Someone You Can Build a Nest In is a literary chimera, stitching together romance, body horror, fantasy, and a smattering of sci-fi into a narrative as unconventional as its shapeshifting protagonist.

At its heart (Or is it?) is Shesheshen, a monster whose introspections on her next meal are as gruesome as they are fascinating. Wiswell doesn't shy away from the graphic; he dives headfirst into the visceral inner workings of his creature. The descriptions are lengthy, detailed, and not for the faint of heart. Yet, they're not gratuitous. Each gory detail serves the plot, highlighting a stark contrast between Shesheshen's monstrous nature and the unexpected humanity that emerges from her relationship with Homily.

The romance at the core of this tale is warm and genuine, an ironic twist considering it involves a monster contemplating devouring her lover. Wiswell navigates this complex dynamic with a deftly, ensuring the reader remains invested in their unconventional love story.

However, the book does, at times, stumble in its ambitious attempt to juggle its myriad elements. The landing isn't as solid as one might hope, leaving a sense of a narrative that, while intriguing, doesn't quite coalesce as seamlessly as it could have. However, these moments are more than made up for by the warmth and humanity that shine through.

This is not a book for everyone. Its graphic nature might deter some, but for those with a stomach for it, the book offers a unique reading experience. It's a story that, despite its flaws, leaves a lasting impression, with its better parts outweighing the sum of its whole.

This novel might not resonate with everyone, but for those it does, it has the potential to become a cult classic. Wiswell's bold storytelling and the poignant humanity he weaves into the narrative make this one that will not be soon forgotten.

Thank you NetGalley, John Wiswell, and DAW Books for allowing me early access in exchange for an honest review.

Someone You Can Build a Nest in is a great way for me to start the new reading year! It has all the gore, dark comedy, and tender romance of Gideon the Ninth wrapped in a gross, beautiful sapphic romance.

I seem to be drawn to sapphic fantasy and sci-fi books recently, and Someone You Can Build A Nest In will easily become part of my collection. I really liked how the gore and descriptions of am amorphous blob body were described - it truly made Shesheshen feel otherworldly. The way the worldbuilding and the main plot became interwoven was also really creative. I know the year has only just started, but I think this may have raised my reading expectations for the rest of the year.

Fun, funny, monstrous, and affecting. The POV “monster” Shesheshen is more human (and humane) than most of the humans in this book, and her voice was pitch-perfect, carrying the novel crisply from start to finish. This book won’t be for everyone, being equal parts fairytale, fantasy, romance and horror, but the target audience will LOVE IT! If you’ve read and enjoyed Wiswell’s short fiction, you’ll surely be in that appreciative audience. If you’re up for inventive worldbuilding, creative POVs, and offbeat meet-cute (meat-cute?) stories involving overcoming trauma, found family, more than a bit of body horror, and confusing social cues, give this a go. I bet you’ll like it.

Someone You Can Build a Nest In was for sure one of the weirdest books that I had the pleasure of reading this year, and I am not complaining at all!

I am a HUGE fan of making non-human characters decidedly other, so Shesheshen was an absolute delight to behold. Wiswell went all-out on making this monster truly monstrous, while still toeing the line of keeping her relatable and likeable. It was a joy to discover not only the mechanisms of her body and being, but also her inner thoughts and feelings.

I really enjoyed the dynamic of the main relationship, I believe ace characters don't get the spotlight enough, so it was fun to see Homily taking centre stage and being such a loving, kind person while taking no real pleasure in sex and the like - I can't truly comment on the quality of the representation as I myself am not ace, but it felt genuine and positive to me.

The story sadly suffered from some pacing issues, which did make the book drag on much more than it needed to. Honestly, I think if this was cut down to like 3/4 of it's length, it would have been much more fun to me, personally, The way it was, I often had to sit down and force myself to read on through parts of the story I didn't much care for, so that obviously tampered my enjoyment.

I still had a good time with this book and would definitely recommend it to people looking for an unique take on fantasy, or looking for monstrous main characters!

oh dear me! horror(ish) romance with the main protag being an eldritch alienesque thing who is VERY inhuman, taking cues from wasps, bears, The Thing, vampire lore... to form this really weird and really cool being with a cute romance. thanks for the arc.

This was a lovely fantasy romance with horror elements, written from the singular 3d person POV of a monster, Shesheshen.
Shesheshen is an amorphous gray flesh blob with the ability to absorb parts of her meals into her body and as such she can give herself a human appearance, and the biology of the monsters was very creative. A lot of description went into how Shesheshen changes her body, what parts she absorbs, and I really liked reading about this.
Despite the MC being a monster that eats people, the author did a great job getting me to root for this character, her view on humans as someone not human was interesting to read and even as she ate people she never came across as evil or unlikeable to me, this was just her understanding of how things worked and she didn't eat people because she was evil, that was just her food source.
I went into this book thinking it was a horror, but it wasn't really, though it definitely gets a bit darker in the second half or so.
Homily is a fantastic character and love interest too, and I loved the exploration of her trauma and how that's part of the reason she's always so kind, this book did a great job with character and relationship development.
Would recommend it to fans of queer romantasy fans sooner than horror fans, though it does have horror elements. And while the biological aspects were sometimes gross and very well described, at its heart this book is a love story.

3.75 stars

What an interesting read this was. Sapphic Beowolf from Grendel's POV, if Grendel was a shape shifting blob who is friends with a big blue bear.

I thought the story was original and well written. The depiction of familial trauma and the long term effects of abuse, as well as the PTSD that so often haunts survivors, was depicted in a very respectful and compassionate way. I appreciated the way the author chose to depart from typical romantic dynamics and made the relationship between his two characters very personal and unique to them.

This was a very original story and I am happy to have had the opportunity to read it. I would recommend it to anyone who likes folklore, a little bit of body horror, or dark fairy tales.

ARC provided in exchange for honest review

Okay, this book was so fun. Somehow it had everything and worked?? Sapphic relationship, asexual representation, humor, gore, found family, AND actual good discussions about abuse and trauma. Definitely not for everyone, honestly I expected a darker book, but it wasn’t a bad surprise to get this humor approach of a monster book. This isn’t a horror book, but be wary if you’re disturbed by graphic descriptions of shapeshifting moments.

I love this book and its monster(s)! This is a charming story about monsters and the nature of the monstrous and who has a right to call anyone else that; it's about love and being ace or demisexual and it's about escaping toxic families and finding happiness. You can curl right up in this book and make a nest in it because it is comfy and adorable, even when it's asking readers to think about really big ideas. A delight.

This was so delightful: one of my favorite books read in 2023.

Sheshenshen is a wyrm, a shapeshifting monster who has terrorized the humans around her lair and who would have continued doing it if it weren’t for meeting Homily, a human who rescues Sheshenshen and thinks she’s a human named Siobhan.

This book is somehow violent yet heartwarming and joyful.

Thank you to NetGalley and DAW!

DNF at 41%

When I requested this one on Netgalley, I really expected to enjoy it. It sounded miles away from what I normally read and I was so excited for the change of pace. But while reading, I found myself dreading picking it up. Our monster, Shesheshen wasn't monstrous at all, and really just seemed incompetent. Her romance with Homily was bland and impassionate. I didn't care about either of them, so why was I supposed to care about them together? it got to the point where I was reading just to get to the end, and not because I was invested in the story. I took this as a sign that I should give up and put the book down.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review

This is a monster love story but not THAT type of monster love story (aka not spicy haha)

This tale is from the perspective of a monster that uses bones and objects to build its own skeleton and has no organs of its own, only what is eaten by it. A being that somehow still created its own way of loving humans and did not want to destroy them or build a nest.

While it felt a bit long and tedious at a point towards the middle/end, I think this was a very adventurous take on monsters falling in love. I loved the originality of Shesheshen as a cryptic creature/monster and how their anatomy worked. It was wholly unique and interesting.
The twisting of the story was very fun, too, and I think kept my interest as I found some moments a little much. All in all, it's a very good book!

Review copy provided by the publisher. Also the author is a dear friend and I read an earlier draft of this.

I am so excited that the rest of you are going to get to read this in only a few months, because John and I have been making jokes based on the protagonist for the entire time since he wrote it, and soon you can too. Shesheshen is a shapeshifting slime monster! She is a blob! She is my favorite blob ever! She is grumpy and eats people! And this is endearing as only John can do it. She has a pet bear named Blueberry, and rosemary is poison to her, and humans are a lot of trouble but sometimes good for parts.

And sometimes interesting.

So that's a surprise, really, because who would have thought that humans would be interesting. But don't worry, it's definitely not all of them. Some of them are interested almost exclusively in hunting monsters, which in addition to being single-minded and unpleasant, is bad for Shesheshen and Blueberry. But maybe...just maybe...there's a human out there who's different. A human who's worth more than the use Shesheshen can make of her bones and pancreas.

Worth more than bones and a pancreas? Seems like you're gonna have suspension of disbelief issues with that one, huh? Seriously, John gives us monster perspective with all the warmth and humor he's always brought to short stories, but this time he's got room to really get comfortable in the voice and let Shesheshen's revelations develop and her choices ramify. You'll be rooting for this monster all the way through. I know I was. This book hooks you like a pair of borrowed steel jaws and pulls you in like a persistent tentacle. You won't be sorry you formed eyeballs to read this one--or ears to listen to someone read it to you if that's your thing. Highly recommended.

I read this book in one sitting, eating and petting my cat intermittently without being able to tear myself away. It's a very, very good book.

There's a lot I love here: queer romance, obviously, but also a completely unique and fascinating plot with just enough world-building and terribly lovable characters. The writing is straightforward and still poetic.

We know Shesheshen is a monster from the first page, and we never know too much about the kind of monster to make it boring or predictable. There is something to be said for fantasy books that have a deep, detailed taxonomy of monsters (and infodump that exposition right away in some compendium), but one of the highlights of this book for me was how organically the lore was introduced. We learn about Shesheshen as she learns about herself, and it feels really satisfying going on that journey with her.

There are a few heavy-handed moments discussing trauma and abuse, but they are accompanied by some really meaningful insights and beautiful prose. I highly recommend this book with the advance warning that there is a metric ton of body horror and horrible family dynamics; for me, it was absolutely worth it. If this turns out to be a series, I will definitely read the next one; regardless, I'll be waiting for the next John Wiswell release with bated breath.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Someone You Can Build a Nest In was an absolute delight to read. It was funny and emotional and overall a really exciting book! Shenshenshen was maybe my favorite character that I’ve read all year. She was such an entertaining character with some truly solid development. I also really loved the progression of Shenshenshen and Homily’s relationship.

This was a great fantasy/romance and I can’t recommend it enough!

Have you ever wanted to read a delightful ace/sapphic romance but where the main character is the thing from, well, The Thing? Then drop everything right now and get ready for Someone You Can Build A Nest In.

Shesheshen is a shapeshifter who is more often an amalgamation of blobs and tentacles than not, and she's equal parts witty and monstrous. Her opinions of humanity are that they are strange and violent creatures until she meets Homily, a kind and too-helpful woman with an evil family, She and Shesheshen begin a sweet and tender relationship all while trying to hunt down the shapeshifting monster that has cursed her family. Awkward... especially as Homily has no idea what Shesheshen actually is.

Their relationship is slow and saccharine sweet, which is a delightful juxtaposition to the gooey, gory, graphic descriptions of Shesheshen's habits of eating people and using their bits to shape herself. I would not label this as a horror novel, but readers with sensitive stomachs may be wary of the graphic violence and icky shapeshifting moments. I personally did not find them to be too much, as Wiswell has managed to frame them within Shesheshen's perspective, and she of course did not find these things too graphic.

Overall this was a fantastic book for me that I, like Shesheshen, hungered for and wanted to stick into one of my stomachs to savor for a long time.

Two words come to my mind when I try to sum up this book: emotion and intellect.

On an intellectual level, this story is a social commentary about othering and existentialism. About the human understanding of what a monster is/can be. Of what humans are/can be. To that end, symbolism is weaved into the literal plot in a way that I have scarcely seen before, and which I was completely enamored with from start to finish.

On an emotional level, I enjoyed the asexual romance between the monster and her love interest. There's something truly special about experiencing the journey of a monster as they don't just discover that they're in love, but as they also discover what human love is, all the while teaching a human to love like a monster. I'm aware that this hardly makes any sense... but if you read the book, I promise you it will. And it's not just love between partners, but love between family. Motherhood, especially.

This book is a dream and a nightmare wrapped into one. It finds love and beauty in pain and gore.

Other noteworthy aspects of the book include: extremely clever plot twists and super inventive alien anatomy.

Lastly, if you're not a fan of love stories, this probably isn't a book for you. At its heart, this is a love story in that the primary motivation for the protagonist (and thus the plot) is love. Hint: the title actually suggests this.

I LOVE the premise of this book. A sapphic monster romance sounds so unique and right up my alley, so I was really excited for this book. Unfortunately, it wasn't really my cup of tea. The book takes place from Shesheshen's POV, so the writing is a little stilted and awkward. This makes total sense for her character, since Shesheshen's very straightforward, but it didn't really make for enjoyable reading for me. The writing style made it hard for me to connect with the characters and the storyline.

Loved this long fiction debut. A sweet romance wrapped in cozy horror, dark but wholesome and lifted by humor—it strides along this balance expertly from start to finish. I also appreciated the wonderful ace-spec and neurodivergent representation, and the insightful and sensitive treatment of topics of trauma and healing at all scales.

I enjoyed this book so much. A blend of fairytale, fantasy, love story and action and adventure. A monster story that kept me gripped from beginning to end. Highly recommended.. as long as you aren’t too squeamish. Thank you to #netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy.