Perry good, I really enjoyed it and would recommend it to others. I enjoyed the characters and the plot was well done.

Part The Scorpio Races, part The Hunger Games, and part something entirely new and brilliant.

Koral and her brother Emrik risk growing into adulthood every day as they capture the monsters residing in the seas and train them into submission for the elite ruling their world. They are paid little and the sickness growing inside their younger sister has them all increasingly desperate for funds. The monsters, as if sensing this growing unease inside of them, prove increasingly difficult to capture and, as the stakes are heightened, Koral must take calculated risks to save her sister's life and her family from destitution. One such risk sees her competing in the Glory Race. Wealth is the reward, if she can win against the elite vying for gold and fame alongside her and the monsters they ride, vying for her blood and destruction.

I loved the ingenious creation of this world but do wish the reader was garnered more of an understanding of its geography, its cultures, and the mechanics underpinning it. The political focus dominated and was highly intriguing, as was every other facet introduced, but I yearned for a more comprehensive knowledge to also be gained for these other areas, which I believe could have been done from a few extra chapters included. Regardless, I loved everything this did contain.

I believed this to be a standalone but the open-ended conclusion and the multitude of questions now haunting me have me seriously hoping for a sequel. I loved Koral, this world and the monsters - both human and otherwise - who haunt it, and long to be reunited with them all in the future.

Perhaps I'm disappointed because I had been so excited to read this book. Everything from the description to the title to the cover made this book sound like something that would be perfect for me. Unfortunately I'm left just feeling meh about it.

Hopefully this is only an issue with the ARC and not the finished copy, but the way scenes were written to introduce characters or places was so confusing. I spent half the time going back and rereading to see what I missed. Some of this probably had to do with the formatting of the ebook I received, with typos, weird paragraph breaks, paragraphs that started in the middle of sentences, etc. I want to revisit this one with the final published copy There was also a fair amount of telling rather than showing with characters.

This being pitched as similar to The Hunger Games is spot on. I can definitely recommend this to anyone who is looking for similar books.

“Monsters Born and Made” by Tanvi Berwah. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Genre: YA/Teen Fantasy. Location: Sollonia Island in the Panthalassan Ocean. Time: 1000 years after the Empyrean Sanctuary ship, carrying the Voyagers, crashed on Sollonia.

A 16 year old girl and her older brother support an abusive father, a beaten down mother, and their sick little sister. But wait, this takes place somewhere else, and while you might recognize some challenges, others are vastly different.

MARISTAG: Predator. Fast, bipedal, clawed front limbs. Luminescent scales, green blood, enormous antlers, venomous barbs, rear-curving fangs.

Koral, 16, and her brother Emrik are Maristag Hunters. A wild storm causes them to lose the last maristag of the year. Without this income, they face starvation and cannot buy medicine for their chronically ill little sister. It’s a strict, caste-system life with the Landers living in luxury and the Renters (everyone else) suffering. Koral sneaks into the Landers’ Glory Race, trying to win the gold prize with her maristag Stormgold. Meanwhile, her best friend Crane joins the Freedom Ark rebels as simmering hostility between entitled Landers and downtrodden Renters comes to a head.

Berwah’s characters are complex and her world building creative. It would be helpful to have a map of the island, and of the Drome race track. She blends South Asian culture into the story with clothes (saris), food (flatbreads, curries), holiday traditions(colored powder bombs), and an entrenched caste system. Sometimes there are time and location changes without notice, and it can be hard to follow the races.

Berwah’s storyline is well developed, except…If this is to be a standalone, the plot leaves many unresolved questions. If this is the beginning of a series, then her plot is well developed and leaves one wanting more. I definitely want more of Koral and Stormgold, and it’s 4 monstrous stars from me.🌵📚💁🏼‍♀️. Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire, an imprint of Sourcebooks, for this early copy. Publishes 9/6/2022.

Thank you Netgalley and Publisher for this ARC.

While the synopsis was gripping, I just couldn't get through this book. It felt like it was a mix of stories already done and thrown into one book. I didn't find it at all an original.

From what I was able to get through (30%), the writing wasn't too bad. It was easy to read but found that the story was a little all over the place. I'm sad to say that I was underwhelmed and had higher hopes.

Right off the bat this book reminded me of Scorpio Races. I had a hard time staying engaged. This book just feels all over the place. I think there is just a lot going on and if there wasn't so much going on maybe more attention to detail could have been made. It just felt like a mishmash of a few popular books.

Tanvi Berwah's Monsters Born and Made is like if The Hunger Games took place on a space-racetrack on another planet, with a cast of cool characters and even more interesting monsters to keep your attention. Koral and her brother (and her family in the past) catch a specific species of these monsters, called marestags, for use in the all-important race that the culture she lives in reveres. When an accident and desperate circumstances force Koral to smash taboos and enter the race as a member of the clearly delineated underclass, everything becomes fraught with danger.

I liked much of this book and thought that there was some very nice character-work being done, but in the end I kept being put off by the sheer proximity of some elements to the Hunger Games and other similar properties, and the ending very much leaves room for a sequel that I hope asserts its own identity more once freed from that structure. There is a lot to enjoy here otherwise, an interesting world and unsolved mysteries, fun cultural elements and truly horrific wildlife, all of which were definitely highlights of my read.

Fans of the Hunger Games and similar books should like this book, so I'd easily recommend it to them.

The Scorpio Races meets the Hunger Games.
The world of Monsters Born and Made is a fully realized place, almost a character in its own right. There were some things that I wish had better descriptions but overall there was a very clear picture of the place this story took place in. Which was good, because there was a lot going on.
Right from the beginning I got Scorpio Races vibes from this books, the whole concept of catching deadly animals that live in the sea and racing them was a direct parallel, but not in a bad way. This book took the same basic idea but made it darker and deadlier and crueler. More like the hunger games, the Glory Race is a spectacle of death used for entertainment. And the clashes between the privileged upper class and the struggling lower class also gave hunger games vibe but with less separation.
The overall affect of this is that you have a world where everything in it can easily kill you and the lower class people struggle to survive each and every day while the upper class people live safely underground flaunting the wealth and vilifying the lower class people.
And in the midst of this very volatile situation we have a race traditionally only run by the upper class people in which the lower class protagonist has managed to illicitly insert herself. Needless to say no one is happy about this but Koral needs the winners purse in order to save her dying sister and she is willing to fight anyone, including her own friends and family, who tries to stop her.
I thought Koral was a great character and despite the very detailed world and political situation we are being thrown into the book moves quickly and is easy to follow. Its a wild read but a good one. The ending took me by surprise but it was not disappointing.

A new YA Fantasy from a new voice, with a beautiful south asian influences. With elements of the hunger games, scorpio races, and the tri-wizard tournament,

Koral is a hunter, a hunter of the sea-monsters the upper class use for the spectacle that is the Glory Races that only come around every 4 years. When this years hunt does not go according to plan, and her family is left with no income and a sick child to take care of Koral decides to go against the unwritten rules and enter the years Glory Race.

This book had a lot of promise, and although many elements were all over the place, I saw the potential this book had and had a great time.

An excellent debut!
I was hooked from the start, loved the world building and the characters. If you enjoy dystopian or fantasy this book is for you.


The story starts with a girl named koral who's family are known as hunters. They capture sea creatures known as maristags, that are used for racing known as the glory race. Something happens that has koral entering this dangerous race and the story goes from there.

I really enjoyed this book. I’ve been in a reading slump, but read this book in a day. I look forward to more from this author!

What an exhilarating story. Perfect for fans of Hunger Games and Scorpio Races. I absolutely adored the world building in this book, the monsters, the island society fighting for survival at every turn, and the two divided people. The competition of the Glory Race was fierce and the author did a fantastic job describing and bringing the stakes to life. Honestly the Race scenes were probably the best written scenes in the book. I will say that some of the characters motivation and backstories felt incomplete, but overall it was easy to understand and root for Koral. The ending though, this needs to be a series because I don't want it to end like that.

Unfortunately, as much as I wanted to like this book, it fell flat for me. It was much too similar to the Hunger Games even down to using the 'odds in my favor/your favor.' The race was neat, the book wasn't badly written, just wasn't for me.

Thank you very much to the publisher and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

I really enjoyed this book but it did not have me reaching for it anticipating the next time I could sit and read it. The ending sent me reeling a bit and I am glad to know there will be a book 2 because there are lots of loose ends I need tied up. I really Tanvi's writing style and felt very immersed in the world.

As much as the story fascinated me, the writing just didn't work for me. For a book I was really excited for...I wound up dragging my feet with reading it.

Not for me but if you love The Hunger Games you'll love this.

Koral and her brother Emrik provide for their family by hunting and capturing the vicious maristags who live in the sea surrounding their island home. The elite use the trained beasts in their Glory race (think Hunger Games with chariots and monsters). When this year's capture escapes and Emrik is injured, Koral decides to cheat her way into the race to support her family. An avid fan of fantastic beasts I was awed by the amazing, other worldly creatures the author conjured up. I thought the world building lacked depth and Koral's best attribute was her determination and that she cared for her family and friend to the extent she endangers herself. Stormgold, her maristag, is a runt who was rejected by buyers but proves to be of value The bond that develops between them is heartwarming. A lot of story time is invested in the race which is bloody and no holds barred. The plot features many classic tropes....the underdog taking on the world, rebellion against the upper class,, enemies to lovers but it jells smoothly. I found the open-ending conclusion jarring leaving many unresolved issues. Overall a solid fantasy read. Hopefully there will be a sequel to knit together the danglng threads.

I don’t even know where to start with this one?? I thought it looked beautiful and sounded really interesting, but unfortunately it really let me down. This was written in first person and present-tense, and it threw me off a little bit. I’ll be honest, the writing style was not for me – it was very tell-not-show and there was quite a few pacing issues in my opinion, it was super jumpy and felt very odd when reading through the book.

The plot sounded really interesting and I was intrigued to learn about these new monster-like creatures, but it was essentially The Hunger Games 2.0 but with chariot racing, and I wasn’t even that big of a fan of The Hunger Games. The story started out strong with Koral and her brother (whose name I have already forgotten) needing to hunt down and capture maristag to bring back to their family stables so that the rich people could come to buy and race with them in the Glory Races – I was like okay!! sounds cool! Then, things unfortunately went downhill. Koral returned back to her home – which has a terrible family dynamic might I add – and then the story moved onto her needing to join the Glory Races to afford medicine for her sister.

There was also a rebellion sub-plot (also similar to The Hunger Games) which didn’t really do much for me, since I didn’t think Koral was involved at all? It was a bit odd – I don’t want to spoil in case any of you are planning to read this, but unless I completely missed something it doesn’t really have much to do with her – they’re only bunching her and her family in with the richer people?

Koral is the MC, she’s 16 and you can tell she is 16. She’s taken on the role of caring for her family (namely her ill younger sister), and for a while it really seemed that she was the only person capable of taking care of her family – until I remembered she had a capabe brother, father and mother that could’ve helped? 🤨 Anyway, I didn’t really find anything about her that stood out to me, nothing made me really like her or want to root for her, which was also further solidified at the end (but we’ll get to this).

There was a little bit of ‘romance’ in the book, between Koral and Dorian – one of the rich people, but I’m not even joking, until I re-read the synopsis after I finished the book I did not realise that Dorian was Koral’s ex-boyfriend. In fact, I didn’t even realise they dated previously, I thought it was just a friendship of sorts when they were younger?? I was promised enemies-to-lovers, but I didn’t get enemies nor did I get lovers from this book, it felt relatively flat unfortunately.

I’m really disappointed! I know there was a lot of potential, but everything together just didn’t work for me. I’m so sorry if this sounds harsh on the book, but I legitimately fell asleep mid-chapter at 3pm (!!) and I had to make myself finish the book. When I finally got to the ending, I had to put the book down and check and see if there was a sequel – it’s so strange becuase it ends as though it’s finished, but there’s still PLENTY of loose ends??? It’s so out of character and just very, very confusing if this is where the story ends.

I received a review copy from the publisher, this does not change nor affect my opinion in anyway.

3 stars

Outside of the incredibly interesting premise, the biggest thing that stood out to me in the blurb for Monsters Born and Made was its comparison to The Hunger Games and These Violent Delights. The former is a much beloved book series for me and the latter is a book that I recently DNF'd. In the end, Monsters Born and Made fell squarely in the middle of these extremes.

I have to give it up to Berwah for resurrecting the classic mid-2010s YA plot line of a competition taking place while the relationship between the wealthy and the poor of the nation deteriorates. In addition, the actual prose (especially the descriptions of the actual chariot races) was incredibly gripping. What ultimately prevented this from being a total win for me was the lack of worldbuilding and the fairly predictable nature of the conflict.

Considering that this was advertised as being inspired by South Asian mythology, there was a distinct lack of South Asian mythology. Most of the worldbuilding went into establishing what the creatures in this world were and I never really felt like I got a firm idea of the caste system, the time period we were supposed to be in, or even where we were supposed to be. There was so much opportunity to really delve into what seemed like an awesome world that was just left on the table in favor of rehashing every classic dystopian trope we have seen before. The ending definitely brought things up a notch, but it made me wish that the entire novel had been that exciting.

That being said, I do think that this is a promising debut and I would definitely keep this author on my radar for future releases.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for an ARC of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review!

This book was very good! I liked the south-Asian inspiration. While YA isn’t usually my thing, I still found myself enjoying this book a lot, and particularly enjoying the main female character

I loved exploring this fantastical world and monsters. It was a bit difficult to follow at times, but I ultimately enjoyed the premise.