel! I was extremely impressed by the poignant conversation about marginalization and prejudice. I was loved how this novel provided such an excellent conversation about such complex issues.

Wonderful representation for queer and nonwhite people. All of the people in this book felt flawed in a realistic way. They are what kept me coming back for more.

The novel is very slow, focusing on characters over plot. This can be considered urban fantasy with mild horror, but it honestly read more like a literary piece of social commentary. I would have liked to learn more about the fantastical elements, but that is because I am strongly attracted to fantasy elements in novels.

I would recommend this one to readers looking for an insightful exploration of the challenges that affect marginalized people in America today.

This is, without a doubt, one of the best urban fantasy novels I have ever read. (TLDR: You should read this)
'No Gods, No Monsters' has all the elements you would expect of an urban fantasy novel - magic, monsters, gods, and a situation gone terribly awry - but it contains something that can only be described as quintessentially more.

The beauty of this novel is in the unfolding of events; it reads like a delicate origami piece that you undo carefully, trying to understand how it came to be. (You must understand that in telling more of the plot, I would give the game away, which was half the joy of this novel; I apologise if that makes this review somewhat confusing to read). The story is told from one of the most interesting perspectives that I have read outside of a short stories. In that, itself, the mysteries begin to coil upon themselves; there are so many intricacies in this tale, and yet, the entire duration of reading this, I found myself simply pleased to be along for the ride.

The social commentary in 'No Gods, No Monsters' was immaculate. The representation was beyond the usual tokenistic diversity: there were characters from all walks of life, and because of that, the world created is immersive and realistic. Beyond that, big issues were raised and outlined in the most concise way possible, bringing in a glorious array of ideas that made me think, from social justice, to critical reading, to metaphysics. This alone makes this a novel I will no doubt read again, and again.

If you like big ideas, and well crafted stories, this is for you. If you like writing that is beautiful, and flows in the most beautiful way, this is for you. If you like stories that make you think, where reading it feels like assembling a puzzle, piece by piece, then this is for you.

CW: Violence, Suicide Mention, Gore.
ARC Provided by the publisher. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Wow. This was so much more than I expected. A great read, and I can't wait to read the next book in the series. For fans of N.K. Jemisin's The City We Became.

I really liked Turnbull's debut work. So, this piece had a bit of cognitive hype to live up to--if nowhere else than in my mind, and mine alone.

Consider it done. Hype in check.

If I'm being honest, I was confused at first. Several aspects of the story seemed either convoluted or just flat out missing. A few chapters in, however, I decided to just let the story unfold. Once I got out of my own head and simply allowed Turnbull to do his thing--which he does very well--the process of reading was enhanced. He tells his story masterfully.

I really liked the overall arc this story takes. I also appreciate his "scholastic eye." He's an academic, that's easy to tell. Yet, he weaves some philosophical and/or ideological elements into this web of entertainment in an enjoyable and wortwhile way. Color me impressed.

DM

Urban fantasy is not my go-to subgenre, but the plot summary of No Gods, No Monsters caught my eye with “what looks like a case of police brutality soon reveals something much stranger: monsters are real,” and I’d seen good things about Cadwell Turnbull’s writing, so I requested and was approved for my first ARC.

What I got was a book that broke sharply from my stereotypes about urban fantasy, an audacious tapestry of a novel teeming with different perspectives and switching rapidly—often within a chapter—between first and third-person and past and present tense. No Gods, No Monsters is, as promised, a story about a world suddenly discovering that monsters are real. But it is not at all a straightforward one, with perspective shifting back and forth between monsters themselves, family members of monsters, conspiracy theorists hunting for secret societies, and more, with every perspective having its own backstory, such that each section feels like a novelette of its own as much as it feels like a piece of a greater whole.

No Gods, No Monsters is a tough book to review, and it definitely won’t be to everyone’s tastes. If you aren’t comfortable enjoying small-scale pieces of story while being in the dark about where the overarching plot is going, this won’t be for you. There is plot convergence, but it takes a long time to become apparent, and even when it does, there isn’t that moment where everything clicks into place and we see exactly why we’ve been learning about so many small stories.

But the small stories are almost universally wonderful. Turnbull’s prose is ambitious and engaging, and he makes every point-of-view character come to life, even if they only get a chapter of page time. There’s a remarkable diversity of characters, all with different aims and different struggles, but every one of them has a poignant story of loss that anchors their narrative and makes them come alive as individuals.

As I said, No Gods, No Monsters is a tough book to review, and it’s a tough book to rate as well. I imagine that those who enjoy literary-leaning fantasy may find a new favorite here, and those who want clear plot progression will be disappointed. But I’m in the middle, and I’m trying to weigh my disappointment at an ending that pulled the pieces together but didn’t fit them seamlessly against my adoration of so many individual subplots and more than a few individual passages. Ultimately, I find myself somewhere in the middle, and No Gods, No Monsters joins Rosewater and The Vanished Birds as books I’ve read this year where I enjoyed the set pieces more than the cohesive whole. If anything, it’s an even more stark division—the stories that make up No Gods, No Monsters are individually better than those other two, while the overarching narrative is less clear. But there is plenty of room for further story in the world Turnbull has created, and I will definitely be keeping an eye out for the sequel.

Recommended if you like: literary fantasy, excellent prose, myriad fully-developed characters.

No Gods, No Monsters is a pretty interesting book. Obviously the first part of a series, No Gods, No Monsters introduces a world where monsters exist and are on the verge of coming out. The story opens with a woman learning that her brother has been killed. Video of the killing shows that her brother was a member of a pack of werewolves.

From there things twist and turn. Many characters are introduced and their overlapping stories end up combining into a larger narrative. The writing is agile and the world-building is interesting. I really enjoyed the language the author uses. And the characters are refreshingly diverse.

I am really looking forward to future volumes of this series.

This was gripping and full of great diversity. I've always said that authors who incorporate diversity into their fantasy stories are very strong authors, and Cadwell Turnbull did just that. I fell in love with these characters and cannot wait to see what comes next. Thank you for the e-arc!

Turnbull is a smooth writer. Whatever tale he is telling just flows so easily from page to page, even when the subject matter is heavy. He ensures that his readers will have an easy time of it, while remaining interested and engaged.

He did it with The Lesson and he has brought this same style to No Gods, No Monsters. As he builds the reveal that monsters are among us, Turnbull is also raising questions around community and family: how they grow and change, what brings them together, what drives them apart, and how the shadowy areas overlap.

The story of No Gods, No Monsters is one of those stories that has moving parts which requires attention and which rewards a reader that sticks it out. With storylines that move forwards and backwards through time and place, expanding the cast of characters, introducing new magics and monsters, and then looping everyone together in some way was just a great reading experience.

I love a book that keeps me puzzled here, clues me in there, and that has heart. Because at the heart of this story is family and finding a place to be safe and to belong. Isn't that what we all want?

This book is incredibly well-written. I really enjoyed the monster aspects of it, and it provides a creepy-thriller vibe throughout. The format of this book felt like a snapshot of different stories; some narratives the reader returns to while others are just passing by in a section. The large cast works well and helps provide scope of the changing landscape of a speculative-fiction near-future world where humanity has to grapple with magic and science and monsters in various ways. While some of the science parts felt a little over my head, I was able to follow along and remain engaged till the very end. Thank you so much Netgalley and Blackstone Publishing for a digital copy in exchange for an honest review!

This would be a good book, if it weren’t for the writing.

It’s an urban fantasy that starts off with a kid being shot by the cops and we come to learn he’s actually a monster (a weredog, of you really want to know). I’m not spoiling anything because it happens in the first few pages of the novel.

We are then immersed in a world of humans and gods and monsters. The underlying theme is the battle for cultural acceptance - will the humans accept monsters as part of society. Yes, the book can easily be talking about any marginalized people.

There are a lot of cool stories and characters in the book that got me hooked and wanting to hear more. Fantasy fans will love that.

Here are my challenges with this book.
- there are so many darn characters it’s ridiculously hard to keep them straight.
- each chapter is about a different character, some new, some already introduced earlier in the novel, some interacting with others that you didn’t realize interact
- because of the above, it’s incredibly hard to keep track of the story and understand the nuances of the characters.

I’m amazed I finished it.
I’m also amazed the editors didn’t force the writer to create more clarity on the story.

Storywise this was a 3-3.5, but I couldn't put it down, so it has to get 4 stars for that.
This story shows our world very much like our own, where the supernatural has come out, for the most part. As just like our world, some claim they are fake, some are supportive, while others grow hateful, and some grow cults that hunger for the power they can use with or by taking from the supernatural.

Loved, Loved, LOVED, the lgbtq+ representation: we had transgender representation, asexual, open & safe queer relationships and bisexual/pansexual relationships.
Plus, we saw a lot of the hate that the LGBTQ+ community, the black community and the immigrant community goes through in both human and monster society for this world.

The story was prolonged, and the bigger picture of the overall plot is very vague. At times I had no idea what would happen, in both a good and bad way.
Another thing I didn't like was how the Latino representation ended up with drug addiction, as I see it far too much, and I really dislike that stereotype. I know addiction is a disease that affects all, but it seems always to be portrayed by Latino people, and I'm not too fond of that.
Another side thing is that there were a few too many characters, and I had to backtrack to remember some of them as they interconnected.

This was such a unique read. Turnbull's novel is beautifully written; the prose is stunning. I found the plot to be riveting, though a little bit confusing at times (there are some flashbacks and some events seem to be told out of order). The author writes about sorrow and loss in a way that feels authentic. "No Gods, No Monsters" discusses topics such as police brutality and race-based oppression, while simultaneously weaving supernatural themes into the narrative.
I would recommend this to people who enjoy literary fiction and urban fantasy.

I reviewed this book on behalf of the magazine Booklist. My review will appear there, in the magazine.

A fascinating take on the idea of the supernatural hiding in plain sight. The characters were relatable and the novel is relevant to the current political context.