<B>The Publisher Says: Discover this creepy, charming monster-slaying fantasy romance—from the perspective of the monster—by Nebula Award-winning debut author John Wiswell</B>

Shesheshen has made a mistake fatal to all monsters: she's fallen in love.

Shesheshen is a shapeshifter, who happily resides as an amorphous lump at the bottom of a ruined manor. When her rest is interrupted by hunters intent on murdering her, she constructs a body from the remains of past meals: a metal chain for a backbone, borrowed bones for limbs, and a bear trap as an extra mouth.

However, the hunters chase Shesheshen out of her home and off a cliff. Badly hurt, she’s found and nursed back to health by Homily, a warm-hearted human, who has mistaken Shesheshen as a fellow human. Homily is kind and nurturing and would make an excellent co-parent: an ideal place to lay Shesheshen’s eggs so their young could devour Homily from the inside out. But as they grow close, she realizes humans don’t think about love that way.

Shesheshen hates keeping her identity secret from Homily, but just as she’s about to confess, Homily reveals why she’s in the area: she’s hunting a shapeshifting monster that supposedly cursed her family. Has Shesheshen seen it anywhere?

Eating her girlfriend isn’t an option. Shesheshen didn’t curse anyone, but to give herself and Homily a chance at happiness, she has to figure out why Homily’s twisted family thinks she did. As the hunt for the monster becomes increasingly deadly, Shesheshen must unearth the truth quickly, or soon both of their lives will be at risk.

And the bigger challenge remains: surviving her toxic in-laws long enough to learn to build a life with, rather than in, the love of her life.

<B>I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review</B>: I really hoped that I'd find something that recalled for me the affect and effect of <I>Mrs Caliban</I> in this book.

Not so much.

This being the twenty-first century, I get it; that kind of quiet exploration of repressed rage and thwarted love is not the way this louder, more boisterous time copes with Life. Also, the author's an ace man. We aren't much for writing quiet women unless they are silenced by our power and privilege over them. (Look at the mind-numbing abundance of male-authored "thrillers" centering sex crimes against women sometime.) What this book does, then, is entirely unlike what I was prepared for.
<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2QHqsrpSB72martUb1oKu8UW9Y0IFk3zlmIQhKJkXLFm7EFOWOX_R5utoAr4KDudwKQGD9dI8hoBSzNfO9mdrP1lzQo539kLzZN2woFyrQ28dawLfE9ipAJC_4KZ61slQsH4QWlPgkxRNwVWEi6uoJxpBeDEcLyQ5a4UenT_lFbCAqNMGmAVpC7orxMx8/s1500/Organ-stops.jpeg"width=400>
This is a large pipe organ's keyboard. The stops, those round thingies, are the way the organist chooses the kind of sound...brash blaring trumpets, quiet soft woodwinds...the instrument will send into your ears. Author Wiswell pulled the "Strange" stop on his book's keyboard all the way out and then used the loud pedal.

The idea of this being reproducing in the same unspeakably horrifying way that wasps do is nightmarish enough for me. I absolutely abominate wasps. But then to be confronted with Shesheshen, the wasplike alien's, twisted psychology...finding its parasitic fatal-for-Homily (her intended victim) reproductive strategy LOVING!...and I thought, "that's me out!"

And then...

The reason I kept going, pushing past the extreme horripilation induced at the mere notion of this, this travesty on Love was the strength of my horror. If I am this repulsed and infuriated, the author is saying something loud and clear, and however much I don't *like* hearing it I should listen. I am honestly surprised to say I am glad that I did.

Female-presenting monsters are having A Moment, it seems...Alasdair Gray's <I>Poor Things</I>, a book I did not like but a film that was a note-perfect adaptation of it most recently....and Author Wiswell's more SFnal take on it surpasses that deeply strange story. In imaging an alien just trying to exist, as "Bella Baxter" does, as Frankenstein's monster does, but in such a revulsion-evoking way, Author Wiswell makes his readers stop and think: "where is my horror coming from?" Survival by consuming one's host is appalling! When one is the host, yes; but really, are we any different? We are using up the planet, we are complicit in the slave labor that provides us the benefits of food to eat, as well as the devices you're reading and I'm writing this on, and that offers the laborers nothing but early graves.

Some people who reviewed the book on Goodreads had some reservations about the nature of a man writing a love story between a woman and a female-presenting alien, when the love was not sapphic but asexual. To me, this felt like a feature, not a bug (!), because the point was asexuality. That was something I found moving, once I wrapped my head around it; the lovers are genuinely in love and they cannot deny or repress their feelings, nor are these feelings physiologically expressed through sex. If this is something you are unfamiliar with, I recommend reading the excellent <I>Ace</I> by Angela Chen. It was that book that, for the first time, presented me with information about the experience of asexuality, by an asexual person; it is extremely illuminating for someone not asexual.

The attentive have noticed my rating lacks a star despite my laudatory comments. This is not due to its sexual challenge to the allo overculture. It is due to the frankly peculiar pacing, too slow then zooming through character-building opportunities; it's due to the amount of body horror exceeding my personal limits; it's due to my very old-fashioned purseylipped response to the amount of lying Shesheshen does to Homily, that never causes any comment or evokes any sense of betrayal, nor causes Homily to require some assurance that she *can* trust Shesheshen.

Also I kept reading her name as "Hominy" and, considering she was being assessed as a meal by Shesheshen, it made me giggle most immaturely.

None of my minor crotchets should stop you from getting this deeply affecting and very peculiar story into your eyeholes. Soonest.

Like many people, I am sure, I fell in love with John Wiswell’s writing when I read his story “Open House on Haunted Hill”, which blew me away. So I was thrilled when I found out he had a debut novel coming out, and even more excited when DAW gave me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I adored this book. It is the story of a monster who falls in love, but it is so much more than that. Shesheshen, the monster, doesn’t have a human idea of love or relationships, yet she comes across as eminently relatable. Her romance of Homily is truly wonderful, and her pet bear Blueberry is a delight. Shesheshen’s worldview, while somewhat bloodthirsty, is refreshing and feels very true.

This book kept surprising me. I honestly did not see the plot twists coming and every single time I was like “no way!” when, in hindsight, I should have seen the foreshadowing.

Everyone who loves love or monsters should go buy this book. It was that good.

Thanks to NetGalley and DAW for an Advanced Reader Copy - pub date 4/2/2024. Just as the tagline says - Shesheshen has made a mistake fatal to all monsters: she's fallen in love. So, yes, this is a romance but it is so very much more. Wiswell takes any preconceptions you might have going into something so neatly described as "a love story told from the point of view of the monster" and chucks them out the window. This is not Angel and Buffy (or even Spike). This is messy and primal and the stuff of the original dark fairy tales but gone even deeper into the forest. This is also a book about how very human monsters can be and how very monstrous humans can be.

Which sounds a bit pretentious but we all know it is true.

Shesheshen starts the book as that primal, gelatinous lump of sleepy shape-shifting monster that you find under your bed but she grows and develops into so much more. Her arc towards better self-understanding (of her nature, her desires, her needs) is truly impressive. At no point did I felt like I was getting off easy. I was with her in her mind and trudging through both her own layers and those of the humans around her. As she became aware of the difference in humans, in caring about or for others, in how human civilization can work and not work - so did I. It felt utterly naturally despite the alien gloss and knowing that, yes, this is a monster's head we are riding in. Sometimes it takes an outsider to really see the world and upset the status quo and Wiswell gives that to us with Shesheshen who, as she upsets herself, also upends the world around her.

Then there is the human who started the confusion, the love interest who is so much more than that. Homily has her own powerful character arc independent of but still entwined with Shesheshen's. We see her through the monster's eyes and what we see is sweet and kind and giving and attractive. It is only as the story unfolds that we (and Shesheshen) discover that there is more to her, that sometimes behaviors are learned in painful ways. Homily will break your heart in about twelve dozen ways and then she will offer to fix it because that is who she is. The perfect nest and yet... Shouldn't a relationship be consensual?

Speaking of consensual, Homily's family? Are not. Let's just say that there are a lot of types of monsters in the world and not all of them have supernatural powers. Be prepared to hate with the fire of a thousand suns.

Lines that made me put down the book and stare into space, questioning EVERYTHING...
- Underlook had made a mess in their celebration of her death, and then used their fear of her still being alive as an excuse to not clean up after themselves. That lack of accountability was typical to humans.
-Romance was awful. She couldn't even do something as simple as murdering rude people anymore.
-You could not excrete memories. They could not be surgically removed. It was unjust.
-It was easier to comfort than argue. Arguing was the hardest version of talking. You could have reasonable points and try to show as much empathy as possible and lose miserably.
-There was no deception to keep her safe from whatever Homily thought of her. If she wanted to be in love, then she had to grow used to it.

And a lot more. Damn, this book was amazing. I'm going to have to go and buy it now. Drat.

Warning : As you might have guessed, this book is pretty full of heavy themes and fairly graphic descriptions of violence, gore, and mental/emotional/physical abuse. Tread gently and be kind to yourself as you go but I hope and believe that, if you read it, it will be worth every bit of your effort.

Shesheshen woke up early, and is understandably upset. Her hibernation in her lair was interrupted by a trio of would-be monster hunters, and she was only able to kill and eat one of them before the others escaped. Using some of the dead hunter’s remains (and other bits of the ruins where she lives), the shape-shifter is able to build herself a bit of human-like body framework so that she can sneak down into the nearby town to see what’s changed since she was last awake. Borrowed bits of flesh and bone give her body more of the appropriate shape, allowing her to fake her way through some interactions. When her disguise fails in the middle of a festival celebrating her imminent death, she’s chased back out of town. The crowd, including the two survivors of the raid on her lair, pursue her until she falls off of a cliff.

Upon her next awakening, she’s startled by the presence of a human woman who has treated her wounds, wrapped her in blankets, and stoked a fire. The woman, an outsider not from the village, introduces herself as Homily. Before the monster can really focus on what’s happened, she’s being fed soup and entreated to rest by a woman who is clearly oblivious to Shesheshen’s monstrous nature, taking any oddities about her as symptoms of having just fallen over a cliff. Homily loads her into a cart and strikes off back to town. Soon, she’s in Homily’s room at a local inn until she can finish convalescing. A couple of things strike Shesheshen, then. First, the people of the village seem terrified of Homily. Second, she is beginning to feel… feelings. An odd sort of mutual attraction seems to be blooming between Homily and the woman she knows as Siobhan. Homily feels a genuine attraction to the monster she’s rescued, but she has no idea what Siobhan actually is.

As the two are getting to know each other and growing closer, though, the reason for Homily’s presence in Underlook comes to light. She’s the daughter of the Baroness Wulfyre, one of the family that rules the isthmus where Shesheshen lives. She’s also a master monster hunter in her own right, and had come to the village to assist her brother in hunting down the Wyrm of Underlook. Unfortunately for her, her brother Catharsis was the monster hunter that Shesheshen devoured before she and Homily met, and all of her remaining relatives believe that Shesheshen has cursed their line. Now Shesheshen is torn. Does she continue her charade or reveal her monstrous nature to Homily and hope that she can be forgiven for who she is? She’s finally met someone who might be a suitable host for her eggs, but if Homily figures out her identity, siding with her admittedly toxic family means Shesheshen’s death.

John Wiswell has released a brilliant debut novel with Someone You Can Build a Nest In. It’s a delightfully bizarre fantasy romance told from the perspective of a monster, and I’m utterly entranced by it. His descriptions of Shesheshen’s odd morphology and attempts to human are charming and disturbing simultaneously, and the Wulfyre clan (barring Homily) are suitably horrible. All in all, it’s an unconventional love story that will leave you questioning what relationships can be, and whether we can grow to become more than what our parents expect us to become.

My utmost thanks to NetGalley and DAW for an eARC of this title in exchange for a fair review. Someone You Can Build a Nest In is out in stores today, 4/2/24. Check it out.

This review originally appeared here: https://swordsoftheancients.com/2024/04/02/someone-you-can-build-a-nest-in-a-review/

The body horror is phenomenal. This story uses the body horror in a very purposeful way; not only is it integral to Shesheshen’s character and the world-building, but it’s also used in a way that has an emotional impact on the reader (other than just being grossed out). The romance is also a delightful slow burn, and there’s a lovely twist near the end of the novel! This book made me an immediate fan of John Wiswell's, and I'll keep my eye on his work from here on out.

HELL yes.

"Someone You Can Build a Nest In" is a monster romance between an amorphous leech-like human-eating monster whose reproductive cycle is laying eggs in a host that eat that host from the inside out, and a beautiful, fat lesbian from a monster hunter family who are dedicated to finding and killing the wyrm. The protagonist is in fact this wyrm, who can shapeshift and is doing the best she can to go undetected as she's is trying very hard to not be killed, and keeps building lies upon lies without really meaning to.

It's also a story about not sacrificing yourself for other people, and holding other people up so they learn not to be sacrificed.

It's also a story about narcissistic mothers who live their lives through their daughters and breaking these chains.

It's also just a very fun, funny, horror read that I trusted the whole way along. It has twists and turns galore, it is never easy, but I did not think it would hurt me, and it didn't. Brilliantly written. The setting is a fantasy world that is half ours (there are bombs, and very modern speech) and half high fantasy. It is smart, and clever, but never quippy in a way that draws attention to itself. The characters are wonderful. Shesheshen, the monster and protagonist, goes through one of the best character arcs.

Truly loved this one.

Thank you NetGalley and DAW for this ARC copy!

I really do not know what to say about this book. I don't usually read the synopsis about books because I like to be surprised and I am definitely surprised. I still dont really know what happened in this book or how we even got to the ending but I was entertained the whole time, and I still can not tell you what that book was even about.

There is a lot of body horror which does not bother me at all, but if it is definitely something you need to be comfortable with going into this story.

4.5 ⭐️

Amazing. My jaw was on the floor on page one. The gore and monstrosity was unapologetic from the start. This story also had a heavy load of trauma and dark themes. But as it often is, the obvious monster isn’t always the worst.

Despite the ugliness, the writing was so fun and whimsical even. The book had some golden moments of situational comedy and hilarious conversations. The story moved swiftly and had that tense monster hunting vibe paired with the comedy of the monster being among the hunting party.

The sapphic/asexual romance was so tender and precious my heart was about to burst. It was pure and just right for the characters, honouring each others’ boundaries and understanding their baggage.

My only issue with this story was the ending. I felt that the last few chapters were unnecessary. The story would have been just about perfect without them.

This is one of the most romantic books I’ve ever read. At its base, it’s a monster romance filled with gore and strangeness and it’s wonderful. I had such a good time reading it! We’re all better when we love and care for someone, even when we don’t actually have hearts. Or any other organs of our own. A delightfully disgusting read!

Thank you to NetGalley and DAW for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Someone You Can Build a Nest In is ambitious: not only is the character non-human, she’s not even approximately humanoid (unless she chooses to be) but rather a shapeshifting blob that can take objects in from her environment – chair legs, knives, body parts of others – and use them to shape herself. It’s well written and I’d happily read more from John Wiswell, but not everything about this worked for me.

What I liked: the novel includes thoughtful asexual sapphic representation, some well considered conversations about trauma and its impact on relationships, and a mix of graphic gore and violence with humour that somehow inexplicably worked in terms of overall tone. The pacing mostly worked for me. There are some fantastic descriptions and turns of phrase in this book.

What I didn’t love so much: Shesheshen felt way too human as a non-human POV; I understand wanting to make the POV character somehow relatable, but this didn’t quite work for me. The last 20% or so of the book felt like an unnecessary add-on. The insta-romance wasn’t convincing (I’m admittedly not a romance reader, and those who are might like this aspect of the story more than I did).

Thank you to the author, DAW, & NetGalley for providing me with an ARC.

Content warnings: emotional abuse, physical abuse, gaslighting, child abuse, child death, blood, gore, body horror, injury detail, violence, murder, death, animal cruelty, animal death, grief, abandonment. Don’t be misled by reviews calling this ‘cozy’ – the abusive dynamics in this book are severe and pervasive.

4.5
Thanks to the author/publisher for providing me with an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This is technically a sapphic romantasy story about a monster falling in love with a human, but it also kinda feels like a sci-fi story that just happens to take place in a fantasy setting, just because the monster main character feels so alien (by the end, she still retains that monster/alien-like qualities, but in a much more endearing way). Some parts of this book (particularly near the end) feel like cozy fantasy, but there were still a lot of action and tense sequences in the middle of the book. The cozy parts are done so well in order to build and develop the characters and their relationships. The tense parts of the book aren't as good, but still done well enough for me to not complain. The writing is funny in a non-annoying way, and on sentence level, it's clear that there were a lot of effort put into it. Combine those things with the brilliant observations from the non-human main character, the result is a really engaging and personable writing style, even though it's a third person pov. The worldbuilding is probably the part of the book that feels the most lacking, but that's fine by me as it's never really the focus of the story anyway. Overall, just a truly delightful read with a really interesting main character and relationship.

Man, I’m cutting it too close with this one.
Usually, when I find a book I enjoy, J just wanna smash through it and finish it in a night. This time, I wanted to savor it. Take a bite and let it coat my senses.
Someone You Can Build A Nest In is a horrormantasy exploring humanity, familial trauma, healing, and how to love someone.

It’s very tender. Shesheshen’s inner voice is very cute in the way she talks, and thinks, and grows. Even in the foreign way she navigates falling in love.

The writing was very believe able. Wiswell did a fantastic job with the twists and navigating them, writing some predictable ones and some that had me like ! :o !
I will be thinking about this book forever. I cannot express enough how much I LOVED reading it. I’m gonna go reread it.

Thanks to the publisher, Wiswell, and NetGalley for a free eARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinions.

Genre: horror romance, body horror

Shesheshen is an amorphous shape-shifting monster. Yes, she terrorizes and eats humans sometimes, but that’s really just for necessary nourishment. But the local landowning family, the Wulfyres, are out to kill her to break their family curse. She’s transformed herself to look a little like a human, or human enough to pass muster in town. An encounter with several hunters puts Shesheshen in a bad spot, and a young woman named Homily rescues her, nursing her back to health (unbeknownst to Homily, Shesheshen regenerates on her own, but she actually appreciates the attention). Even when Homily admits she’s out looking for ways to kill this monster, Shesheshen feels a bit like something warm and fuzzy is giving her feelings?! when she’s never had feelings before.

First off, this book was gross. Like body horror, regenerating shape-shifting monster gory details gross. Even for someone like me, for whom body horror is my favorite horror subgenre, there are some rough spots. You’ve been warned. But it was also funny. And heartfelt. And sweet. And insightful.

This is monster romance, not monster smut. And it warmed me to the core. It’s romantic in the way that Shesheshen learns to love Homily, but also to accept her changing body as a monster. (She loves being the monster she is, it just comes with some confusing feelings sometimes, you know?)

The driving Big Bad of the plot is venomous and spiteful, and not at all subtle in the ways it’s bad. Homily’s mother and sister rank up there with the more hateful mothers and sisters you’ll find in books. I, too, would like to tear them limb from limb.

This book is going to find a really niche home with certain readers and body-horror monster romance is apparently my new niche.

This is a cute book. Like if you made Octavia Butler's "Bloodchild" cute, lol.

I liked the first half, with Shesheshen falling in love and trying to act human, a lot. The second half, with the actual plot kind of coming together, didn't do it for me so much; I thought it was too neat and convenient a lot of the time. Still, cute.

I did feel much of the time like this book was too didactic, or like a little too much 21st-century voice crept into the clearly medieval-western-Europe-inspired world; words like "trauma," "abuser," and "enby" were thrown about with surprising frequency, and it was obviously a book with a Point. Obviously it's a made-up fantasy world and it can look like anything, and the Point happened to be one I agree with, but next to all the chain mail and old crumbling lairs and rosemary wine, it was still jarring.

I received an eARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

HIGHLIGHTS
~when I tell you that both the US and UK covers accurately represent the story
~this time the monster’s an ACTUAL monster
~wigs
~hurt the giant blue bear and you die
~gold is not a good metal for armour
~kissing = failed cannibalism
~gods damned rosemary

TW for mentions and some discussions of trauma and abuse.

John Wiswell really said “Monster romance? I’ll show you monster romance!” and gave us Someone You Can Build a Nest In.

Which: everyone else can go home, Wiswell wins. It’s not even close.

Because Shesheshen is an actual monster. Not a human with sexy fangs; not attractively muscly under unusually- but prettily-coloured skin; not an unexpectedly aesthetically-pleasing demon under the bed. A gross, icky blob of a monster, who eats humans in graphic detail. All the things monster romances usually give us – the monster being HotTM actually; the monster only eating nightmares or just a sip of blood or only really bad people; the monster willingly declawing themself for the sake of their human romantic interest – none of that’s a thing here. Shesheshen is anything but conventionally attractive; she is definitely not a vegan; she is extremely dangerous and always will be. Everything about her is a challenge: Can you, the reader, become attached to and invested in and deeply care about a monster who hits a lot of your ick buttons? Can Wiswell make you love her?

The answer to both those questions is – Oh my gods, YES!!!

Because – despite finding fly eggs in the corpse-leg she’s eating the equivalent of sprinkles on ice-cream – Shesheshen is ENORMOUSLY relatable. Don’t we all wish we could bite the heads off the idiots who wake us up before we’re finished sleeping? Doesn’t everyone want to murder their mother in law?? Is there truly anyone who doesn’t struggle to eat spaghetti neatly??? These are problems I think most of us can empathise or with!

Dressing up so that you could eat never made sense to Shesheshen; the food was typically dead and surely unimpressed with its audience.

Shesheshen is the weird alien creature for all of us who ever felt, or still feel like, weird alien creatures; her absolute bafflement when it comes to human behaviour isn’t just hilarious to read, or good worldbuilding (although it is both), but as an autistic reader, it also serves as both validation and relief. Yes, humans do things that make no sense!!! Thank you!!! SAY IT LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE AT THE BACK!!! So while I do not want to start nomming on my fellow humans, I did feel at home with Shesheshen; this is someone whose mind words very similarly to mine, and that will never stop feeling like a Big Deal when I get to encounter it in fiction. I don’t just love Shesheshen because she’s funny and socially awkward and is a murderous goo-monster (although I do love her for all those things); it’s also because I GET her. And I know I’m not going to be the only reader who feels that way. I love encountering characters who really Are Not Human because they’re interesting, and their perspective on humanity is interesting, but it’s also because I tend to identify with them really hard.

I have Feels about this, okay?

Romance was awful. She couldn’t even do something as simple as murdering rude people anymore.

Besides, ironically, but perhaps not unexpectedly, Shesheshen really is the least fucked-up character in the book. Her thoughts on Homily’s horrifically abusive family, in particular, are going to resonate with anyone who’s ever been in, or been the audience to, a toxic relationship. Shesheshen is too often the only voice of reason in a cacophony of awful or brutalised people; she’s far more human than most of the named characters, a writerly choice that’s both poignant and pointed.

Baroness Wulfyre was an obvious abuser. Surely anyone, even humans, could see why Homily ran away from her family so frequently.

Which leads us to the really, REALLY excellent way Wiswell writes trauma; it’s arguably its own separate plotline throughout the book. I hope Wiswell is not writing from personal experience, but there were times I wanted to claw my own skin off because the scenes were so intensely authentic – and other times I wished I could dive into the pages and murder certain characters, and hug other ones (mostly Homily) very, very tightly. A lot about Someone You Can Build a Nest In is very funny: this is not. Wiswell doesn’t play the trauma for laughs but deals with it respectfully and honestly, perfectly capturing how emotional and verbal abuse can do as much damage – or even more, in the wrong circumstances – as physical abuse. Homily’s family are, to put it mildly, fucking awful, and as heartbreaking as it is to see Homily caught in their riptide… I really appreciated that we also got to see Shesheshen’s wrestling with loving a traumatised person; not (just) in the sense of, I need to help and support this person I care about and that is a complicated and difficult thing to do, but also…falling in love with a traumatised person often means you have fallen for someone shaped by their trauma. Someone who wouldn’t exist without the trauma they went through. Speaking as an abuse survivor now – I’ve never heard anyone say that. I’ve never seen that idea, that thought, put into words before. It is messy and ugly and uncomfortable and true, and I am really grateful for it; as grateful as I am that Wiswell put it on the page as gently and deftly as he did.

This was the same mistake so many humans made: believing someone would leap over trauma when it hurt them badly enough.

That wasn’t how it worked, and the monster knew it. All Shesheshen could do for Homily was be patient with her, and make space for her, and eventually, one day behind her back, eat her mother.

Yeah, this book really hit me hard. I do not regret it in the least. It’s more than just a good book to me; more than just a fun book, an interesting book, a well-written book. It’s deeply personal and meaningful and it slipped under my skin and I’m keeping it there, like Shesheshen and her bear-trap teeth!

Now Homily’s hands muffled a guffaw. It sounded even cuter between her fingers, like the mating call of a sad moose with a cold.

Onto the prose!

Yet another thing that makes Someone You Can Build a Nest In really gods-damn excellent is the way Wiswell uses words – and the way he absolutely commits to writing from a monster’s POV. Some storytellers would simply go ‘wow look at the weird humans being weird’ and leave it at that, but here, Shesheshen’s inherent unhumanness is inextricable from the prose itself. It’s there in the similes and metaphors and imagery Shesheshen uses, and that seats us in the monster’s perspective like few other stories I’ve ever seen. I said earlier that I love how much Shesheshen’s take on humanity overlaps with my own autism, but even the most socially adept readers are going to get Shesheshen because of lines like this

The clouds had run away, ceding the sky to the moon’s dominance and the tapestries of the cosmos.

First off, that is just a very cool image beautifully worded. But it’s also immersing us in Shesheshen’s experience and views of the world. She’s a predator, and nearly everything she sees or thinks or goes through is filtered through that. And by writing in this way, Wiswell makes sure that we see through her eyes too; we absorb her perspective. It’s subtle and brilliant, and proof that you don’t have to write in first-person to get your readers inside your character’s skin.

…Er, so to speak. What with Shesheshen not actually having skin, really. My point stands!

Shesheshen was sure she was smitten. She wanted to spend the entire night devouring everyone in this dance hall with Homily.

A big, heart-warming, absolutely-brought-tears-to-my-eyes part of Shesheshen’s perspective is the body-positivity. Homily, Shesheshen’s beloved, is fat. Plus-sized. Whatever you’d like to call it. And Shesheshen thinks it’s beautiful. Not because it means there’s more of her to eat, either (Shesheshen doesn’t WANT to eat Homily; she wants to eat stupid people WITH Homily. Important distinction!) but because Shesheshen…finds Homily’s size comforting and lovely and attractive. Homily’s weight or size come up over and over across the course of this book, and not ONCE is it in negative terms. Instead we get lines like this

Their bodies eclipsed, Shesheshen’s narrower frame sinking against the protective warmth of the human woman’s chest and belly.

or this

This time when Homily laughed, all the ripples in her large body resonated against Shesheshen. It was better than warmth. It was hypnotic. It was a generosity of skin, like all of Homily was consensually shapeshifting for her, taking the form of shelter.

Homily’s fatness is always portrayed this way; comforting, protective, likened to nests and safe spaces, entrancing. The bit above, about Homily’s shape almost shapeshifting for Shesheshen, is obviously a huge deal for a monstrous shapeshifter who’s never met another of her own kind! And I love it so much; I love getting to see a plus-sized character loved because of her size, not despite it. I loved Shesheshen’s complete lack of human fatphobia. I loved being told, over and over, that a character who looks something like me is beautiful.

WHO GAVE WISWELL PERMISSION TO HIT ME THIS HARD IN THE FEELS?

And look, I could stay here another month, talking about how this monstrous-horror-comedy-fantasy also manages to be anti-capitalist and critique human power structures (especially ones tied up with generational wealth and influence) and quietly but emphatically insist on the importance of consent. I really could! It is just flat-out amazing how much Wiswell manages to weave into this, how he’s telling a fantastic story that manages to make me laugh, cry, flail, AND want to become an anarchist-punk, without ever feeling like he’s lecturing or pushing messaging onto the reader. It all flows together so naturally – like Shesheshen taking on a new shape!

Actually, a lot more gracefully than that. I did not get the impression that Shesheshen’s shapeshifting is easy to watch if you have a weak stomach. Whereas Wiswell’s storytelling flows like water, compulsively readable and easy on the brain even when tackling tough topics. Someone You Can Build a Nest In never felt like work, the way some heavier fantasies do, and I honestly don’t know any other author who’s been able to swing me so fast between almost-crying and giggle-snorting. This book is intense and fun, icky and delightful, wickedly clever and just plain wicked. It’s complex, but also very simple; fucked-up but cosy; a beating, pulsing mass of contradictions that somehow comes together into sheer multi-faceted BRILLIANCE.

I am used to eating alone. I have no idea how civilized people eat with their mouths closed. Is it a performance art?”

I was so freaking excited for this book, and it ended up being so much more than I’d known to hope for. It’s even weirder than I was expecting; it’s softer; it pulls absolutely no punches. The Babadook ended up a queer mascot through a funny accident, but Shesheshen is deliberately, openly, gleefully the monster all of us weird queers and queer weirdos have been pining for; a queer icon from the opening page, who will remain one long after the last.

(Just don’t try to give her a crown or make any fuss. Bother her and you might get eaten!)

THE SHAPESHIFTING SAPPHIC GOO-MONSTER WE DESERVE! And who you will definitely, definitely love!

Would you like to read a sapphic ace romance? How about one with a focus on recovering from generational trauma? OK, but wait: how about a MONSTER romance with those themes? But make it a real horror novel, with plenty of body horror, side characters meeting grisly demises, double crossing villains, and even a final girl. That's basically what you get here: Shesheshen is a man-eating, shape-changing monster. After a long day of being chased by monster hunters, she is rescued by Homily, the most self-sacrificing woman on earth. Shesheshen starts to think she's found the mother of her children - the person she can plant her eggs in so that when they hatch, they will have a source of food to allow them to grow. But their relationship progresses, Shesheshen starts to realize that maybe she likes Homily so much that she should be more than just a nest...

This was WEIRD and a little out of my comfort zone. (I do not love body horror and did feel actual nausea at a couple of points in the text.) That said, there was plenty of sentimental romance go to along with the body horror. Shesheshen and Homily rely on each other and accept each other for exactly who they are. If you like horror AND romance, you should definitely check this out!

This objective review is based on a complimentary copy of the novel.

I couldn’t tell you what initially drew me to this book - but I knew as soon as I read the title - there is something queer afoot. I couldn’t believe my gut - the title was giving me - aromantic vibes?? And sure enough, when I looked up the author and found out he was AroAce, I smashed that request button so fast.

And that is the story of how this book became a new all time favourite for this Aromantic Bisexual.

Okay, maybe there was a bit more than that. Maybe there was something visceral and physical in the delicious body horror of wanting a partnership in such a deep way that you literally want to crawl inside of their bodies. We’re treated to this wonderfully gorey horror almost immediately and it follows us throughout the book - serving as part of its essence. In a weird way, this type of horror, again so visceral and physical, it actually tipped all the way back into cozy to me. Which is kind of hilarious to say when multiple people are left as husks of meat sacks throughout the book.

Shesheshen is a shapeshifter, living on her own and killing any monster hunters who come crawling towards her cave. After a long winter hibernating, she is attacked by a group of monster hunters - she survives, but is badly wounded. Pulling herself into a human-like shape, she seeks help and finds Homily, a warm-hearted human traveling towards Shesheshen’s town and so their adventures begin.

This story is billed as a romance, but honestly Shesheshen and Homily’s platonic relationship feels deeper than romance and deeper than physical intimacy (and in many cases it feels like an AroAce relationship/companionship, despite Shesheshen consistently questioning if she has in fact fallen in love). This book is more than that and I think it may have fallen victim to narrow marketing. I hope that it doesn't fall into the wrong hands, for those expecting a swooping, smutty romance - this book is much more intimate and the feelings are so strong.

This book wrapped me up in a giant hug from an amorphous lump of flesh and I loved every moment of it and will be super protective of this book. And I cannot wait to see what Wiswell writes next!

Give Someone You Can Build a Nest In all the love! Please and thank you ♥️

Hisses & Kisses 🐍

*I received an eARC from DAW & NetGalley. All opinions are my own.*

4.25 stars

If you read House in the Cerulean Sea and thought wow, I love this, I wish there were more horror elements though - I have the book for you! Someone You Can Build a Nest In is told from the perspective of Shesheshen, a monster living on the outskirts of the village of Underlook. She's just trying to live her life, but monster hunters keep coming and trying to murder her. After a battle in which she's badly hurt, Shesheshen is nursed back to health by Homily, a kind human who also thinks Shesheshen is human. The two quickly form a bond, and while Shesheshen would love to plant her eggs in Homily, she does realize that maybe humans wouldn't like that very much. Oh, and there's also the complication that Homily & her family are hunting for the monster of Underlook, which just happens to be Shesheshen.

I heard about this book through an interview Alix E. Harrow did with Illumicrate, and was so glad I decided to read it! This book was so unique, and I had such an enjoyable time following Shesheshen's story. Shesheshen trying to navigate human conversation and customs was funny, and her relationship with Homily had so much heart. The exploration of Homily's toxic relationships with her family members, and how Shesheshen helps her overcome those, was also handled with extreme care by the author.

Thank you to NetGalley and DAW for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

To say I enjoyed this book would be an understatement. With a title and description like that, how could I not be curious? It promised something unique and refreshing and delivered on every front.

I found how a premise so horrifying develops into a tender romance to be delightful. Told from the monster Shesheshen's POV, the story gives a rather humorous glimpse into the mind of a human eating monster that falls in love with a human. It rather surprised me that I found such an entity adorable several times throughout my read!

I would recommend this to anyone that likes their fantasy or horror with a little bit of romance. This felt borderline cozy somehow? I don't understand how that can be, but it did.

Someone You Can Build A Nest In by John Wiswell is a weird and wonderful book. I was honestly hooked the moment I read the summary, and the story absolutely delivered. Nest takes after its shape-shifting protagonist and combines elements of horror, comedy, mystery, adventure, and queer romance into one tale that will definitely stand out amongst your 2024 TBR.

Shesheshen’s hibernation is disrupted by two monster hunters and a very loud and gilded nobleman. Annoyed by their intrusion, the shape-shifting monster strings her body together from leftover bones, tools, and a chain to confront the humans ruining her slumber. When the confrontation goes poorly, Shesheshen is forced to visit town in search of a meal to aid in her healing. But her appearance does not go unnoticed, and in her haste to find safety, Shesheshen ends up in the company of a warm and kind stranger. As the town and powerful local family decide to hunt and kill the monster once and for all, Shesheshen will take shape, make a stand, and fall deeply in love.

Shesheshen is a great narrator and the main reason why I enjoyed this story so much. Her perspective is interesting, morbid, and incredibly funny. We’re learning about the world through the eyes of a reclusive monster who has a limited view of how humans operate. This makes for entertaining interactions as Shesheshen assumes a human shape and enters society. She is naive about humans while incredibly observant, making blunt commentary about the way they live and treat both humans and monsters alike. The humor sprinkled throughout the story is completely unintentional, thanks to Sheseshen’s unflappable ability to be honest and straightforward, and it made me laugh out loud several times.

There is a lot of commentary about what makes someone or something monstrous. As soon as the story begins, Wiswell has us questioning this definition and why some acts are accepted while others are horrifying. Our narrator, Shesheshen, is a monster and must absorb people to survive which can be a gruesome experience described in detail. However, Wiswell subtly hints that Shesheshen mostly minds her own business, and targets terrible people when she must feed or as a means of protecting herself when confronted. In comparison, many of the humans in this story are awful, so awful that I was rooting for Shesheshen to eat them at every turn. Unfortunately for me, Shesheshen had more sense and patience than the meat sacks walking around her.

I appreciate the attention that Wiswell gave to trauma in this story, especially by showing the way characters have been shaped by it and how it manifests. At the end of the climax, the story actually makes us sit with the trauma, guilt, and pain that comes from all the desperation, fear, and violent actions of the plot. There were no quick fixes to the panic attacks or solutions for the personalities molded by all the ways people failed the characters. Wiswell doesn’t go too in-depth here, but he calls it out and makes sure space is held for the realities of hurting and healing.

Someone You Can Build A Nest In was monstrously fun and heartfelt. It’s a horror-adventure-love story that will make you uncomfortable but also creates a safe space for you to come home to.

Rating: Someone You Can Build A Nest In - 7.5/10

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. The thoughts on this story are my own.