I'd heard really good things - a friend raved about this saying it was her favorite book of 2022 - and it's didn't disappoint. I had a few complaints, but nothing that really detracted from the book. It was the perfect blend of SF-F. I read most of it in one sitting and I *really* hope that there's a second book. It could easily have been expanded into a trilogy. I'm a bit obsessed and I definitely recommend checking it out!

The premise of this book was very interesting. It reminded me of The Scorpio Races and I expected the majority of the book to focus on the Glory Race. However, the plot was more about the division between the three social classes: Landers, Renters, and Arkers with a group of rebels. The worldbuilding was haphazardly done and I remember being confused about the power structure in this world, as well as the assortment of monsters in the sea and sky. The characterization was also weak. I couldn't really root for Koral, the main character, and the motivations of Emrik, Dorian, and Crane were inconsistent or badly explained. Koral's main driving force was not compellingly illustrated and I found it hard to believe that her sole motivator as described would be enough. Dorian and Koral's history was also only hinted at--I expected more depth to their relationship and their actions during the Glory Race. Although there is an interesting social component to the book with the rebellion and differing power factions within it, it feels like various aspects are more hinted at than fully described. The ending was fine but doesn't necessarily leave me hungering to find out what comes next.

Monsters Born and Made elicited a sense of dread that made me feel like I was reading a horror story disguised as a fantasy, and that was an interesting, new feeling for me. A tangible thread of unease ran throughout the story, and gave the reader the feeling that something isn’t right, that they don’t have all the info, that the story is missing something. This feeling plays right into the building apprehension and strife Koral faces in the book, and helps magnify it to the point that the reader is put into Korals shoes, feeling unsure and being constantly thrown off balance just as she is.

While this story deliberately avoided giving the reader all of the pieces in order to create that sense of “something isn’t right”, I felt that some of those missing pieces were too pivotal to the story to be missing, and it left me feeling unsatisfied. I struggled with visualizing the world and the monsters who live there until late in the story. If more world building happened at the front end, it would have helped me picture what was happening better, and would have been more immersive. I also wish more of the truth of the origins of the society were revealed at the end, though I think this was very purposefully avoided to cause the reader to stew about it once they are done.

The hardest thing about this book for me was the writing style. The short choppy sentences were too repetitive and brusque for me. I think this was intentional to give the reader more of a sense of Koral’s personality and upbringing- she’s no nonsense, does what needs to be done, and has pretty much only been educated in hunting monsters. But, I think I would have grasped these facets of her personality regardless of the writing style, and it ended up detracting from the story and boxing her in, rather than building her character more.

Overall, this was an interesting story which left me with a sense that I had just read something that had some great moral or societal truth secretly tucked within it. But, I just can’t seem to identify what that truth is…and I think that’s the point. A sneakily subversive fantasy story, able to both frustrate and intrigue me at once.

“May the Water Horse Watch Over You
May You Sail the Ocean of Stars
May You Find the Home of the Elders
May the End Begin Once More”
The sun is so hot it causes people who are forced to work during the daytime to burn & perish, the mines are filled with prisoners sent there for the smallest of crimes, the wealthy live underground where they thrive & just get richer, the poor are forced to live their lives up top where they face the harshest of the elements, plus always with the terror of being attacked by one of the many fantastical creatures that not only live on the island but surround it on all sides. On this island surrounded by an ocean filled with all kinds of mythical monsters’ lives Koral & her family. In servitude to the landers as Hunters & breeders of the magnificent & fearsome Maristags, they are considered nothing more than servants by the Landers (the ruling class on the island) & as traitors by the Renters (the lower caste of the society), essentially, they can’t win, they live on the outside of every level of society, even though all Koral wants in life is to protect her family, & all her parents & ancestors have done is try to survive. When they fail to capture enough Maristags to breed from for the next year, Koral finds the only alternative she can think of to keep a roof over her family’s head & save her baby sister from death, enter the coveted Glory Race. The Glory Race is essentially a Gladiator style competition but with Maristags pulling chariots. Maristags are a creature that looks like a hybrid of a Velociraptor & a Marine Iguana with the head of a Stag. Quite a combination! While normally the Glory Race is only ever entered by the Landers, Koral uses a loophole in the rules to get her chance for glory & riches, with the help of her Maristag, Stormgold. The storyline was interesting, there was enough world building to lay a good foundation, & while I did like the characters in the story there wasn’t a lot of character development throughout the book. I loved the addition of new mythological creatures like the Aquabats & the Maristags but I also liked the use of some classical mythical creatures like the Capricorn. At times Koral’s internal monologue was a little tedious & angsty but she really started to find herself by the end of the book. The rest of the characters felt a little one dimensional, but I can see the potential for growth from them in the next book. The action scenes were incredibly well done & really drew me in to the fights. I loved getting to know more about the Maristags & hope we learn more. The ending was a whirlwind of emotions, action packed, left me winded & wanting the next book the moment I finished this so I’m excited to see what happens next for Stormgold, Koral & her family.
Thank you to NetGalley and SourceBooks Fire for sending me a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review

Monsters Born and Made was okay. I Would have given a higher rating if it had been a bit shorter, the plot felt a bit dull at times. However, the cover is stunning! Great for lovers of fantasy.

Thank you NetGalley and SOURCEBOOKS Fire for the ARC.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a digital ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

DNF at 36%

Monsters Born and Made had an interesting premise about a girl entering a competition in order to better her family's financial situation. Unfortunately, it just is not executed well, nor is it very original. The plot is extremely similar to "The Hunger Games," only—from what I read—much slower and more boring. There are only so many plotlines out there, so I understand if there are similarities between books, but I just could not find anything compelling about this story.

On another note, I also found the writing jarring and rough. The MC jumped from thought to thought and action to action with nothing in between to smooth the ideas out. It read like a first draft in dire need of editing.

I was not endeared to Koral in any way, or her family. The only person I sympathized with at all was Liria (I think that's how you spell it), Koral's sister, but she had like two pages of "screen" time, and her only trait was the sick, beloved little sister.

I was interested to see how it played out, but after forcing myself through 36% of this over the course of a week (yes, it took me a week to get this far), I had lost any desire to read further.

I'm sorry to say I DNFed this book.

I've been trying to read it for maybe the past four weeks, and I could not get into it at all. This was disappointing because I thought the concept was interesting and I love monsters and elite contests, etc., but MONSTERS BORN AND MADE dragged so incredibly much even during parts that were supposed to be interesting. I made it to chapter six, which was almost 1/5 of the way through the book and I did not care about the protagonist, Koral, or her family. I didn't feel anything about the stakes, or really understand how the Glory Race or their society as a whole worked.

The creatures were really cool, especially the capricorns, but all in all, this book just didn't do it for me.

Wow. This book is an action-packed thrill ride from start to finish. The author is incredible at creating suspense in action scenes and keeping the flow continuous between the down time. It’s incredible to think that one girls’ decision in the beginning could start a huge domino effect with groups and factions of people she has absolutely nothing to do with.





***** SPOILERS FROM HERE ON**************

Koral and her family are broke beyond broke and even though they are responsible for a very important task, they’re outsiders. Koral and her brother Emrik attempt to catch a beast that is used by the elites for chariot races. When that goes south, they’ve got nothing else to do for a sick little sister, starving family and very abusive father but for Koral to enter herself into said chariot races for money. However, this race is ONLY for the elites. The elites (Landers) hold these races sacred and will not take kindly to someone of her lowly status racing alongside them. It sparks an all out chaos between the haves and have-nots of the entire island. Lots of action, lots of monsters.

Let me know what you think of the ending.




This review was made possible thanks to an ARC I received from the Publisher.

I was so excited about this book only to be disappointed by it. The beginning was interesting and I really like the world. However, I found the execution quite slow and boring sometimes. I do not feel the spark between Dorian and Koral. The setting was still a mystery to me and I would like more world-building. Another reason was about the rebels. They were barely in this book. It would be better to have more monsters in this book. There were only a few.

What a pleasant surprise! I went into this with no expectations and genuinely enjoyed it. Perfect amount of mystery and twist & turns kept me turning pages super quickly. Recommended for all thriller lovers!

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for my ARC!

I got a free ARC through Netgalley, this is no way affected my review.

MBAM has an amazing premise and I was ready to get sucked into an amazing fantasy world, but I can’t help but feeling a bit disappointed by the book?

It really just felt like a bunch of the same stuff being repeated over and over again without anything actually happening? I feel like this book could have been a lot shorter and the same story could have been told without all the filler chapters.

I did like the main character and at times felt sorry for her because nothing seemed to go right for her and I was rooting for her near the end.

The ending felt a bit flat, so I hope there will be a sequel that will bring a lot more action.

For transparency, I did not finish this book. I stopped around 25% in and skimmed the rest.

Monsters Born and Made had all the ingredients for a best-selling high fantasy YA novel - high stakes, an overbearing "evil," social commentary, a feisty main character, family problems, and a rich love interest. Unfortunately, I think it tried to do far too much in the time allotted for the plot.

The beginning of the book surprised me with how similar it felt to The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater (another popular YA book, though it also didn't click with me personally). There are also the obvious connections and inspirations taken from The Hunger Games and a touch of Red Queen.

I think what kept stalling me with this read was the fact the character didn't seem to ever grow in any decision she made. There was a lot of fighting and arguing for conflict's sake instead of a valid reasoning behind it. Personally, I'm also very tired of the trope of abusive parents in YA novels. It makes it sometimes hard to connect with main characters because they just have so much trauma stacked against them that the suspension of disbelief starts to crack.

This isn't a bad book, but it's also not strong enough to convey the amount of concepts and plots wrapped up in one novel. I will be interested to read more from Tanvi Berwah because she clearly has a very strong voice and a lot of fantastic ideas to contribute to YA! Who knows, I might even pick this up at a later date to try again with better success.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Sourcebooks FIRE for providing me with a copy for an honest review.

DNF @ 22%

This has been compared to some books that I really don’t like but I decided to give it a try anyway. The cover made me gasp with its beauty and I couldn’t say no to it when it was offered to me. It’s the curse of the beautiful cover. It got me yet again.

It had a very promising start. A fight in the water between man and beast. Water was choked on, wrestling ensued, and blood was spilled. Someone fights for their life. Then off to the races. *confused look* I’m lost.

This went from, "Smile you son of a b***h" to Fast and the Furious: Sea Creature edition within a blink of an eye. It was slightly confusing and moved at a snails pace after ten percent in. I mean, if you’re going to wow me with a race you’re going to have to shed some blood and leave someone’s bones at the starting line. I didn’t get that far in to read about that possibly happening.

Monsters Born and Made just wasn’t for me. I would have been obsessed if I enjoyed Hunger Games but alas, I didn’t. My heart wasn’t in my throat, nor was I sitting on the edge of my seat. I may have fell asleep though. I really hope people out there like this because it sounds promising.

I couldn't help but think of The Hunger Games while reading this. This book is really good and action-packed!! You meet Koral and her brother - Emrik, right from the beginning, and you'll shortly learn that Koral has a strong demeanor. Koral's family is responsible for catching and raising maristags (I pictured as an elk mixed with an octopus), but sadly the last day of hunting them has come to an abrupt end with no luck. The family is low on funds and can't afford essential medication for Koral's little sister. This is where it starts to get interesting!!

Since Koral's family is supposed to hunt and catch the maristags, they are prohibited from racing them in the Glory Race reserved for the upper class. No one would think to join the race in this position, but Koral does. It took me a bit to get into the story, but once I started, I didn't want to stop reading. I LOVED Koral and everything she stood for; she constantly fights for her sister and family. Would I read this again? yes, I'm hoping there will be a follow-up book and if there is I'll be purchasing it!!

Monsters Born and Made by Tanvi Berwah, is a very good story once you get past the first quarter of the book. At the beginning of the story, it was obvious to me that the author, Tanvi Berwah, was influenced by three of my favorite dystopian books; Maggie Steifvator's Scorpio Races, Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, and Ashlords by Scott Reintgen. That was discouraging to me and I struggled to continue reading. Once I was about 25% of the way through the book, Ms. Berwah's story began showing its unique qualities and by the halfway point, I had trouble putting it down! I am so happy because the plot, characters, and environment made the book worth reading to the end. I recommend reading this book and if you struggle due to parallels to other stories, please stick with it for a few more chapters. I think you will be happy you did!

The world building and the characters are what made me keep turning the pages. The world was fascinating. The characters were easy to like. Especially Koral she was my favorite. She's strong and determined but she has her flaws to. Overall it was a good read

thank you to netgalley for providing me with an arc!

i was looking forward to reading this but monsters born and made did not live up to my expectations at all. i went in hoping for hunger games-like excitement with social commentary on the caste system in south asia but as a whole, the book didn't feel fleshed out enough to be a commentary on anything. the writing overall was chunky and awkward, with the dialogue and description being circular, contradictory, and outright confusing at times. as a result, the pacing suffered and the action scenes did not deliver as promised. the worldbuilding suffered from being almost entirely show-not-tell: koral tells us about the maristags, the caste system, and the rebels, but it feels like different aspects of the world exist indepedently from each other and fail to create one cohesive setting. the romance felt as though it was thrown in at the last minute and made me uncomfortable, as the upper-caste love interest is casteist towards the lower-caste main character for no good reason. koral herself didn't feel too fleshed out either; her main character trait was being angry and she didn't really grow over the course of the novel. the development she did have didn't occur until the last few chapters, but those chapters were so rushed, they felt like an afterthought. this book isn't all bad, though. i will say that it's refreshing to read about an accurately depicted caste system in a fantasy novel and the commentary made about social change was nuanced and thoughtful at times. i think the author bit off more than she could chew with this debut. it felt like she wanted to write the next big dystopian novel, but simply stacking a bunch of tropes and fantasy elements together isn't enough to create a good book.

DNF @28%

As excited as I was about this book/premise I just could not get into the writing. Even after reading almost a third of the books I still was unsure of what a maristag was and the whole competition added another layer of confusion. The characters also felt very flat to me and after reading some other reviews that said it doesn’t really get better I decided to set this one aside. I will give her some credit that this is her debut so I will try any future books she writes.

Koral lives in a world where people are sorted into two classes, the Landers, the elite ruling class, and the renters. In a bid to save her sister from an illness, Koral inadvertently throws off the status quo by entering the Landers’ Glory Race, a chariot race pulled by maristags, deadly hard to tame ocean dwelling beasts her family has been trying to tame for generations.

This book hit on all the popular YA tropes from dystopian society to rebel overthrows, from underdog heroine to Romeo and Juliet type love. I would have liked to see some of these eliminated. It just felt like it was trying so hard to do everything that the proper time and attention wasn’t given to developing any of it. For example, did Koral have to have issues with her father? Could the family’s poverty or politics of where they lived alone not be sufficient enough as a catalyst to enter the race? For someone motivated to risk death to save her sister she had very few interactions with the individual.

Koral lived on the border of both the Landers and Renters worlds and fit into neither and remained there throughout the book. Her character never really evolves despite significant events.

The worldbuilding was interesting but I found the descriptions at times lacking. I’m the type where books play out like a film in my head and I had a lot of difficulty imagining the maristags and other creatures in the universe.

I’m a big animal lover, both fictional and real, so Koral’s relationship with her maristag was by far my favourite part of the book. I was constantly waiting for the moment where the trust between the two would solidify and the relationship would become something more and for that the book did not disappoint.

The book ends without any real resolution and is evidently the first in a series so to those who are like me and have zero patience and require immediate answers, be forewarned you won’t get them here.

Thank you to Sourcebook Fire for providing me with an advanced reading copy through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

Strict social hierarchy mixes with sea monsters, intrigue, action, brutality, and determination to great tons of plot and a large variety of characters.

Koral has been born into a family of Hunters, whose job it is to capture and breed the fearful monsters of their seas, the maristags. It's a job, which always draws blood and luck is the only thing separating the Hunters from death, but the creatures are only there for a short time period, and if a male and female aren't available, the family must live off one month of salary and starve the rest of the year. This year, that can't happen since Koral's younger sister is sick and needs medicine to survive. When the hunt fails, Koral refuses to bow to fate and is determined to save her family by entering a deadly race. The prize money would mean financial relief, but her entrance means stepping up against members of the class above her family's...and they are more dangerous than the monsters.

This one is sold as a type of Hunger Games meets These Violent Delights. and while I wouldn't completely agree with the second of these, the first is hard not to see. The class differences are clear-cut and brutal, which made it intriguing as Koral's family isn't allowed to be anything but what they are. The attitude between the classes rings clear, and the prejudice slams hard. As the higher level gets involved, the nods at Hunger Games is strong. Even the romance and competition settles in clearly along these lines. It did make it a bit cliche, but that's not a bad thing, since it leaves the reader sure of where this novel sits. Plus, the other aspects are original enough to make it feel too close, too. Although I didn't get as much of the South-Asian feel that I was hoping for.

To say that there are a few plot strings, is an understatement. The author creates a rich weave of sub-plots, which cross and spread to make sure there isn't a boring moment and little is easy to predict. Along with this wide spread comes a large cast of characters, who each hold their own agendas, personalities, and goals. There's tons to follow and even more surprises as everything twists and turns. It makes for a rich and exciting read, especially when the well-done action scenes are thrown in. Deceit and danger go hand-in-hand, giving Koral much more to deal with than just getting the money for her sister's medicine.

All of this takes place in a complex and original world, where monsters, the sea, and much more are at play. The atmosphere portrays a dark and dirty reality, where survival is harsh and hatred runs high. Even Koral's own family has more than a slightly shadowed side. The monsters are well-described and hold the beautiful deadliness they need. The world, however, isn't given the same attention and is a bit scattered...as are the characters. There's just too much, and it suffers, never gaining the complete attention it needs to really grab hold. The many plot strings also lose their thread because of this. While promising, many things are skid over too quickly and lose their impact.

These pages hold the promise and beginnings of an amazing tale, so much so that it is fun to read...but it simply could have been more. And the ending...well, that slaps hard and leaves me hoping that there's another book to come. I'm giving this one 3.5 stars while rounding up.