A brilliant story of dark times, survival, and the power of family. Follow Anthem as he saves himself, Atlas, and his daughter from the Shivers and the Architect.

3.5

Overview:

😍 Post-apocalyptic
😍 Action-horror
🆗 Save the world adventure
🆗 Creepy town
😍 Ethereal
🆗 Cannibals

The Monsters in our Shadows is an extremely weird, unique horror novel. At a time when post-apocalypse is coming back into fashion a bit, I hope it receives a lot of love!

The world has ended. Shadow monsters called 'Shivers' that attach and slowly devour their hosts have sucked the world dry and humans are living in small, walled-off communities- exiling their Shiver infested. The story focuses on Anthem, an Exilist whose job it is to remove these people from the community. After a chance encounter, he is sent on an important mission to save his colony from certain doom.

This is a weird little book. It is a very easy read and the concept is insanely cool. It can be frustrating because the scope is quite small, and I often found myself wanting to experience more of the world. Anthem is not a very well-defined character, but I think this book is meant to be more about exploring a dark and hostile universe. It is nowhere near as well-written as The Road, but I highly recommend it if you like atmospheric horror with characters that mostly exist to tell a story of humanity in peril in that same vein.

Shivers are absolutely horrifying. Edward J Cembal's ideas are very cool. This is a fun, fast read and absolutely worth it for folks who vibe with this genre.

I loved this one! I love a good dystopian thriller. Reminds me of a cross between game of thrones and the walking dead. Action packed from even the beginning. I have even convinced my partner of reading this one!

thanks to NetGalley for this arc to read and review.

100% recommend going into this not knowing anything. that’s what i did and i loved every second of it. this book has so many unexpected twists and every one made my jaw drop. i can’t wait for the author to release another book.

4.5 ⭐️ The Monsters in our Shadows has to be one of my favorite reads in a while - and it’s wholly memorable, that’s for sure.

The city of Atlas is the last standing city of civilization following the “Great Consumption.” Consume in the literal sense as one day, monsters (“Shivers”) appeared in the shadows. The Shivers are there lurking, hunting, growing closer until it’s time to devour the human they haunt. Anthem is the city’s Exilist, his duty is to bring the afflicted just outside the city walls, the Deadlands, moments before the Shiver devours its host, exiling both human and beast. Anthem is looking for the truth though, a way to destroy the monsters, but time is running out. Out of desperation, he’ll need to venture into the Deadlands to find it.

Cembal’s debut is a dystopian horror sci-fi novel with world building that takes a moment to get used to - it has zombie post-apocalyptic vibes minus the zombies. Honestly, replaced with something scarier, a monster created of our own innermost darkest thoughts.

Whether you want to see a deeper meaning to this story (oh, it’s certainly there) or simply take it at face value - you’re in for a fast-paced, unable to put down, action packed ride alongside Anthem as he travels to the end of the world in order to save it.

-0.5 the writing/dialogue left a little to be desired in some places but the story itself more than makes up for it

I’ll be thinking about this one for a long time and will be purchasing my own copy!

This novel was amazing, the descriptive world building draws you in from the very beginning and the disgustingly creepy shivers you can truly picture. I loved how empathetic Anthem was even in this dystopian world with, seemingly, no hope and how trusting he is towards everyone, this is very unique and refreshing. I also really enjoyed the premise of the shivers and the deadlands inhabiting so many different types of people, I truly felt that I went on the journey meeting these characters with him. There was plenty of twists and turns to keep me engaged, the only downside I found was the "final battle" seemed a bit rushed for me and I wish there was a bit more fighting. However overall I really enjoyed this and I hope to read more work from Cembal soon.

REVIEW

The Monsters in Our Shadows is a decent speculative horror with likable, engaging characters. In terms of setting, barebones plot elements (the protagonist leaving their isolated home for a dangerous, unfamiliar apocalyptic landscape in search of a scientific resource that will save their home), and occasionally tone, it reminded me quite a bit of Fallout, specifically 1 and 3. If you enjoy narratives about travelling through a destroyed world and a likable protagonist having to navigate what humanity means when most of the population is dead, you'll enjoy The Monsters in Our Shadows.

The characters were enjoyable (save for one, Rib, who I dislike due to issues with his character type). Anthem does his best to treat those he is responsible for Exiling with respect and kindness (sometimes to the point of putting himself and others in danger). He's a good father and he is concerned with his daughter's safety before his own. Children in fiction are hard to write and become irritating so easily, but Melody is written appropriately for her age and clearly has her own character beyond "child." Zoe, too, is an interesting character. When she first showed up I was so worried she was going to be a manic pixie dream girl and have a romantic thing with Anthem, but she doesn't, thank God. Even the side characters are likable; Mrs. Juliet Daniels is perfectly written, and other side characters like Sal (who only shows up twice) are actually memorable, something that's difficult to pull off.

I enjoyed the world and the concept, but--in my opinion--The Monsters in Our Shadows suffers from reaching its full potential due to predictable plot twists and flimsy, sometimes contradictory lore.
THE PLOT

From this point on, there will be major spoilers for the plot. Be warned!

Okay. So. My main issue with the plot twists (both ones that are short term twists and long term twists) being so obvious is that they make Anthem seem kind of dumb.

Look, I love a dumb male protagonist. It doesn't make me dislike Anthem by any means--he's a good father, he's kind, he's patient, and he's loner. I like those character traits. Him being a little oblivious and completely trusting of everyone around him to a fault would only be icing on the cake. The issue here is that at times, his obliviousness seems out of place and contradictory to what has been already established for his character.

For example, there's a point where Anthem is called to exile a woman. The husband lets Anthem into the house; his hand is all messed up and bleeding, and he keeps telling Anthem to hurry up. (Obviously having been attacked by the Shiver or having had spilled blood to lure it somewhere.)

Anthem goes upstairs to where the wife is locked in a room with the Shiver and manages to get the door open. Inside, the Shiver is completely ignoring the woman and is instead digging through the floor. (It’s obviously not interested in her.) There are buckets scattered around the room. Anthem still doesn't get what's going on despite his years of observing Shiver and human behavior, and tries talking to the woman (who is terrified out of her mind, obviously).

I understood what was happening the second Anthem entered the house, based purely on the information about Shivers that the narrative has made clear that Anthem understands. So it was weird that he had no idea what was going on until the Shiver broke out of the room and went after the husband.

There were several other plot points that turned out to be predictable (the Shivers being controllable, the "haven" Doubleday was making just being a sacrificial field, Rib luring Anthem into danger).

I wouldn't have as big of an issue with the predictablility of the plot twists if they weren't so easily fixable and they didn't make Anthem seem like he doesn't have basic common sense.

For example, why not have Anthem realize what's going on immediately upon entering the husband’s house? It's far more interesting that way, too; now we get to see him try to figure out how to get the Shiver and the husband out of the house without harming the wife. Does he trick the husband? Force him? Nothing plot-wise would have to change, either. The plan could still fail, resulting in the chase, or the Shiver could burst through the ceiling (which would have been cool as fuck, pardon my French) and the husband could still run, also resulting in the chase. Nothing plot-wise would have to change, just the execution.

To wrap up this section, I'm making a petty complaint about the city's name, Atlas. It's very similar to Anthem (they both start with A and are two syllables), meaning that when I sat down to write this review I couldn't remember which was which and had to double check. Additionally, if you know anything about Greek mythology, this makes the twist about what's going on with the city really obvious. Most people probably wouldn't notice that connection because, to be honest, Atlas isn't the most interesting Greek myth (and most people connect the word Atlas with maps, not with the mythology), so honestly the Atlas/Anthem similarity thing is more of a problem for me.
SIDE NOTE, RIB

Rib's character wasn't as bad as it could have been, but I hate the cannibal savage trope with such dedication I have to complain about it. I'm not going to get into all the deep-seated issues with this trope (it has a long racist, classist history) because it's too much for a book review and there's already plenty of writing out there analyzing it in-depth. Instead I'll just discuss Rib in terms of his position in the book at a more surface level: is it interesting?

First of all, Rib (and his cannibal cadre, the Skulls) all speak in severely broken English. Besides the issues with this relating to the trope's history as stated above, it's also just boring. The idea of how language would develop after the apocalpyse among differing factions is so interesting, but that wasn't explored at all in this novel. Additionally, it seems that the cannibals didn't only use this broken English with Anthem but also among each other, meaning it's their primary language, which is confusing because... why? Loss of human language is symbolic of how they've lost their humanity by resorting to cannibalism, yes, but it doesn't make sense logically.

Rib and the Skulls are also described as seriously deformed; Ribs is missing several parts of his face and is occasionally described as walking more like an ape. The other Skulls are also similarly described. Like the language, this is meant to indicate how inhuman they’ve become. Like the language, this is something that not only has a long and unfortunate history of ties to real world dehumanization of real people, but also is a boring way to indicate this.

We have weird supernatural parasitic creatures as a major plot element, and we went with the overdone mutant cannibal trope? It would have been so much cooler if they’d formed a more literal symbiotic relationship with Shivers somehow instead of just keeping them in a pit. It’s way scarier, way more interesting, and way more unique.
THE LORE

Let's talk about the lore. Again, spoilers.

First, I'm going to get this out of the way. While the Shivers are obviously a symbol for mental illness/trauma from the beginning, that connect is moreso an underlying element in the beginning. The parallels between Shivers and mental illness aren't subtle by any means, but they're also handled relatively well and aren't clumsily shoved in the reader's face. This falls away by the end of the book, however, with Anthem giving a long speech detailing how hard it is to live with a Shiver; that it's "okay to not be okay," that it's survivable, how it's hard to get out of bed, choose to keep going, but all that stuff makes you a stronger person. All stuff pretty par for the course when it comes to mental health talk.

He ends the speech shouing that he Shiver's aren't "afflictions" but rather "superpowers" that can give people with them a "deeper experience."

Yeah, it kind of loses the whole menal illness symbology by the end a little. By making the comparison so blatant, the metaphor gets messy. I hate it when mental illness, even a metaphorical symbol of it, is something that makes a character stronger or is compared to a superpower; I find it trite, overdone, and not helpful. It’s a nice thought, and I’m sure some folks appreciate it or feel that way about their own mental illness, but it’s something I deeply dislike in mental illness allegories.

That said, there were good parts of this speech. I liked the part where he talks about giving a little bit of attention to it, acknowledging it, and that Shivers are a part of people who have them. That they can be lived with. It's just that a lot of the speech felt... I know I already said trite, but it's trite. The speech is trying too hard. I know that sounds mean, but it's a story beat I did not enjoy.

Anyway. Getting off track.

The lore about the Shivers is really confusing. They're animalistic supernatural beasts; some can swim, many can climb walls or hang from ceilings, but all are voracious and will stop at nothing to get to their host. We see one digging through concrete at one point.

However, the people inside Atlas are completely safe from the Shivers outside, who just don't seem interested in getting into Atlas, despite the relative ease most of them could do so with. Anthem does think it’s strange, but he believes it’s due to the Shivers just deciding to go look for food elsewhere (despite also believing that Atlas is likely the last surviving bastion of humanity). It’s clear something else is going on there preventing the Shivers from entering.

At the end of the book, it's revealed that the Architect's great-great-grandfather's Shiver was fed in much the same manner as Atlas and Zoe feed theirs. It grew huge, and when he died, it ended up hovering over the city and feeding on the Exiles who get cast out. It's called the Goliath (though I wish they'd called it Titan instead; Goliath, after all, is a Biblical thing, and if the city is called Atlas it would make more sense for the giant Shiver's name to also be Greek in origin to match. But I digress). Doubleday states that when Anthem Exiled folks, he was actually feeding the Goliath.

This is where things get confusing.

See, when people are exilted, their Shivers eat them; they consume them utterly, leaving almost nothing behind. Additionally, when Anthem was left drugged in a field for several hours, Goliath didn't eat him. Goliath also doesn’t eat the other people (like Rib) wandering around outside the wall at any point.

Therefore, I assumed that the logical conclusion was that the Goliath doesn’t eat the hosts, but the Shivers. That would explain why, despite there being a hundred years worth of people with Shivers being banished outside the walls, there weren't actually any Shivers to be found anywhere near Atlas, and why the city itself isn’t crawling with Shivers.

However, when the Goliath goes after Atlas, it exclusively attacks people without Shivers, yoinking them up into the foggy sky eldritch horror style. This implies that it feeds off people, not Shivers. It also explicitly avoids going after people with Shivers, no matter how small those Shivers are. Anthem uses the fact that Shivers will fight to protect their host from other Shivers to save the people of Anthem, gathering them all into one place and having the little crowd of Shivers duke it out with Goliath, who eventually retreats.

So... what was the Goliath eating when Exiles happened? If it only eats Shivers, why did it attack and eat Shiverless people? If it only eats humans, why didn’t it eat Anthem or Ribs? And how was it being fed by Exiling if the hosts were already being eaten by their Shivers? If it ate both, then why didn’t it just eat hosts and their Shivers instead of ignoring them completely?

What we do have concerning the lore of Shivers is cool, especially concerning their appearences. I like the idea of Goliath, too. It just falls apart if you try to think about it, unfortunately, making this a weak end to a relatively good book.
FINAL THOUGHTS

The Monsters in Our Shadows is a decent horror spec-fic novel that starts off very strong but has a weak end. It’s really a shame—that first chapter is an amazing mix of character, plot, and exposition, all balanced with a real sense of tension and sadness. The last chapter pales in comparison.

I'm excited to see more from this author. His character work is fantastic and his worldbuilding is interesting despite its weak spots. Honestly, I think I’m being so harsh on it because it is genuinely good. I devoured it in four days and I would absolutely read a sequel (if one is ever written).

The intriguing cover and blurb had me EXCITED to read this book and I'm so glad I was able to get an ARC!
I LOVED this action-packed horror novel. The characters were fun, the pace was fast, and you could easily immerse yourself into the settings. Apocalyptic fiction is my jam, and this author killed it (literally). They'll be an auto-buy author for me going forward. Tysm for the opportunity to read this ARC before the release.

Brilliant premise; lack-lustre execution.

I’m a character gal. Which means it doesn’t matter how good the idea behind your book is, if I can’t connect to the protagonist, I’m out. Anthem was two-dimensional. He had a goal, sure. He had a job, I guess. But I didn’t feel anything for him. He was basically just wandering around, meeting new people and getting into trouble.

The plot kind of went to shit towards the end. The stakes were fairly high, however, no one really felt that pressure. Where are the gory deaths or horrific battle scenes?

This was an incredibly unique dystopian novel and it kept me interested until the very end. Anthem was a reliable and steadfast narrator throughout, and his thoughts and perspective felt authentic (I've always loved 3rd person POV).

The Shivers were, naturally, my favourite part. I went into this book mostly blind as I was curious about what the plot would bring, and I loved their descriptions and mannerisms. I also loved how each one was unique to the individual. Watching the allegory of mental illness/grief build from start to finish was really interesting and I enjoyed the development. At times towards the end, I felt that the plot was beginning to drop off and some smaller plots were sidelined and perhaps didn't need to be in there at all (wild ones felt like it wasn't entirely relevant to the story in the end). Overall, it was a great post-apocalyptic read that didn't rely on zombies and was a refreshing new take on sci-fi.

Thanks to Netgalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Great read! The atmosphere was spooky and eerie. I’m not usually a big dystopian fan but I really enjoy it with a horror element added. The book dragged in some places for me and some of the characters were just meh but other than that I would recommend this to horror fans.

Spooky dystopian story in which the characters shadows are the monsters that are threatening them. I definitely got M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Village” vibes in the beginning of the story. It feels like the narrator only knows a small amount of what’s going on and there is much more that’s being hidden from the narrator.

I really enjoyed the horror aspect of a monster that literally haunts you and enjoys the anticipation and fear it causes just as much as the actual killing.

It reads like a classic YA dystopian novel, even with the adult main character. I like the concepts but overall was disappointed with the delivery here.

Good spooky storyline. A new author for me. Great characters. Look forward to more by this author. Not predictable at all, and kept me interested.

I really enjoyed this book! We all carry monsters with us and have to find a way to live with them. The journey Anthem goes through in these pages was a kaleidoscope of emotions that kept me turning pages. This book was scary but not necessarily in a "Horror" type of way. Living with these monsters has a real effect mentally on the residents of Atlas. Amazing world building and a real sense of dread at "The End" of the world. I recommend giving this book a shot. Especially if you enjoy scary books with deep meaning.

Started off as a slow burner with alot of character/world building and despair. About a third in is when you get a kick in the Rib and the action starts. Definitely a unique take on a post apocalyptic story. Definitely enjoyed and would recommend. Part 2? 👍👍👍👍

NetGally ARC review.
Expected Publishing Date: Feb 28, 2023

The first chapter was my favorite. The story feels like a realistic first person view of a world after. Where people have lost hope, but wear fake smiles. Where people have secrets - some more visible than others. Where perceived safety is rarely the most honest or safe place to be. A unique dystopian horror storyline with the personal monsters even if the world felt like a mashup of different post-apocalyptic movies (seriously why are we always eating like ground up bug meal in the future - someone needs to figure out a better sustainable food source!). The main character wasn’t my favorite, but his dilemma and conflict comes across well enough to make him someone to root for.

If you like dystopian, post-apocalyptic, monsters - check out this book + author.

This book was so visual and read so much like a movie or a screenplay. The dark horror was amazing and I didn’t feel like it was unbelievable at any moment

his novel was unique and fast-paced, it definitely kept me wanting to turn the page! I loved the details of how the Monsters finished their pray and how the main character had to deal with the horror of it all. I liked the writing style and found it easy to connect to the characters and was able to envision what that would might actually look like based on the authors descriptions. I was able to finish this book and will probably do a re-read in the future because it was very well done.

“The deep black horror folded itself in stuttering movements until it was pressed up against the ceiling directly above Miss Juliet Daniels. It couldn’t wait much longer; it needed to consume.”

This story is phenomenal, and I was lucky to have my first read of 2023 be a 5 ⭐️ review.

I am extremely impressed with this book. The whole thing played out like a movie and had your emotions going left and right. There were numerous twists throughout the book that took you deeper and deeper into this post-apocalyptic world and the monsters who inhabited it.

I need this book on my shelf when it is released, and I HIGHLY encourage you give this one a read if you are considering it.

Thanks NetGalley for the ARC, and I will definitely be keeping my eye out for some more Edward J Cembal books in the future!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

What a unique read. Skillful writing and kept me on my toes. It’s slow, but the author does an amazing job of world building so it’s necessary. I don’t usually do scary or dystopian because I read as an escape, but I was intrigued by the premise of the book. The parallels between this post apocalyptic world and depression are very obvious. I don’t regret reading it, but it did take me longer than normal to complete it for that reason and I likely won’t read another for a while.

I received an advanced digital copy of this book, courtesy of the publisher, via NetGalley.