FANTASY LOVERS - YOU NEEEEED TO READ THIS ONE! I’m jumping straight into this review right after finishing it. UGH! I missed reading this type of fantasy and being taken into a magical world! This book, a historical fantasy novel, is the beginning of a trilogy, which takes place in the late 19th century. It introduces us to the world of talents, very powerful and magical children who are being hunted by a man made of smoke. Two particular children, Charlie and Marlowe, are not only being hunted by this man of smoke but also being searched for by Alice and Coulton who want to bring them to the Cairndale Institute. This school in Scotland helps teach these children how to harness their powers. What they don’t know is that Cairndale has some secrets of its own…
They meet other children and encounter many powerful beings helping this novel deliver fantasy, action, dark and also innocent and sweet moments. Miro also makes us think about how people can not be completely good/ bad and the possible grey areas one can be in. I also noticed the recurrent theme of loss. I was INVESTED in these complex characters, which have been brought to life so well by the author. Also, I love me some historical fiction and the author definitely delivered a great portrayal of life during this late 19th Victorian period. I felt like I was picturing a movie while reading this one! 🤩 Can’t wait for the 2nd book! ✨

Ordinary Monsters is atmospheric, beautifully written, and unfortunately, not for me. I enjoyed the prose and I think the concept of this book is fascinating. I want to set it aside for a couple weeks and then do a reread before I post a public review.

Rating: 2.5
This book is in a category of things I wish I liked, because I know so many people will. Gothic atmospheric books just aren't for me, as much as I wish they were. They are just too boring and dramatic to me.

I'm angry that I gave this book a day of my life. That's right. This book (on audio) is over 24 hours long.

I requested this on NetGalley because I was in the market for an audiobook and this sounded promising. Plus, the cover gives vibes of dark atmosphere and fantastical mystery. It was supposed to be victorian era historical fantasy about children with super abilities, their school, and those who wished them harm. It sounded like it had to the potential to be a cross between Vita Nostra and X-men. Sign me up!

The beginning started things off well. It was creepy and mysterious with the beginnings of interesting characters. But then it just fell flat imo. The plot failed to engage me. The characters lacked depth and I wasn't invested in any of them. There was no atmosphere or vibes to get lost in. In sum, it felt like a very long winded story outline that was missing all the magic that goes into making a story actually come alive.

I must also comment on the audio performance. It was terrible. The voice actor could not do a US accent and I cringed whenever he tried. He also made all the children's voices really whiny/pathetic sounding. His voices for some of the adults were comically grave. I could not take the voice acting seriously and I do wonder if I would have had a very different experience eye reading this instead.

One more note...the author portrays a Black boy experiencing terrible racism in the southern US and then traveling to the magic school in Scotland where it is emphasized that he is suddenly relieved of all racial oppression. It is emphasized repeatedly that there is such a big difference between Scotland/England and Mississippi. Basically, he has completely escaped racism and is safe now that he left the US. That....is laughable. Does the author really believe that?

I received an audio arc from NetGalley with the understanding that I'd provide an honest review.

Sexual violence? A tiny bit in past tense in the beginning. Other content warnings? Racism, suicide, torture, racial violence, gore.

A great read. I would recommend for fans of darker super human stories. For fans of Umbrella Academy and Night Circus. The narrator keeps the mood dark and ominous as well. The powers of each special person were unique and fit well within the narrative.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58725025-ordinary-monsters
Reviewed under: Tim

I did not finish the audiobook that I received, but I am looking forward to reading the physical book copy that I ordered. I think that the story is good and has captured my interest, but I couldn't get past the narrator so I stopped the audio around 20%.

This is an elaborate, detailed magical world, and we are invited to stroll through it. The novel unfurls slowly, showing you backgrounds for each character and gently, methodically, weaving them together. Most of the adults are not to be trusted, most of the kids have been deeply traumatized in learning that lesson. This is absolutely a slow burn gothic novel. The slow is real; the audiobook recording is a solid 24+ hours. The narrator has a fantastic reading voice, but has been tasked with more characters than he can pull off. To be fair, the number of characters is huge and really would have been best served by a cast instead of a solo narrator. This is solid story and intricately, beautifully, plotted. But you are absolutely in for a haul.

Ok for starters, the narration was fabulous! I found that the tone of his voice integrated perfectly with the story and locale. He was easy to understand, even when I listen to my audiobooks generally at 1.5x.

This audiobook was intense. With 25 hours worth of listening I knew I was in for an epically long listen.

The story itself was fascinating - albeit not overly original - and I loved the dark, magical, gothic setting. I did want to love this book more than I did though. It may be one of those books where it reads better than an audiobook and I will definitely pick up a physical copy and do a re-read.

There was a LOT going on in this book though and I did find it a bit slow at times and would not recommend this to someone who doesn't have a lot of patience.
I am interested to see where this series takes the story though and will be reading the rest of the series when it is released.

Thank you again to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for a copy of this audiobook in exchange for my honest review.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to listen before it archived. I have the hardcover on my shelf and have started it, so far so good!

Let’s see if I can sum this up! Atmospheric magical historical fantasy. It’s hard not to become completely immersed while reading it. The world building here is unlike any I’ve ever seen, at least not since Harry Potter (this is not a comparison).

But… it’s too long. And honestly, there are a lot of characters to keep track of. I don’t think either of these things are ever really necessary. Very thankful I was able to listen to this one.

With that said, I keep thinking about it. When I can’t shake a book I know it’s got me. I hope book two in this trilogy is shorter 🤞

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you @netgalley @macmillan.audio and @flatiron_books for the gift of this epic audiobook 🙌

Pub date: 6/7/22 Available Now!

<i>Thanks to Net Galley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!</i>

A darkly beautiful fantasy story with rich characters and a great balance of bittersweet moments paired with some witty humor among the horror. It's a little long for my tastes. I might've preferred it broken up into two books rather than one since the pacing of such a long book can be hard to manage, but if you prefer a longer read, this one is definitely for you!

Ordinary Monsters is worth the hype !! This was a five ⭐️ listen for me.
If you like historical fantasy this book is going to be just right for you. I saw the rave review by @bookaddictpnw who has never steered me wrong and requested and received the audio for this marvelous work of fiction. Thank you so much, it was fabulous !
It is a multi-layered, epic historical fantasy story about heroes and villains and the difficulty to know which is which - are they ever just black and white ? Not if the story is any good. The setup could be classic and done before, a chosen boy and a boarding school for kids with special “talents” but this book takes this premise to a completely different and very intriguing story all of it’s own. The world building that went into this long (600+p) book that started a trilogy is impressive. J.M. Moro builds an immersive, dark, Victorian world that pulls readers into a story that follows quite an extraordinary cast of characters as they embark on a journey against malicious and unknown forces. There are side stories, back stories and throwbacks, the storylines and the points of view change but the storytelling is done so well that it is easy to stay on track, same goes for the audio, this book due to its complexity is a hard one to do well but Ben Onwukwe pulls it off. All of the individual characters were remarkably well-developed and had really fleshed out personalities, backgrounds, and motivations, and thanks to the narration their own voices. Audio definitely adds to the experience the narration as well as the eerie Georgian chant audio effects.

How is your late spring summer going so far ? Less or more reading time?

Thank you to @netgalley and @macmillan.audio for providing me with an advance audio copy of this gem in exchange for an honest review !

I was gripped from the beginning by this dark twisted tale of magical children called “talents” and the people charged with finding, protecting, and teaching them. The “villains” of this story aren’t black and white. The plot goes through so many shades of gray and so many groups of characters getting information at different times and I found myself eager to pick it up again to listen! I genuinely loved this story and can’t wait until they continue with these characters!!!

England, 1882. In Victorian London, two children with mysterious powers are hunted by a figure of darkness —a man made of smoke.

The beginning is of course an info dumb as most high fantasy books are, but even though sometimes I was confused it was clear that information immediately started knitting together.
The multiple POV worked really well in this book following two different sets of characters. I was always sad to leave one POV for the next but would instantly get caught up and forgot all about the other POV.
All of the characters in this book had complex backgrounds that were well explained. Having these backgrounds explained to me, made me like the book even more because I was able to feel invested in the characters.

The audio narration of this book was good and had clear pronunciation however, during the whispering sections it was nearly impossible to hear what was being said. Then I would turn up my audio to have it blast my ears in the next instant. The general audio was sufficient but there were moments that were too quiet.

This is a book I will recommend to many people! Of course my fantasy, and sci-fi friends but also friends who are interested in getting into high fantasy. The author does a magnificent job in explaining what is going on and you see everything come together in a way that makes sense.

This one was fun. Different. Enjoyable that’s still indicative indicative of the genre. All in all a good. Time

I feel bad saying this but I couldn’t get past an hour because of the narrator. I was so bored because of his tone and the way he told it. Listen to the entire sample if you’re going to get this one because I thought it would be ok at first listen.

Yes, Ordinary Monsters is long, but this was my kind of historical fantasy!! Kids with powers, an academy for the gifted, villains and heroes alike with mixed motives, world building, multiple locations/times and characters.....it all came together to feel magical. As with most first books in a fantasy series, there is a good amount of time spent world building/character development and you will definitely have questions at the end of the book.

I love audiobooks in general, but the narration in this book was not my favorite. The children voice impersonations were painful to listen to at an advanced speed. I would suggest reading as opposed to listening to this one. Despite the foregoing, I did enjoy this story and am sad that I now have to wait a while until the next book in the trilogy is released because I am definitely in for books 2 and 3!

Special thanks to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the ALC of Ordinary Monsters for review purposes. All opinions are my own.

Thank you NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for advanced access to this audiobook. My opinions are my own and not influenced by this.

My super simplistic take on this book is The Umbrella Academy meets Dickens. We have children with super "talents" being gathered up from across the globe to live in the protection of a Scottish boarding school called Cairndale Institute. All the while an otherworldly creature is also hunting down the children.

I can't say I wasn't sometimes confused by the jumping about though. The story jumps from multiple viewpoints and also time lines. It wasn't always immediately clear when we'd jumped to an earlier time line. So I would find myself stopping to orient myself as to where we were and what was happening. All that said, Ben Onwukwe's narration was absolutely amazing! There are a ton of characters in this book and every single one had a clear and recognizable voice. So even though there were times I was confused about when or what was happening, I never was confused about who was speaking. He did a marvelous job!

This book felt longer than it needed to be, I did feel it could have been edited down and not lost much punch. It just seemed to sprawl out in too many directions for me. The world building however is wonderful. I appreciated the amount of care and detail the author added to paint the picture for the reader.

Overall I truly did enjoy this book despite my listed frustrations. I truly felt for the characters and I will absolutely continue to read the series in the future. So I am hooked, but I hope for some tighter editing I guess! I am giving it 4 stars.

I really enjoyed this dark, gothic fantasy. Set in Victorian times, this had Miss Peregrines school for Peculiar children meets XMen vibes. I love finding adult fantasy novels and this one was just what I needed! Thank you for this advanced copy.

Ordinary Monsters is hands-down the BEST book I've read in 2022. Just WOW! It's definitely a thrilling ride!