ORDINARY MONSTERS is a rich and complex tale that instantly pulls you in. Miro's writing and ability to weave together a story propels the reader into this world. I can honestly not wait for book two.

Ordinary Monsters is an interesting book, good doesn't seem the right word for it, engulfing feels more accurate. The world is facinating it is a wonderful mixture of the mundane and the mystical. I loved the interplay of religion and science which acted as a wonderful counter to the interplay of good vs evil. Within the world the author does a wonderful job of articulating many of the characters moral greyness. Almost no character is all good or all bad, and in that way this feels a little like lemony snicket. It is a book that is well worth the read with complex characters, well moving plot, and enough emotional interplay to keep the reader invested.

I hate to call a book "too long" because I love a long fantasy book, but Ordinary Monsters was very long and very slow. It took about 300 pages for the book to get going and by then I was just exhausted. It is really hard to read a book this long knowing it is the first book in a trilogy. I was pushing myself through pages and pages of nothing knowing that I wouldn't get any answers.

Ordinary Monsters was a very character-driven book. And, unsurprisingly, the characters were my favorite part of the book. They were all distinct and had strong backgrounds and motivations. But amazing characters cannot carry a story on their own and unfortunately, I just didn't care about anything that was happening. Unless I hear amazing things about the sequel, I doubt I will continue.

A copy of this book was provided by Turn the Page Tours in exchange for an honest review.

First off, let's just put it out there. This book is thick, and it's the first book in a trilogy. Just let that sink in for a few minutes.

Okay, now that that's out of the way. This book is absolutely amazing. The worldbuilding is stunning. The characters are likable and you have those that you love to hate. To say this book is pretty much hitting the 700-page mark, it's a fairly quick read with multiple points of view and little tidbits that keep you rolling right on through. I cannot wait to see what book two will have in store for us. Hoping to have the opportunity to promote that one as well.

I really tried to like this book, but I just couldn't get into it. It's 672 pages, which normally doesn't bother me because a lot of fantasy books are long. However, this book read so slow that I just couldn't keep going. It's really well written, but every scene is so stretched out I started getting impatient while reading it. I dreaded picking the book up, and every time I started reading, I fell asleep. A lot of people really liked this book, so please don't be discouraged from reading it based on my review. Not every book is for every person, and this one just wasn't for me.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from NetGalley and Flatiron Books. All opinions are my own.

After an initial attempt, I was unable to connect with this book on a level that would allow me to finish it and leave a fair review. Others will surely enjoy this more than I did.

Ordinary Monsters is a small title for a big book. Coming in at 672 pages, it’s not a short read, nor is it a light one. It is, however, a compelling, complex tale—one that sucks you into the magically grotesque underbelly that seethes throughout this alternate history of the late 19th century.

The cast of characters in Ordinary Monsters is long, and we spend time in the points of view of most of them. The focus of the tale, however, revolves around a young boy named Marlowe, a child who gives off a bluish glow sometimes, and who was found as a baby by a woman on the run, alone in a boxcar next to his dead nursemaid.


Marlowe isn’t the only child out there, however, who is different than most. In this alternate Victorian age (the book takes place primarily in the early 1880s although we spend a decent part of the book a decade earlier as well), some people are born as Talents, those who have specific abilities that enable them to do seemingly supernatural feats like control dust, become invisible, or be able to harden their skin to thwart off blows that would maim mundane flesh. [rest on Tor.com]

I listened along with reading this book, and I preferred reading. The narrator felt a bit monotone to me. However, I did thoroughly enjoy the writing. The characters were complex, and I liked the different chapters being told from different perspectives. It was a gothic tale of children with "Special talents" being brought to a special school for them. I still felt a bit of hope, even when the story got quite dark.

I posted my thoughts on Storygraph and Goodreads (with a link sent to Twitter). I'll post to my instagram stories soon. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4916354761

This was quite the Dickensian horror/fantasy.Kids with special “talents” are being hunted and brought to a remote special school to be “safe” as they are considered to be monsters by society .They are also hunted by a malevolent ,creepy character and his henchman .Who really is trying to help them? I could not put this down and need book two ASAP!!

With a premise that is reminiscent of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, with a hint of X-Men thrown in for good measure, Ordinary Monsters could have easily gotten lost in a crowd of similar books. Instead, its evocative writing sets it apart from so many other “extraordinary children” storylines, while author J.M. Miro confidently subverts expectations.

The plotline seems simple enough: there are two kids with special abilities referred to as Talents, being hunted by a mysterious being. At the same time, there is a duo of detectives (ish) who have been given the task of finding these children and taking them to a special school for those like them (seems pretty similar to Professor X’s school, right?).

Where the book differs from other stories in this vein is its execution. Ordinary Monsters is darkly beautiful, grimy, and gothic with an ugly underbelly that rears its head when least expected. It’s unsettling and thought provoking. I was engrossed and almost repulsed, in equal measure. There’s an undercurrent of hope, even among the bleakest parts of the book.

Ordinary Monsters uses multiple points of view, but it is never confusing or distracting. There are Marlowe and Charlie, two children with Talents. Charlie can glow. Marlowe can heal himself of any physical hurt. Unfortunately for him, the emotional pain isn’t also healed. His introduction was heartbreaking, to say the least. Then there are several other characters who play roles of varying importance. What I loved about this was how even the smallest of interactions could have a profound impact on the personality or choices of a main character.

I definitely had some niggles. The plot could be a little convoluted at times, and there were subjects touched upon that I prefer to avoid (description of rape being the main one that most bothered me). If there was a content warning section in the book, I missed it. However, these unsavory topics were not used for “shock value”, and they weren’t dwelled upon. Take from that what you will.

As in life, things were complex and messy. There was no absolute good or absolute bad. Each character had their own drive and motivation, and many characters were morally conflicted at best. The story went far past surface level, examining what makes people tick.

While the book wasn’t perfect, it was a fascinating read. It impresses with its immersive, gothic atmosphere and its nuanced characters. Ordinary Monsters will worm its way into your head and keep you thinking. Pick this one up if you like exploring the dark corners of the human psyche and are drawn to the mysterious and unknown.

I don't think I've ever torn through a 700-page book so fast. It's epic - absolutely EPIC with all caps. The whole book is action-packed, cinematic, & just beautifully written. More, I say! More! The wait for this sequel will be more painful than most. I must know what happens to Marlowe, Charlie, Alice, Ribs, Komako, Miss Davenshaw and Oskar. And poor Lymenion! And the Keyrasse, will it be back? Where is this other orsine? Are there other places like Cairndale out there? Talents exist all over the world, will we meet more of them? I. MUST. KNOW!

Also: I cannot recommend the audiobook highly enough - narrator Ben Onwukwe is like an British James Earl Jones. There were times where I'd be happy to go out and do yard work just to keep listening.

This was a long but great read! The characters and the world building was great! The writing is rich and vivid! This is going to be a great series!

I, Hannah read Ordinary Monsters. I got the book from Netgalley, and want to thank them for giving me the advanced copy that I intended to read before it came out on June 7, but failed. Honestly, I think the length intimidated me after the #MegaMay I hosted on my Instagram account. But I powered through this book recently, and overall I'm not sure I really enjoyed it. When it was good it was good, but overall, it felt like a bit of a mess to me.

This is a book that starts with a character finding a magical child, and then we travel throughout the world meeting children who have similar power and bringing them together to fight against a deep seeded evil and lurking in a dead world. Does that have a flavor of Stranger Things? Maybe. But the main characters are a mix of young to teenage children, a few adults, and the evil lurking around them.

I very much enjoyed the setting and the way the characters came upon information. They seemed to have realistic reactions to the magical world, and overall the story was interesting. I know this is a trilogy, and this is an interesting beginning that set up the final scenes for the next book really, really well. I also really liked the Marlowe and Charlie characters. They really seemed to have a wonderful connection, and I really liked seeing to boys make a connection like found brothers. That was relatively unique for a fantasy book where that was the main focus. And again, the plot felt interesting and I was interested to see where it went.

Technically, this is all right up my alley, honestly. The book has been compared to Stranger Things, Umbrella Academy, X-Men, all things I really, truly love. But overall, the book was a 672 page tome that was a straightforward mix of all the above things, with no real change from the formulaic fantasy stories. I felt like I was reading any other story of good v. evil, with small changes to make it "feel different", but it never actually felt different. Without this, I felt every single page I was reading and counting down the hours I had left in the book.

I also felt like the plotting was very unique and not always what I expected, but it was also a bit confusing at times. I thought certain things would have made more sense earlier in the novel, or later on for better context. A lot of times, it almost felt like the author was trying to add certain scenes either for shock value or to set everything up for us to understand something really specific about characters, but that wasn't always necessary. It felt like he didn't always trust the reader, and that was a bit disappointing.

Further, some of the characterization was very bizarre to me. It is a book set in the 1800s, with a Black teenager. He is American and experiences great racial bias in America, but once he sets foot in England, it is almost like racism vanishes. I understand that England did treat Black people better, but it felt like there was always a lot of focus on how well he was treated when that wasn't always the case. It just felt like a weird choice overall. There was also a lot of hints that there will be a love triangle including two best friends, and there was no hint at how the friends felt about it. It felt like these were takes from the early 2000s and not something from 2022. There were also so many characters that didn't feel fully realized, and more like they were general ideas that didn't get the full support. There was enough page space to give them more nuance, and a lot of times it felt flat.

Overall, I didn't love this book. It wasn't bad, and a lot of people really liked it, and I get it. But it felt like a pretty straightforward fantasy with no real movement. I will give the second book a chance, it is the first novel of this caliber. But I have some questions for how this will proceed.

I finished this one last weekend and I can't stop thinking about it. Ordinary Monsters is a dark, atmospheric story with great pose and rich detail. We meet a unique cast of characters, visit multiple locations, and flash back to different time periods as the story unravels. This is a book of morally grey characters, found family, and lots of magic. At 650+ pages, the book starts off slow but once it picked up I couldn't stop reading.

This book is SO. MUCH.
Like 700 pages!? Holy shit I don't know who I thought I was.
Then there is so much going on, and it was amazing. I loved every aspect of it. Amazing, amazing, amazing.

I didn't know what to expect when I started reading Ordinary Monsters, by J.M. Miro, but I liked the blurb and was lucky enough to receive an advance copy from NetGalley. This book was a cross between Miss Peregrin's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Rigs, and a Stephen King novel: Fantasy with a hefty helping of Horror. The story follows several children who have supernatural "Talents" as they being sought by two groups of people. Those who want to protect them, and those who want to use them for evil. But who will reach them first? The children in the story are pawns in a much larger game of chess. Both sets of adults looking for them want to use them in some fashion or another. They can sense this, and it's difficult to know who the children can trust.

I really liked all the characters in this story, both adults and children. All the characters are fully realized and one can really sympathize with nearly all of them. Charlie, a African-American teen has been brutalized all his life. He has no reason to trust anyone. But he quickly sees a kindred spirit in Marlowe. Although Marlow is much younger than Charlie, he has also seen many hard times. He no sooner finds a stable home than he is ripped away from it. Both have powers they don't understand.

The adults in the story, especially the two detectives, Coulton and Alice, were also wonderful characters. Each had a compelling backstory that added motivation to what they were doing. I loved how protective they became as they got to know the children. Even the villain, who of course never considered himself to be evil, had a long and interesting history.

The world-building is also top-notch. The world is mostly set in Victorian London. It's grimy, smoggy, and filled with desperate people. Everyone is one step away from destitution. Get hurt on the job? You become homeless. Kids who are orphaned must fend for themselves. But it's the shadow world that some of the characters must enter that mirrors London that is even more terrible. It's filled with dread, and horrible creatures.

My only complaint about this book is that it is SUPER LONG! At nearly 700 pages, this book is an epic. And it's part of a series! If you are in the mood for a long, but compelling, read, this book ticks all the boxes. Fun characters, creepy bad guys, magical school, vast conspiracies and very gothic horror await. This book will keep you enthralled (and probably also give you nightmares).

When the world’s a bit dark and scary and unsure, what do readers need? A world that’s even darker, scarier, and more unsure to make you realize how good you have it! . . . what? Just me on that one? Pffft.
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Travel to Victorian London as you’ve never seen it: bleak, shrouded in mystery, and filled with monsters. Ordinary Monsters is an eerie, dark book where everyone has secrets, there’s no distinction between good and evil, and danger lurks around every corner.
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With dual timelines, multiple points of view, and over 650 pages, this book is a BEAST. It’s a slow burn to get started and into the meat of the story, but once things come together, the payoff is soooo sweet.
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This one’s perfect for readers who enjoy:
✿ Dark, eerie worlds filled with danger
✿ Monsters lurking around every corner
✿ Gray characters and antiheroes
✿ Characters with powers (which sometimes go awry)
✿ Slow-burn mystery that builds to a reveal
✿ Characters who team up and fight against all odds.

- thanks to netgalley and the publisher for providing me with the ARC in exchange for an early review.

I really loved this one. The world Miro creates is dark and brutal but the characters are so loveable that you want to wrap them up in a blanket and hug them because oh boy, they need the hug after being chased by this mysterious "man of smoke".
I highly recommend this one if you like the grittiness and darkness of Victoria-era England. Also, anything with a crow-like bird on the cover (is it a crow? Maybe a raven?) is an automatic addition to my TBR!