I was surprised to find just how much I fell in love with this book. It's quaint and nostalgic and exciting all at the same time as we follow our main character Jean as she weaves in and out of time in order to save her family from the boy she fears (and loves) the most.

Since she was a young child, Jean's grandmother has told her stories of monsters and heroes, telling her that she herself is a monster. Jean never understood just how much truth those words held until one day, when she accidentally steals time from someone and learns what her family really is: time-travelling monsters who are able to siphon time from people by touching the nape of their neck, essentially shortening their lifetime in the process.

Things take a turn for the worse, of course, when—on top of that—she discovers that the boy she has been developing feelings for over the past summer is actually the hero from her grandmother's stories: destined to eradicate all monsters and protect humanity.

With nothing left for her in her current time, Jean is forced to flee with the son of her family's worst enemy to the past, where they form an unlikely alliance in order to figure out how to save all monsters from the hero.

This book!!!!! This book was so addicting I could not put it down. I was actually astounded to find how deep I had fallen between its pages, especially considering how off-kilter the beginning felt to me. The first few chapters of Only a Monster feel a bit juvenile and underdeveloped, but when the action finally hits—it really hits. Jean was such a beautiful and compelling character that I actually wanted to root for, and the romance (both of them) was hooking and interwoven perfectly into the fabric of the story. I found that the ending happened a bit too quickly for my liking, but I can also appreciate how the book finishes on a high (if not uncertain) note.

The only thing that pains me about this book is that I do not have its sequel in my hands yet...

Thanks NetGalley for the ARC! Like the monsters in this book this story is something unique! I love the twist of a monster and hero not being good or bad. The main characters eyes was a perfect view for the reader!
I was heartbroken at the ending but felt like it was justified. Can’t wait to read the continuation of the story!

I really enjoyed this book. The idea of time traveling vampire-like creatures was very cool and a totally new concept to me and it was great. The plot moved quickly and there wasn’t any real slow parts. I do wish there was slightly more world building. Main character didn’t change too much so not really much development but I did like her all the same. Would definitely buy from this author in the future.

I enjoyed this book and this story line very much but because of the use of the F word throughout the book I wouldn’t recommend it for my class. However, as an adult I found myself on the edge of my seat waiting for the next thing to happen. The ending was incredibly good but also heart wrenching.

This story is INCREDIBLE! I love a realistic magical world, enemies to lovers, star crossed lovers, secret identity, and a love triangle and Only a Monster had it all.

The story is so fresh and original, it’s nothing like I’ve read before. The second I was done reading it, I was googling to author to find out if there will be more to the story.

This book is a 5/5 for me and I’d recommend it for readers who enjoy Sabaa Tahir, Victoria Aveyard, and Leigh Bardugo. The writing was great with excellent imagery and the plot and story were engaging and captivating.

Joan grew up on stories of monsters told by her grab, never truly believing they're real, until one day she accidentally activates her power. In a turn of events, Joan unknowingly puts her family in danger when she falls for the boy she thought was a simple, sweet boy, Nick, who turns out to be the very hero she heard about in her gran's stories. Teaming up with the son of an enemy monster family, Joan tries to right the wrongs of what happened.

Woah, talk about a refreshing, different sort of story. I dove into this book unsure of what to expect in terms of monsters. I absolutely loved the concept that Vanessa Len spun into this story though. It's such an interesting idea and she wrote it well, I loved the writing style; I loved how there was a perfect amount of a little bit of everything in this book that I truly enjoyed.

Its got a beautiful cover, some romance, morally grey characters, mysterious powers, adventure and more. I loved Joan's character and how it developed throughout the storyline, the choices she made and how they affected her. All of the other characters had their own compelling aura of mystery and vulnerability to them as well.

Although Joan is a monster, throughout the story it's hard not to question whether or not she's truly monstrous or if the humans, like Nick, are the real 'monsters' in a sense that we know monsters to be. It's what I love about the concept of the book. It's the power and how it's used that makes them monsters.

If you love urban fantasy thats unique and well written, I highly recommend reading this book when it releases. It's soooo good. You won't be disappointed.

Thank you Netgalley and Harper Collins. Childrens Books for the opportunity to read an arc in exchange for an honest review.

I inhaled this. Only a Monster was fast-paced and clever. I was a little weary as I don't usually like contemporary set fantasies, but this really worked! Excited for the next two books.

Joan Chang grew up with the common narrative that heroes are good and monsters are bad, so no one is more shocked than she to discover that she’s half-monster and can time-travel by stealing years from a human’s life. Soon after this realization, a rumored hero appears before her. He is determined to put an end to monsters, saving humans from being violated. When the hero’s actions hit too close to home, Joan is forced into an unlikely partnership with Aaron Oliver, who belongs to a rival monster family. Together, they must travel back in time to try and prevent something terrible from happening. A grand adventure ensues, filled with danger, secrets, betrayals, and enemies-to-lovers romance(s).

This is a fresh, intriguing, dark, and complex masterpiece that turns the traditional belief about heroes on its head and has us rooting, unexpectedly, for the monsters.

In short, I appreciated the unique plot, rich world-building, and morally grey characters. The pacing felt slow but was necessary to understand the intricacies of the monster family relationships, the monster hierarchy, and all the mysteries that unraveled over time. My favorite aspects were reflecting on the moral dilemmas presented and learning about each character. While I am still left with many questions, I am interested to see where Len will take this series!

I predict that fans of In Time (movie), Doctor Strange (movie), Romeo and Juliet (play), and Champion (book) will enjoy this book, too. Plus, there’s POC and LGBTQ+ representation.

Thank you to HarperTeen, Vanessa Len, and NetGalley for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a marvel of a book! I had such an amazing time reading the unique structure to this world and fell completely in love with the characters. Such well-built tension between the main characters! Definitely a read that will grip you by the heart and leave you wanting more.

A solid debut! Not a fan of the writing despite it being easy to read, but the magic system and the themes made up for it. I had different expectations for this, not all were met, it was lacking in some aspects such as the worldbuilding but still enjoyable nonetheless. I need to sit on this more.

Full review to come and rating may change!

Okay, SO. I have been thinking a lot about Only a Monster for the past week, because I have no idea how to rate it. The journey from what I expected this book to be, to how I felt during the beginning, through to what I thought at the end was quite a ride.

This was one of the more imaginative fantasy novels I’ve read recently, even in a year where more of my reading has been magic-adjacent than not. In my opinion, the Goodreads synopsis does the book no favors, so I’ll try to lay it out in a way that doesn’t use the phrase “super cute boy” multiple times. Joan is a teenager living in London with her mom’s side of the family, the Hunts, an quirky group that consists of her grandmother, cousins, aunts and uncles. She spends most of her free time at Holland House, a historical site, and after months of pining after one another her co-worker Nick finally asks her out.

But right before meeting up with Nick Joan makes a devastating discovery about her family—that the Hunts are self-identified monsters and potentially dangerous to others. And because the description mentions it I will too: Nick is a much-prophesied monster slayer. Not much of a meet cute!

So at this point in the book I was just kind of floating along, expecting the same kind of YA star-crossed-lovers-but-supernatural. Think Scott and Allison from Teen Wolf or Nina and Matthias from Six of Crows, one doomed to hunt the other despite misgivings. And I’m not saying that’s not what happens here, just that it’s not *all* that happens. I was convinced it was going to be dramatic, maybe a little soap-y, and kind of, well, basic.

But man, I was not expecting that to be what made the monsters so……monstrous. I don’t want to get into this part just because I would hate to ruin a major plot point for someone, but damn. What a brutal way to paint characters in the moral grey.

I think I saw someone in an IG story say that Only a Monster reminds them of YA fantasy books they used to read as a teenager, and I absolutely love that idea. You could sit down, inhale this book in one sitting and be immediately desperate for more. The terminology used by Len is simplified, the kind of thing where you don’t need an entire world-specific thesaurus at the end for reference. The magic system itself is straight forward as well, and even though you can tell there’s more intricacies lying underneath that first layer, Len holds back from info-dumping all over the reader. You find out things as you need to, and are allowed to theorize in a way that doesn’t distract from what’s going on in that moment.

What’s holding me back from stomping onto this site and throwing an easy five stars up is that it’s not a perfect novel. I think it ping-pongs around a little too much and could use some sharper dialogue. But as a debut, as a start of a series and as something new and exciting enough to be appealing to both veterans of the genre and newbies, I’m going to give it the fifth star. Mostly because I want you all to read it too and tell me what you think.

Though not everything was my cup of tea, it was an interesting read. Vanessa Len reinvents the meaning of "monster." Intriguing events lead to a somewhat magical world hidden under the surface of regular society. There are families and conspiracies and a girl waking up to these new realities. I wouldn't mind revisiting this world even if it's just to reread the story.

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for an opportunity to read this book.

Okay, excuse me while I process EVERYTHING I JUST READ. This book was soooo good. I still have so many questions and that ending? What am I supposed to do with that??

This story follows Joan, a monster girl in a world of humans, as she tries to undo something terrible that happened to her family. The world-building in this book is freaking incredible, and I’m just fascinated with the monsters and the families at the mystery shrouding so much of it. The time-travel aspect was unexpected, but it made everything so much more interesting.

Joan was a great MC! While sometimes I felt like she dove into poor decisions a little too eagerly, her character arc was really interesting. I love how her story made me view the standard hero/monster trope differently. It’s all in the eye of the beholder, isn’t it?

I’ll admit, I have a soft spot for Aaron. I can’t help but fall in love with arrogant boys filled with angsty secrets. But then there’s Nick. And Nick is something else entirely. Do I have two new book boyfriends? Maybe. Is this a love triangle? …no?

Now I’ll just have to suffer while I try to pick apart the ending and figure out what on EARTH is going to happen next. Uugghhhhh.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a n eARC in exchange for an honest review.

EXCELLENT! I loved the characters and the cat and mouse game they had going. I also loved the diversity in the book, which is so important for YA novels. It’s a fast, fun, un-put-down-able read!

Wow.
I’m exhausted, because I stayed up all night reading it. I was going to pace myself, but by 10% I knew I wouldn’t be able to put it down. The world building is so unique that I was even bragging about it to my spouse and coworkers. The idea of monsters and time travel? Perfect! The entire story grabs your attention and holds it the entire way through.
The characters are likable and so different from each other. It’s amazing to read a story that doesn’t have characters that are so similar, and the main character faces an impossible dilemma. How was I cheering the main character on while she unmakes her soul mate, while simultaneously crying that he didn’t get a happy ending? Because the author wrote them splendidly.
I’m left with so many questions. I can’t wait to see if she ever sees Aaron again or if we will see more of some of the other families.
I love this book so much!

When granny tells Joan that she comes from a family of monsters, Joan should have definingly asked for clarification. At first I thought this would be like a twisted tale of Little Red Riding Hood, where the Granny tells Joan she's a wolf, a monster, but it was so much more than that. See, I read the book without reading the synopsis or reading other reviews just because of the title and cover. I dig the cover!


It was a quick read and I enjoyed the world, the people time-traveling which comes at a cost, the people with these abilities to time-travel are known as monsters... no spoilers past that. I enjoyed that for being a YA paranormal time-travel book, you only got snippets of romance. The book was more focused on delving into Joan's dilemma and how to solve it. I enjoyed the world of monsters that Len created and their individual powers. When I read that portion of the book, it's where I got hooked. I love the interpretation of what and who is a monster and the why. I do hope that if there is a sequel, that it really delves into the other monster families a bit more.


There wasn't enough character development. I thought Joan's personality could have been expanded a bit more. I felt that Joan's discovery of being a monster and the trauma she went through, that there was still something missing, a bit of a disconnect. I do wish that there was more time travel. In my opinion, the ending was abrupt and anti-climatic even though it sets up for a sequel ,where I hope it delves further into these concepts.

Overall, this was a very interesting book :)

Only a Monster has everything a YA paranormal fantasy should have. An MC who is actually the “monster”, high stakes, mystery, time travel and more.

The pacing was great and I can appreciate when an author can grab our attention to a scene or description without dragging it out.

And now to the romance.. We all know I’m a sucker for it and I was expecting enemies-to-lovers. To me, Joan and the real love interest weren’t what I’d describe as an ETL situation. I’m also someone who usually roots for the love interest who the MC doesn’t choose. So I’m interested to see how this plays out in the next two books.

While staying at her grandmother's house in London for the summer, Joan goes on a date with the cute, nerdy boy from her volunteer job at the historical museum in town. But when an altercation causes her to lose time, missing the date, she is set off on a wild, mysterious journey discovering the power of her family, and the power within herself. Her mother always told her she was a monster, but she had no idea that was true until this fateful day.

I really enjoyed this book! It started out really strong and I was super into it, it lost me a little bit in the middle, where it got a little slow, but then the ending was great! I cannot wait to hear more from this author and to read the rest of the trilogy. A great debut novel!

Okay. So like. This wasn’t…. Terrible. But it wasn’t good either. Thirteen year old me probably would’ve liked it. That’s about the only good thing I can say about it, though.

The plot: There were so many plot holes I felt like I was reading a book of Swiss cheese. There was no direct point to this book, 90% of it it was just Joan wandering around being convinced She is Right and Everyone Else is Wrong, regardless of the fact that everyone else has lived in the monster world their whole lives and she discovered it a whole entire Two Days Ago. But somehow she’s right? Also, almost nothing that happened was necessary?? Like? What was the purpose of most of this book? I don’t know. I didn’t enjoy it.

The characters: okay I already partially covered that in the plot section, but oh my gosh literally not a single character in this book had a PERSONALITY. There’s Stubborn-YA-Heroine™️, Draco Malfoy wannabe, and Cousin. Who has absolutely no importance or character being being a Relative. And then the whole Extended Family who we are supposed to be devastated by their deaths but since none of them mattered I was significantly more indifferent than devastated.

The writing: whooooo boy. When I say this reads like the book I tried to write when I was thirteen, I’m not exaggerating. It was bad. It was Wattpad fanfiction level bad. It hurt. It was so painful to read I stopped halfway through and read the last three books in the Twilight series because even Twilight’s atrocious writing was less painful than this. (No seriously. I did that. Not even exaggerating.)

Overall, I don’t have any objections to this book. It’s not like, you know, graphic sexual abuse porn *coughsarahjmaascough* or anything. It was just bland, poorly written, and I wish I could forget I ever read it. That’s all.

Thanks to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

I think I love the idea of this book and was disappointed with the execution. The concept felt like a breath of fresh air. The notion between what is truly good and what is truly evil. Can good people do bad things for the right reasons? Can bad people do good things for the right reasons? I love morally gray books (okay, actually they give me a lot of anxiety, but....still). I love the complexity of not everything being black and white and here we have monsters and heroes and who is really the hero and who is the villian?

I just feel like there was room for so much more potential.

Joan learns that she is a monster and that they boy she loves is the hero from her childhood stories. After monsters interrupt their after hours "date" in the historical house, Joan learns that Nick isn't who she really thought he was and that he is responsible for the death of all her family members (minus one) and a lot of other monsters. Cue time travel. Joan, with the help of some other monsters, is convinced that if she travels back in time that she can prevent Nick from killing her family.

Here is where I feel like the book fell short for me...
-- There wasn't enough time travel! Monsters and time travel. Two really cool concepts and there just wasn't enough of it. I felt like this book could have contained so many historical references or historical moments had Joan and crew stopped in a few different decades.
-- The romance. I love romance. It's hard for me to not ship any and all possibilities of romance. But there is this huge gap from the beginning of the book to the end. Joan really likes Nick. Then she learns he killed her whole family. After she time travels, we barely see or hear much about Nick. Then all of a sudden at the end of the book, he is back in the picture and she loves him. There needed to be more scenes between the two of them, more context for their relationship, more development in their relationship.
-- The monster families. Again, there is this cool concept on monster families and they all have their own abilities except we really don't get to experience that many of their skill sets. I would have loved to encounter more monsters from different families and see them use their skills base on their family name. All the family names and skills sounded so intriguing, but there wasn't any depth to it. It was more an explanation than anything.
-- Looking back, it didn't really feel like a whole lot happened. I think a lot of that had to do with the lack of time travel, but once I finished the book, I felt like there just could have been so much more. The plot could have been more complex. The characters, especially with time travel and different timelines, could have been more complex or developed further.

All of that said, I would still tell you to read the book because I still want to read the second book. I have to know where it goes and maybe I'm hopeful that all the things that made this book fall short will be redeemed in the next one.