I’m rounding to 3.75. This was not my first book of Sim’s and won’t be my last! However this felt a little too YA for me. I did love the mix of science and mythology, especially Indian mythology. This was such a unique take on an old tale, I really did enjoy it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Books for the ARC in exchange for my honest review
Pub Date: June 25, 2024

3.75 stars
This read a little younger than young adult to me, but not middle grade - right around junior high age I think. I really liked the world and the characters. The twists were great! I didn't connect with the characters as much as I would have hoped but I do plan to continue the series!

"We Shall Be Monsters" by Tara Sim is an engaging blend of Indian mythology and a Frankenstein-like narrative, featuring Kajal's attempts to resurrect her sister using Ayurvedic techniques. I loved the unique mix of mythology and science, which made the fantasy elements feel almost believable.

The dark, atmospheric world-building added a thrilling and culturally rich backdrop, making the story both haunting and intriguing. Overall, this novel is a masterful combination of myth, science, and emotional depth. Recommend to those looking for a new YA Fantasy to explore.

Thank you to #NetGalley for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was such a unique take to interweave an old classic (Frankenstein) with some really cool Hindu mythology. The writing, at times, is fascinating and intriguing and builds a world that you want to explore as a reader.
Unfortunately where this fell short for me was the pacing and some of the storytelling. I would’ve loved some additional context around these various mythical creatures (though I recognize this as my own western lack of knowledge). The pacing was a bigger issue for me - the story was really flat at times and we spent 2/3 of the book on a quest that wasn’t all that important. The back third was super fast paced but honestly felt very disjointed from the rest of the story and didn’t really connect the dots as well as you’re meant to believe. There are loose ends and a lackluster ending - the story just kind of stops. I’m sure the overall plot will continue in a sequel but personally I found this one unsatisfying enough to not continue the story.

I was immediately drawn to this book because the cover art is so beautiful, and I was sucked in even further when it was compared to Frankenstein!
It took me a few chapters to get into this book, but once I was hooked, I found it so interesting. There is heavy influence from Indian mythology, which I am not very familiar with but I loved learning about. Some of the terms used are not ones I am familiar with, but were either explained later or able to be deduced from context clues.
Kajal and her sister Lasya got into a precarious situation that ended with Lasya’s death. Kajal is determined to bring Lasya back, but starts by practicing on a dog, later named Kutaa. Kajal buries Lasya’s body so that she cannot be reincarnated (only burning the bodies allows it to be reborn) while Kajal plans to gather the required materials and get better at the magic needed to perform the revival. Kajal is viewed by those around her as bad luck since bad things keep happening to her, and then so much more happens but I don’t want to give spoilers!
This book was so much more than I was anticipating. You will learn about reincarnation, the balance of good and evil, how far you will go for someone you love, and so much more! I really enjoyed it!
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for a review!

4.5 stars rounded up

holy crap I loved this booked so much. I will be recommending this to any and everyone who will listen

Thank you to NetGalley and Nancy Paulsen Books for the ARC of this book!

This is my first book by Tara Sim, and it will not be my last. In this YA fantasy novel, Sim blends Frankenstein with Indian mythology beautifully. Kajal is determined to save her sister and resurrect her after an accident. First she must learn how to bring back a life, so as she prepares her sister's soul is at risk of becoming a bhuta- a murderous spirit. Kajal is successful and brings back a dog, but not quickly enough because soon her sister is haunting her. While going for her sister's body, she gets caught by people who want to resurrect the crown prince and force her to help them. Now she's stuck perfecting her resurrection skills with even higher stakes. That's just the first part of the plot before we start really diving into the mythology side of things. I think book two will be a wild ride and am eager to see how it turns out.

I really wanted to love this intriguing premise, however I thought quite seriously about quitting a few times, even at 76%. I stuck it out, and honestly, can't even remember the ending despite finishing it last week.
There were some high moments of plot twists that I won't give away, but overall I found the action somewhat plodding and the writing dull.
I think in another author's hands this story could have been a hit for me.

Tara Sim creates a world based on Indian mythology blending elements of Mary Shelley’s classic Frankenstein.

After her sister Lasya’s sudden death, Kajal vows to do whatever it takes to bring her back to life. She must prevent Lasya’s soul from joining the cycle of reincarnation but her trapped soul warps into a bhuta—a violent, wraith-like spirit hell-bent on murdering those who threaten Kajal. As Lasya grows stronger, Kajal has to hurry to prevent more deaths. The only way she can do this is to work with two strangers who label themselves rebels against the kingdom’s usurper. They offer to help her, but they have a request. She must resurrect the kingdom’s fallen crown prince, aiding their coup de tat. She agrees but when she resurrects the prince, things don’t go as planned.

Sim’s world takes aspects of Hindu mythology and religion and makes a fantasy world of witches, nagas, and twins with special powers. This is not meant to be education (though my enjoyment of this book has led to research), but the creation of a unique land. Her world is lush with description even though the world itself is not verdant. I can see places and people in my mind easily. As she begins weaving in her lore, Sim shows she masters world-building.


My biggest issues with the book come in the latter half. The ending almost pissed me off. But there is a sequel in the works, and Sim won’t leave us hanging so I can forgive the ending. The other issue I can’t mention is it will get spoilery. All I will say is it has to do with Lasya.

Overall, We Shall Be Monster is an enjoyable read. With great world-building and well-paced action, Sim’s has created a fun, mythical story.

Publication Date: June 25
I received an ARC from the publisher; all opinions are my own.

after her sister lasya’s sudden death, kajal sets out to do whatever she can to bring her back, even if it means preventing lasya’s soul from joining the cycle of reincarnation. as lasya’s soul warps into a bhuta, kajal realizes she’s running out of time to reanimate her sister…and is locked away for being a witch. two rebels find kajal and break her out. they make a deal: they will return lasya’s body to her after she resurrects the crown prince. this task proves even more difficult than kajal thought, though, since the body the rebels bring to her does notbelong to the crown prince…

as soon as i saw this being marketed as “frankenstein meets indian mythology,” i was hooked. (that’s kind of a lie. i was already hooked when i saw tara sim + that cover.) i think those four words are a great way to describe this book! i didn’t love the original frankenstein, but i adore books inspired by it, and i loved how tara sim combined this story with indian mythology. i don’t think i’ve read a book featuring a bhuta before, so i found this aspect really interesting as well.

i think one of my favorite parts was the sibling dynamics. on one hand, we have crown prince advaith and his brother tavinder. it was kind of wild that the rebels thought they found the missing prince’s body after all this time just for the body to belong to his secret brother😭 then, we have kajal and lasya. honestly, these two would have completely satisfied my craving for complex sibling dynamics. kajal feels so much guilt for lasya’s death and the harm that her bhuta has caused. i really liked seeing how this played out.

i highly recommend this book and can’t wait for the sequel!

What an awesome ride of a book. I greatly enjoyed all the twists and turns this book threw at me, and I loved the characters a great deal. I don't think I was ever prepared for what happened next, but in the best way.

I was also pleasantly surprised by the queer rep, I had looked it up and found people claiming only side characters were queer (specifically, there's some nonbinary rep in there) but our protag actively mentions liking a woman along with her sister falling for the same. It's not the center of the tale but a nice surprise, and the narrative appears to be queer-normative.

My only minor grievance with the book was the sudden POV and time shift about 80% of the way through. While it cleared up by the end of the section I found it very disorienting initially, and it broke my reading pace.

I loved how this was steeped in mythology but managed to feel very fresh and new. We Shall Be Monsters was a creative and exciting blend of fantasy and horror that kept me reading into the early hours of the morning. Interesting, dynamic characters with a lot going on, Sim creates a fun, fresh world!

I had such a great time reading this book! I love mythology-inspired books, especially when they involved folklore from non-Western cultures, and I think Tara Sim did a lovely job incorporating that. The Frankenstein elements were also well done. By the middle of the story, I was hoping for some more character development to endear me to the characters a little more. But, overall, I enjoyed the atmosphere of this book and think it will especially make for a fun autumn read!

I cannot get over how good this book was! It is such a page turner, you just cannot seem to put it down. Right from the start it was so intriguing, as you don't really know all that happened and you have to go on with the story to learn a bit more and more about this mysterious past. I was definitely hooked.

𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗶𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲:
𐦍 Indian mythology
𐦍 Fantasy, Horror
𐦍 Amazing world-building
𐦍 Cute undead dog sidekick
𐦍 Frankenstein vibes
𐦍 A bit of a slow burn romance

I'm a sucker for sibling bonds that are strong like we got in this story. It was heartbreaking but so beautiful at the same time. I instantly loved all the characters (especially the undead dog Kutaa, oh my goodness, so precious and adorable!). The relationship between our characters was moving and I really enjoyed all the nicknames and banter! They were so helpful to each other and understanding as they got to know one another.

Indian mythology is not something I know a lot about so I was really engrossed by it all. It gave such a great look into this culture too. The world pulled me in like no other and I enjoyed Kajal's journey. It was dark, harsh but comforting and even a bit funny at times. She never had an easy life but she's so strong and resolute. I loved her persistence, she seems to be surronded by darkness all the time but somehow she's never disturbed by it and just push through.

The twists and turns never stopped and I cannot wait for the sequel to come out.

Thanks to the author, PenguinTeen and Coloredpagesbt for my copy of the book. All opinions are my own.

4.5 stars rounded down to 4.

After her sister Lasya’s sudden death, Kajal is desperate to resurrect her, no matter the cost. But as Kajal delays the resurrection, Lasya’s soul transforms into a bhuta, which becomes stronger with every kill. This dims Kajal’s hope for bringing back Lasya with her soul intact.

Labeled a witch and imprisoned with no means of escape, she is freed by two people claiming to be rebels working against the Usurper king. They want her to resurrect the dead crown prince so that the Usurper can be removed from the throne. Will Kajal succeed in bringing back the dead crown prince and her sister back to life, or will there be any consequences? Read We Shall be Monsters by Tara Sim to find out.

We Shall be Monsters is an action-packed, fast-paced young adult fantasy. It seamlessly weaves Indian mythology (with zero information dump) into a tale for survival and fight against a Usurper king.

It was a breeze to course through this book. With every page I turned, I was amazed at how beautifully the tales of Brahmanda (our universe), asura (demon deity), devata (god), rakshasa (beings who do the bidding for asura), the seven chakras etcetera were woven into the plot resulting in an enriching and highly readable fantasy novel. Please read the author’s notes section to have an understanding of Sim’s variations of the mythological tales.

The plot is terrific. After reading the first hundred and fifty pages or so, it felt like it was only going to be Kajal and Lasya’s story. How they will become strong enough to fight against the injustices against them and rise above the poverty-stricken circumstances in which they were born.

But then a surprising twist comes, which introduces some intriguing characters who help move the plot forward in a deliciously entertaining way. Just when I had predicted the ending, came the mother of all twists at 80% mark in the ebook version. It made me say, “Wow, just wow.“

Moreover, many of the characters peopling We Shall be Monsters have burrowed their way into my heart, especially Kajal and Tavinder. Having always had to survive hand-to-mouth, Kajal is a prickly girl, while her sister Lasya is the opposite, always smiling and bringing a smile on Kajal’s face.

“Didn’t know how to exist in a world where Lasya couldn’t be her counterweight.”

I got to learn about Lasya only through Kajal’s memories of her since she is a murderous bhuta for most part of the novel, very unlike the gentle person she is in real life. I could clearly see how the sisters, with their opposite characteristics, balanced each other out and how lonely Kajal is without Lasya.

I loved reading how love blossomed between Kajal and Tavinder. A girl who doesn’t know how to accept compliments and doesn’t think she even deserves them comes to make space for Tavinder’s love through his patient and gentle demeanor towards her.

“She handed him her cup, which contained the last couple sips. He took it, confused, but under her watchful gaze, he obediently drank it down. His lips touched the place where hers had been.”

It’s little moments like these peppered throughout the book that made my heart flutter whenever Tavinder and Kajal scenes would come up.

And then there is Kutaa (which literally means dog in Hindi), the undead dog who becomes Kajal’s pet after she resurrects him. He stole my heart through his steadfast devotion to Kajal and how he would always be there to provide comfort to her.

To sum up, I loved We Shall be Monsters by Tara Sim and highly recommend it to my readers of young adult fantasy, Indian or not.

I really enjoyed the mythology that went into this book, but some others things were a miss for me. It took me a while to get into the story and though I enjoyed it by the end, it felt like a lot of the scenes were written slowly. Overall, a really interesting story.

WHEW was that a good book!!

We Shall be Monsters takes a spin on the classic theme of “Good versus Evil” in a wonderful web of Indian mythology, nods to Frankenstein, an unlikely traveling group, and probably one of the best parts of this book, Kuuta.

The characters were very well rounded and fairly complex! Dalbir’s personality was my favorite, so full of life and laughter. Love you Dalbir. I cannot wait to see where their adventures take them in the next book and to see all of their development! Especially Virtika’s. Praying that there’s more of her in the sequel.

Fighting through thoughts and experiences of “What makes someone good?” and “What marks the difference between a human, a demon, and something in the middle?” are what made We Shall be Monsters as rich as it was fantastical.

My only issues were with certain scenes being paces oddly and at times it seemed as if we arrived at point B from A with minimal explanation as to how we got there. Around the beginning and ~70% mark I felt these to be the “worst” spots of it, but I use that word very lightly as it was never a glaring issue.

Overall, this was a fantastic book and I’m eagerly awaiting the sequel!
4.5/5

If you have seen any of my other reviews, you know I love reading fantasy based on mythologies from all over the world. So I jumped at the opportunity to read this one based on Indian mythology and I am so glad I did!

Kajal is such an emotionally complicated character and essentially becomes Frankenstein in order to try to resurrect her sister, who she is not ready to let go of. There are hints all throughout the story about what happened that led to the opening scene and one of my favorite opening lines in a book: “The worst day of Kajal’s life was the day she broke out of her own coffin.” !! What a way to start a book. And when we finally learn more about Kajal, her sister Lasya and their true nature, the payoff is huge.

While Kajal has to hide her resurrection project from the kingdom, a group of rebels who want to resurrect the deceased crown prince saves her from their clutches to enlist her in their project, with the promise of them retrieving her sister’s body for resurrection. I love that a lot of the book’s pacing is set around the fact that her sister has become a bhuta, a violent, wraith-like spirit that wants to murder those who wronged it in life. There eventually the bhuta will become too strong for Kajal to stop and the horror and destruction it begins to cause can start becoming suspicious.

There is also a romance subplot that starts to become more apparent towards the end of the book but is not explored much in this book. It looks like it will be a bigger part in book 2 though. All of the characters are so well written and my favorite is obviously Kutaa, who is the best undead boy.

FOUR AND A HALF STARS

I think this book was good. I think it was interesting, but the writing style was just not for me. Tara Sim had created an interesting world, and reading about Indian Mythology and the characters was interesting, but I don't think Sim's writing style and I don't fit well, and I can't exactly put my finger on why. I still recommend this book to others. Learning about Indian Mythology through the story was fascinating and my favorite aspect of it. The characters were dynamic and fun. Don't let my comment on the writing style stop you from reading because it is so objective. I still think other aspects of the novel were great. Lasya and Kajal were interesting characters and their complicated dyamic was something I was invested in. I do reccomend it for people.

Thank you to the publishers for an early copy of this book in exchange for a review. The premise of this book was interesting lots of focus on death, bringing people back from the dead, and Indian Mythology. I felt a lot of the world building and mythology could have been explained a lot better, I was confused a lot during this one. I also thought the pacing was off and I found myself getting bored or struggling to get through at times. A good read if you’re looking to read something different.