Never a Hero: Only a Monster 2

Just as good as the first book in the series!
Joan has chosen a side and yet she’s still battling other monsters who dislike or distrust her family, The Hunts. This time she also has others enemies - people she once trusted and even herself. Secrets from the past threaten to undo everything Joan thought she knew about living as a half monster/half human and she’ll question whether she’s made the right choices as she seeks to right past wrongs. Vanessa Len has, once again, deftly created a suspenseful world of time travel and intrigue where the bonds of friendship and family are put to the ultimate test. I highly recommend this book and am not sure how I’ll pass the time while I await book 3!

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

4/5 stars

I was so excited to read this book after finishing only a monster. Wanted more Aaron Oliver of course!!!!
This book was a fantastic YA fantasy and I highly recommend.

This sequel did not disappoint.

3/5 stars

read if you like:
♡ fated enemies/lovers
♡ love triangle
♡ diverse character cast
♡ close proximity - they’re on the run!!!
♡ “amnesia”
♡ touch her and i'll break more than your hand mmc
♡ morally grey characters
♡ rich world building
♡ unique magic system revolving around time travel

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i want to give this a better rating just out of sheer enjoyment as i did binge this but i can't in good conscience do so. it’s incredibly rare for me to consider a sequel stronger than the first book and yet i found never a hero to be both conceptually more polished and more diligent in execution than its predecessor. i’m sure some of this is owed to the fact that this book is lengthier and therefore given more time to really germinate but a great deal of this improvement can be ascribed to its start towards filling in plot holes. don’t get me wrong, this labour in exposition is not perfect, there are still so many unexplained wounds in the storyline’s integrity - both critical and less pernicious ones - which are currently relying on a really thrilling plot as a stopgap. it’s a prodigious concern that at this point in the series there are so many inexplicable happenings both in the first and second books; flashy world building and faithfully morally grey characters will only get you so far. for instance, nick’s being the hero with this army and how all these myths surround his person exist has never been coherently explained. this is a seriously critical oversight and really needs to be amended by now (honestly should have been in the first book). the whole ‘monster’ nomenclature still strikes me as being pretty silly considering their powers have nothing to do with what we’d normally associate with monsters which is to say we’d be expecting some seriously toothy and hirsute people but i digress.

the power system in this series is insanely creative and i uninhibitedly love how it’s also a very inherently malevolent power and there’s no two ways about it. it makes for some seriously unscrupulous characters and moral dilemmas joan constantly finds herself facing in an otherwise middle grade rather than ya novel. the writing is very simple and at times juvenile so if not for the periodic f-bomb and moral grayness i would have marketed this as a middle grade work. even the romance reads this way which is a bit of a sorry situation as i think there’s a lot of angsty potential in that department which should be capitalized upon. the fact that nick and joan are forced into close proximity by being on the run works really well as i finally had some kind of emotional investment in them instead of merely viewing them as one of those insta-love fated soulmates cop-out which i still stand by wasn’t done properly as in something like daughter of smoke and bone. we barely touched on who nick actually was as a character in the first book which was a shame seeing how he is a complex iteration of the fabled hero role in stories. i also think if you’re going to continue protracting this love triangle you really need aaron to be present for more than 20% of the book as many people have pointed out in their reviews. thankfully, jamie and tom continue to mega-slay with their cuteness, picking up a lot of slack. the metaphoric significance behind joan being both half-human half-monster and also biracial adds a layer of sophistication to an otherwise fairly straightforward piece of fantasy craftsmanship. her struggle between identifying as one or the other speaks to the racial identity struggle many mixed race people have to contend with throughout their lives. all too often they feel as if they exist in this liminal space between where no one wants to claim them as their own for not being “enough” of either. this is tragically illumined when our band of morally questionable “good guys” travel back in the past and joan realizes how much undue attention she’s attracting simply for her appearance.

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conclusion:
so much potential, crazy exciting magic system, less confusion and more coherency than book one but we really need to be given more clear-cut telling at this juncture. there’s just too much convolution

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Great follow up to Only a Monster. Just as engaging & full of action, mystery and compelling characters. Bring on book 3!

Vanessa Len has done it again!

I loved Only A Monster when I read it last year, so I was really excited to dive back into the world that Len created. This book started shortly after the last book left off, with a crackling, propulsive pace that never slowed. I relished the additional character development in this book - being a sequel it felt like the author had more space to explore the characters' interactions more deeply, which I absolutely loved. The author's careful exploration into morality and the tough decisions Joan had to make really upped the stakes. And as much as I love Aaron Oliver, I really enjoyed seeing Joan and Nick's second (third?) chance relationship unfold.

Added to this is just how whip-smart this book is. There is a complex interweaving of different timelines and time periods that absolutely blew my mind. It was obvious a lot of research went into the crafting of this book!

Never a Hero had such incredible atmosphere and some scenes were downright creepy! I raced through this book and cannot wait for the finale.

Thank you to Allen & Unwin for providing an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I loved Only A Monster when I read it last year and was very excited to be granted an eARC of the sequel Never A Hero. I was nervous that it wouldn't be as good or suffer middle book syndrome but I found it just as enjoyable and mesmerising as book 1.

Joan finds herseld navagating a new timeline after the events of Only A Monster. All our main characters are back in this one (although you'll have to wait awhile for Aaron to properly turn up) and I love them all even in this new timeline. The main plot doesn't take long to get going and once again Joan is on the run and trying to figure things out as she goes. The pace never let's up but that doesn't mean there isn't a lot of emotion and depth going on at the same time.

I love that the author is very sutbly playing with a lot of YA tropes and expectations. The 'special girl' with powers like no other, well perhaps she isn't the one that's special. The 'not another love triangle' has hints of it going in a different, much more interesting, direction.

There isn't anything ground breaking or genre changing with this series but what Vanessa Len has done is put everything together in a very cohesive way and made it seem effortless. Everything she does is done perfectly. The world feels real, the characters feel real and the plot is always moving and engaging but never at the expense of our characters and their personal journeys. Events and trauma that happen to the characters stay with them even after things have been 'fixed'. The writing is accessible but can also evoke a lot of emotion at key moments.

The time travel/alternate dimensions lore is done really well and one of the best I've seen in terms of keeping things consistent and clear. It is always a danger to get muddle up in the complexity of time travel but I love the idea of the timeline always trying to correct itself.

If you liked Only A Monster then fear not Never A Hero is a fantastic follow up.

Thankyou Netgalley and Allen and Unwin for this review copy.