Wiswell's debut Someone You Can Build a Nest In begins with a creative premise: a monster-romance told from a perspective of the monster. It begins as a quirky romantsy with a smattering of body horror, but develops into more familiar fantasy battle plots. The strongest writing is certainly in the first half, where Wiswell develops the monster Shesheshen, but the pacing in the second half starts to stumble as the characters are trapped in cyclical monster hunts.

At times, the messaging felt heavy-handed, following a long lineage from Shelley's "what if the monster isn't the real monster?" While other moments seemed oblivious to their own symbolism: a female monster's biological drive to procreate makes her irrational. There are many instances where Shesheshen points out the monstrosity of "civilization," but it's not particularly convincing coming from the monster whose solution to every problem is eating people (which is further complicated when it is revealed the Baroness is Shesheshen's mother and the monstrosity of civilization in part results from a monster exactly like Shesheshen).

Shesheshen is a unique (and that's saying something in the world of monsters) character, well-crafted and consistent, that did not shine to full effect. If I were to guess, I'd say this resulted from a desire to ensure the "who is the real monster?" message was readily apparent, rather than letting readers do that work.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

I have to admit, I’m a little confused by the buzz for this book. I’ve seen it described as both a “cute and quirky monster love story” and a “body horror gore-fest.” While it’s true that an unusual love story and an abundance of bodily fluids can both be found within Someone You Can Build a Nest In, I don’t think it’s entirely fair to label the book either one of these things. As in, in trying to have its cake and eat it too, all we end up with is a mess of frosting and crumbs.

Our main character, Sheshenshen, is a monster. And, not a monster in the traditional werewolf/vampire/humanoid monster way of paranormal fiction; oh no, no, no. Sheshenshen is a parthenogenetic amorphous blob of gray slime. You’ve read the blurb; you understand what we’re working with here. This is a completely alien creature, with completely alien ideas about “bodies” and “consent” and “the inherent romance of cannibalism.”

You know. Quirky stuff like that.

Oh, and how I loved Sheshenshen! What a unique narrative voice! Really, she’s the best thing about this novel. Every other character, from Laurent to Epigram to the Baroness and, as sad as I am to say it, to Homily, pale in comparison to this weird, off-putting, monstrous thing… who just wants to be loved <3 If there’s one thing I can criticize about her voice, it’s that, eventually, in an attempt to endear Sheshenshen to the reader, she becomes… bland. The narrative glosses over her illogical actions (seeking companionship, defending her human mate, having ideas about love and romance that are, seemingly, at odds with her parthenogenetic asexually-reproducing species) and tones down her monstrousness in favor of a bland romantasy love story.
Come on. We read the synopsis. What happened to our monster? Give us the monster!
And, look, I’m aware these are nit-picks, but the more I think about the worldbuilding, the less I’m convinced of its internal logic. If, as mentioned above,Shesheshen is slime, how did Homily miss this when she sewed up Shesheshen’s wounds? Shesheshen was unconscious, so it wasn’t like she was constructing a form for herself (we see throughout the novel that it takes her conscious effort to maintain a humanoid form). And where did Shesheshen come up with the story of her parents? Why did she come up with the story of her parents?
Ultimately, I’ll say this: these are minor quibbles. This is a unique little story, and while I found it difficult to connect with the characters or the romance (a shame, considering how much the premise intrigued me), there is, undoubtedly, an audience for this book. This audience even included me, to a certain extent. If you’re at all intrigued by the summary, and as long as you can handle some body horror, why not give it a try?

(Review will be posted March 27)

Imgur link goes to Instagram Post scheduled March 22
Blog link goes live March 20th
Will be discussed in Youtube video March Reads Pt 1

**TL;DR**: Wow the abuse was rampant - while this looks cute and quirky I would not recommend it for anyone who doesn’t enjoy borderline trauma porn.

Someone You Can Build a Nest In has such a fun idea behind it. Shesheshen is a monster that awakes from her hibernation to monster hunters in her lair. She handles them as best she can but she’s awake and cold and most get food. Ultimately she’s having a truly bad day that day and ends up hurtling off a cliff. From there a woman who mistakes her for a human patches her up. She (instantly) falls in love and drama follows.

This started out as a very cute, quirky type of novel but then quickly showed it’s colors as more of a emotional horror show. The biggest conflict in this is that Homily’s family is wildly abusive, physically and emotionally and are hunting Shesheshen while abusing Homily. Shesheshen is caught between helping Homily (eating her family) and avoiding revealing herself to Homily while doing so. If you have *any* problems reading emotional abuse to wild levels, avoid this. It goes well and truly over the top in some situations and Homily takes it for most of the novel quietly and reacts as you’d expect. It was very rough to read.

Besides that horror show, I also have questions. The more I sit and think on the story the more I’m confused on how things work. For example, Shesheshen is essentially a slime. She constructs forms out of objects around her (a chain for a spine, chair legs for bones). How did Homily not notice this when she sewed up Shesheshen’s wounds at the bottom of that cliff? Also, where did Shesheshen learn to not be… well monstrous in personality. Where did she come up with the idea of her parents ‘love story’?

Overall this was a fast, and… sometimes fun read. It doesn’t stand up to any kind of close examination, which is a shame. But it’s interesting enough.

3 out of 5 bloody ‘hearts’

This book started out strong for me, but then became a slog to finish. At the 3/4 mark the plot seemed to stall out and just become repetitive and like wheels spinning in the mud. I'm not sure why it slowed down so much, but I think the constant search-find-kill-insult repetition between Shesheshen, the Queen, and Homily, and all the obnoxiously weird-named other children just became incredibly uninteresting. It's like we got the answers, then stuff just didn't happen or the book continued as if we didn't know the things we know? It also felt like Shesheshen and Homily's relationship became kind of stagnant and the characters stopped growing. Obviously Homily grew a backbone, but it didn't really feel like growth but rather just a switch flicked up. Still enjoyed the idea of this fantasy/horror kind of crossover, but really wanted Shesheshen to be MORE. They could do all this nutso stuff with their alien-mush-monster body, but literally hardly ever do much with it, or succeed in the gazillion battles they fight? I didn't really get that either. Was hoping for more, but will still keep an eye on Wiswell's next forays into fiction.

This started out weird but charming, and ended up just weird.
I looooved that this book is writted from the perspective of the monster. It added a nice new perspective. Despite the objective gruesomeness of many of the monster qualities, it wasn't too abstract or horrific.
And I guess that's partially where the problem lay for me. In what I think was an effort to not make Sheshenshen unrelateable, I sometimes lost her monster-ness in favour of humanity. So often it was glossed over how her very human actions fit with her actually being not human at all.
Similarly, the book was rather humorous, but I wish it had taken itself a bit more seriously at parts.

It was also much more romantasy and much less horror than I anticipated. It wasn't scary, instead coming across as trope-y at times, and unfortunately not in the best way.

As I said, i was charmed in the first half of the book, but unfortunately it lost me in the second. It dragged on for a bit with no clear direction for the plot. This lack of direction even continued until after the main plot ended, and the book just... continues for several chapters. It was honestly one of the weirdest ways to wrap up a book that I have ever seen. It may have tried to close up all the threads, but instead just opened up a whole new can of worms, just to not quite know what to do with them, so it felt really half-baked.
Speaking of, I didn't find the characterizations particularly believeable or consistent. Some choices did not fit the characters at all.

Overall this was an interesting read, but not quite what I expected or wanted from it, with a decent execution that unfortunately didn't quite live up to itself.

Like smothering a victim, comforting was easier to do with a good grip.

I loved this book literally from its very first page, but holy moly is it hard to hype to people. I kept trying to tell my boring friends and family about it, overexcited and eager to share, and inevitably would end up at "well, it does have cannibalism, but only kinda?"

let me tell you, folks are way less inclined to listen when you start talking about sorta-cannibalism. nonetheless! I'm assuming that if you are someone who is reading this review, you're at least on the fence about cannibalism and/or willing to indulge in some for the sake of an absolutely riveting love story. to those people I say: dear god, please please please pick this book up. it does not disappoint.

the vibes are a little tricky to pin down but I guess I'm gonna largely recommend it to people who like Jeff VanderMeer or Stephen Graham Jones but wish that their books were a little bit... happier, for lack of a better term.

do people die in Someone You Can Build a Nest In? yes. loads. women, children, bandits, soldiers, etc etc. but we also get to see Shesheshen, an inhuman, regularly boneless, very introverted monster fall in love. we get to see her finally fully understand what love is, and that love shouldn't cost someone everything they are, and that it's possible to fall in love with someone's trauma response but to also, somehow, still love the very real person underneath. this book is so excruciatingly gentle in its analysis of mental health.

A 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.

deadass, my one desire in life is to find someone who loves me the way Shesheshen loves Homily, and personally I could not care less if my girlfriend turned to goo every winter to hibernate. if you agree with me, or even if you just want to see a genuinely loving asexual sapphic relationship, or even if you're just here for the fascinating way Shesheshen looks at humans and tries to deconstruct their social expectations and cultural norms (enormous neurodivergent vibes here), please pick up this book. just give it a try.

Shesheshen sat beside her on the bed, not talking, puzzling over what she was allowed to say. With the little tact she possessed, she determined this was the wrong time to offer to eat someone.


queer rep - sapphic ace mc, sapphic ace love interest
thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the arc ✨

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC.

Shesheshen is a shapeshifting monster. When she’s unfairly hunted down after years spent devouring the occasional sheep or passersby, Shesheshen manages to escape. But when a beautiful human woman comes to her aid, thinking Shesheshen is a human as well, Shesheshen makes a terrible mistake: she falls in love.

I requested access to this on a lark because of that stellar title, and I found the book itself utterly delightful. It is a madcap monster romance with a heart that also manages to convey an important message about how our parents shape us. Highly recommended.

Someone You Can Build a Nest In is absolutely nuts and I loved it. It took me a bit to understand the main character's body situation or lack thereof. Absorbing other parts to make theirs whole was weird, but once I understood that she was pretty much a blob I understood her more. I loved the relationship between SheSheShen and Homily. It works and is one heck of a romance. Her fierce loyalty and love of Homily were really something. There were surprises along the way, specifically Homily's awful family. This is such a great story and I have a feeling this will be a huge hit. Loved it and look forward to more by this author.

The first thing that drew me in with this book was the title!

I was intrigued and needed to know more, and then was completely captivated by the description.

Was lucky enough to be given a copy to read and review.

This story was hilarious, fascinating, horrifying, and heart wrenching.

There is a lot going on, including:

Love & Hate
Found family
Abusive family
Manipulation
Monsters
Misunderstanding
Creatures
Myth and Folklore

There is also commentary on the different shades of love, and the hypocrisy of humanity.

And our MC Shesheshen trying to comprehend why humans insist on humaning in such confusing humany ways...... amazing.

This may not be for everyone, esp if you aren’t a fan of, for lack of a better term, squishy gore, but I really recommend it!

Loved it!

Shesheshen is a shapeshifting slime-like blob creature who lives a solitary life in a ruined manor on the outskirts of human society. When a group of monster hunters manage to flush her out of her lair, she makes a series of decisions that land her in deep trouble and, shortly after, almost literally land her half-dead in the lap of a woman named Homily. Homily shows Shesheshen a small modicum of human kindness (under the mistaken assumption that Shesheshen is, well...human) and nurses Shesheshen back to health. As our monstrous hero grows closer to Homily she has to deal with a few small issues, like the fact that her new girlfriend is ostensibly here to explicitly kill Shesheshen, that Homily's family is a toxic nightmare that also incorrectly believes that Shesheshen has somehow cursed their family, and that the truest expression of romance for Shesheshen's species is laying an egg sac inside their partner and having the young eat them from the inside out. If Shesheshen wants to have any kind of future with Homily, she'll need to address all these issues and confess to Homily that she's been lying to her this whole time about being a normal human. Hopefully that won't be too awkward!

I really enjoyed this book, and while I was a big fan of the author coming into the book, I was happy to be as much of a fan after finishing this one. Shesheshen is a great character, weird and creative, with some fun internal monologues and a very likeable personality that eases readers into a book that comes from the perspective of an inhuman creature. Fans of this kind of romance will be very happy, and the relationship between Homily and Shesheshen is very cute, but was not exactly my cup of tea.

I wanted to like this book. The premise is interesting, the writing is good, but about 40% of the way through I just stopped because I realized that while I was interested in what happened, I was not interested enough to go on the journey of reading the rest of this book. There's nothing wrong with the book, it's just not for me.

the world needs more monster lesbian books!! i really enjoyed this book even though i never read this type of genre. definitely would recommend if you love cozy fantasy and a little bit of creepiness mixed into it.

thank you netgalley for the e arc!

This book is an acquired taste. (Yes, that was joke.)

I was really looking forward to this novel because it sounded so incredibly weird. And it is incredibly weird. It’s dark, the concept is whacky, and there’s lots of blood (though I wouldn’t call it gory, per se).

Unfortunately, while the wackiness, lesbians, and occasional humour kept me reading, the insta-love didn’t work for me and the plot was a bit stiled at times.

Shesheshen is a fascinating character. She is a blob monster, essentially, who can shapeshift into human form. She’s also unsure what she wants - first it’s simply to get the monster hunters off her back, then, when she meets Homily, to decide whether she wants a relationship or a host for her egg. Because she’s a monster, she doesn’t really understand humans that well, so there are some good “fish out of water” moments. Her character is well-rendered, and the way she absorbs and uses the body parts of the people/things she eats is very easy to picture but it doesn’t come across as disturbing, just a normal thing such a creature would do.

Tied to this, the tone of the story is light. There’s body horror and death and family trauma, but the atmosphere carries this sort of breeziness to it that makes everything which happens that could be horrific, not so. There are also some really funny parts, like a development with a minor noble that I wished we had more of, Shesheshen’s accidental jokes, and some quips in the narrative voice.

The novel also touches on abuse, self-esteem, and breaking away from toxic family members. In truth, while I understand the novel doesn’t have space to do a whole work-over of Homily’s psyche, this aspect resolved a bit too easily for me, but that might also be because of the insta-love.

My biggest issue with the story is not a narrative craft thing, as I thought the writing and worldbuilding were very well done, but a personal thing. You guessed it - I can’t stand insta-love. I guess the draw for other readers is that you get to see their relationship develop and grow, rather than the build-up towards a relationship? For me, though, once a couple gets together, I tend to lose interest in their story. This book has the romance develop so quickly there was nothing for me to ship. And I love ships! As such, I was a bit let down on that front, as well as when the plot tended to stall out in a few parts around the middle.

Overall, I do recommend the novel, though, as I appreciate its weirdness, the normalization of monster romances, and the attempt to say something about breaking away from a toxic family.

Have you ever felt like you’re not quite human?

…like you just don’t fit in with society?

…ever wanted to find a bombed-out medieval keep and make it into a lair?

…and eat anybody who dares trespass upon your sanctuary?

Well then you just might be kin of Shesheshen…welcome to the club! I’m not sure how I came to relate to a shapeshifting, gelatinous monster, but here I am, and I must admit I quite like it.

Shesheshen is a monster rudely awoken from her winter hibernation, and like most of us, she is quite angry about it. Only to discover a bunch of monster hunters (humans at that!) at her doorstep. This total breach of social etiquette leads to Shesheshen making a mad dash for survival to the nearest human settlement where she must blend in to recover from her wounds. While there she meets the kind Homily, a human who is not as dreadful as the rest, and, dare I say, plain lovable.

However, love doesn’t look quite the same for Shesheshen’s kind. Having lived life on her own, almost since birth, she only vaguely remembers the teeth of her mother and the warm body of her father who fed her and her siblings, at least till she had to eat those siblings as well. So for Shesheshen, the pinnacle of love is your partner making themselves into a nest for their offspring. *cue title card*

This is the general premise of this book, truly bizarre, but in a completely lovable way. Have you ever read the first chapter of a book and just said to yourself, “Oh ya, this is going to be great.” That was this book for me. I honestly have no criticism for this book, only praise. This is the first book in which I was highlighting things that made me laugh. Every time I laughed, I was thinking “relatable!” and wanted to go back to these moments later.

I feel like any neurodivergent person will find themselves in this book. However, though it does talk about serious issues like trauma, the book is very lighthearted. As if to say, “Yes you’re different, the way you view the world might not be most common, you might be awkward, but you know what, together, we make the world a more interesting place.”

This is also one of the few stand-alone books that left me completely satisfied. I feel like a lot of books these days just drop off the edge of the “Plot Mountain” and end after the action is done. This book felt like it had its “falling action” and “resolution” phases. So, when I completed the book, I did so with a smile. I felt content where the characters were. Of course, I wish they didn’t have to go, but I’m happy about where they’re heading.

I would recommend this book to pretty much everybody, because this book left me with a sense that there is a place/people who would accept me, monster and all, and I think everybody needs to be reminded of that from time to time.

I’m not usually a cozy fantasy person. I like my fantasy to be a bit more murdery. Well, this book certainly filled that need and more. I LOVE SHESHESHEN!!

3-3.5 stars

This book was a whirlwind, enjoyable and touching at moments but ultimately, I found that I was not the attended audience. Someone You Can Build a Nest In is a very niche story that even though I didn't love it this time around I could see myself picking up again in a few years.

Thank you to NetGalley and DAW Publishers for this Advanced Readers Copy.

Shesheshen would really love it if she could simply continue to hibernate, but instead she has to get rid of some pesky monster hunters first. Unfortunately, before she devours him, Count Wolf shoots a cross bolt into her, and she can’t absorb it like she can the rest of the parts of the humans and their accouterments. When she jumps off a cliff to escape the hunters and is rescued and cared for by Homily, Shesheshen’s happy days lurking in the manorial cellar are over. In Homily, Shesheshen finds a potential nest for her eggs. Homily is warm, loving, caring–a perfect vessel to house a family. It doesn’t help that Homily is also hunting for the monster, but that matters less and less to Shesheshen as the two grow closer. Unfortunately, the hunt for Shesheshen intensifies, and Homily’s past is catching up to her. Shesheshen must make a choice that she never expected to have to make: to give without taking, to make a sacrifice for love.

I absolutely love this book. Told from the monster’s perspective, the reader has a precious opportunity to see and feel the movement from isolation and self-absorption to a reluctant acceptance of liking someone so much that you don’t want to eat them. How odd. Wiswell is a master of considering Shesheshen’s perspective and capturing the absurdity of a monster, whose only intent is to survive and reproduce, finds herself falling confoundedly in love. At the same time, the reader is treated to ponder a moral quandary: Who is a monster, and who is a victim? Filled with laugh-out-loud irony, this tale will warm your heart and totally gross you out at the same time. It has been a trend to revivify old fairy tales by telling the story from the role of the villain, but this one is special. Stripped to a primal core, the monster’s motive is survival; Wiswell delicately builds on this, shaping his shape shifter to execute a powerful transformation.

Thanks to DAW and Netgalley for access to this ARC. Opinions stated herein are my own; I don’t receive remuneration for my review.

Can a book be gruesome and beautiful at the same time?

Someone You Can Build a Nest In is that perfect sweet spot between literary and horror. And yet, it is also funny at times?! In the beginning, Wiswell's monster Shesheshen felt like a reimagining of Beowulf's Grendel, but Wiswell expands upon preexisting Medieval monsters while flipping our sympathies. I don't think I've ever rooted for a monster to terrorize a village!

One of my favorite parts about reading this book was imagining Shesheshen's form. Her amorphous physical parameters (or lack of parameters) made for such rich, unusual descriptions. And her biting and often hilarious inner dialogue about human society kept me reading way past my bedtime.

Plus, queer and asexual representation? Unique names? Blue bears? More like this, please!

Thank you NetGalley for the advanced copy!

This is a fascinating fantasy-horror-romance, though it reads a bit less quirky than the synopsis would suggest, at least to me. I was hoping for something a bit cozier, though I didn't mind the gore.

Best title of the year?!? Probably! Great book as well! Uncanny and strange but I love every seconds it took me to read it!