This book is an absolute wild ride of a read, and it was incredibly enjoyable throughout. It's definitely not for everyone - I'm not recommending it for family book group, for example. However, for people for whom, "lesbian shapeshifting blob disembowels and absorbs girlfriend's abusive family members...for love!" hits the sweet spot, it's an absolute slam dunk. Yeah, it's a little gory, but there's an amazing amount of tenderness and humanity that I found super relatable. It's also got a great message about how "monsters" might have more humanity than the humans, and that humans can be monsters too; the different is not in how you're perceived, but how you treat others. Honestly, a book that can give me goopy digestive juicy gore, a tender exploration of familial trauma, and the joy and confusion of falling in love all in one is absolutely a five star read for me. This is the kind of book that I wouldn't have expected to get published, but I'm thrilled that it did, and I hope it finds its way into the hands of other readers for whom it resonates like it did for me.

Ordinarily one wouldn’t use the words absolutely adorable to describe a book that discusses at length various bodily fluids, bones, and an Alien style hatching, but here we are. This book was probably the surprise of the year for me. I was intrigued by the description and then blown away by the execution. The novel follows Shesheshen, a blob of not really human flesh but with an appetite for it, grappling with human nature, family dynamics, and battling her own nature for the one she loves. I love originality in a book and this one certainly delivers, and there were several twists I certainly wasn’t expecting. Very much enjoyed, thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review.

What a fun and wild ride! Innovative monster idea and witty yet psychologically subtle story with almost more unexpected turns than the main character possesses stolen organs. Perfect for fans of smart and queer novels such as "Gideon the Ninth" "Legends & Lattes", "Empire of the Vampire". Will certainly recommend this new fantasy gem.

You all. This was flipping fantastic. 5 stars. I loved the absurdity of the premise and the book definitely delivers. It is hard being a hated monster who eats a murderous home invader one day just to meet and fall in love with his sister the next. Shesheshen needs to fool everyone into thinking she is a normal human so she can stay with Homily, the woman she loves. Meanwhile all the people around her are actively hunting the monster, aka Shesheshen, including herself. The plot is full of twists and turns that keep amping up the beautifully orchestrated chaos.

What I didn't expect from this horror/fantasy/rom-com was to feel seen and represented. Shesheshen's battle with her body's natural inclinations and her lack of enough social knowledge to fit in with humans reads as Autistic. Acting human is a literal performance for her in the way that neurodivergent folks mask their differences to fit in. The asexual representation took me by surprise. Rarely do I read about book couples fall in love without explicit or implied allosexuality. The request "Can we not kiss for a while?" as a way to spend time together as a couple really hit me in the feels. I really enjoyed that the author took the time after the chaos calmed down to show Shesheshen and Homily establishing their queer romantic happily ever after.

Wow. Wow. Wow.

I could not put this one down. Just as Shesheshen might devour a wayward human, I devoured this book in one sitting. The character growth and love that develops throughout this book are so, so good. I did not think I would ever say I enjoy “monster” romance, but I was rooting for Shesheshen the whole time, hoping she could find that someone to build a nest in and create offspring.

It’s part sapphic monster romance, part “hunt the monster” ala Frankenstein. Homily is such a great character too. She has dealt with so much emotional manipulation and trauma from her family, especially her mom and one of her siblings, and yet she is an incredibly strong character, who constantly fights against the damage that has been caused.

With strong female main characters, asexual representation, trauma and healing, shapeshifting, a cinnamon roll girlfriend, and so much royal intrigue and secrets, this is a must-read for 2024!

Thank you to DAW Books and NetGalley for the free ARC. All thoughts are my own.

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.

4,75-5⭐️

"Any gods, above or below, they were surely laughing at how badly love undone her."

As I'm searching for words appropriate to catch all my feeling that are flowing through me, I am also trying to imagine a way to talk about this story. Peculiar doesn't do it justice. John Wiswell liberated flesh from limitation of a physical body, freed monsters and defined them as new. They wrote about love in words that slips like hands under the skin, to go deeper and deeper. It redefines what it means to be a mother, a lover, a family. It unties bows that connect those things and shape them into new, strange, sometimes terrifying forms.

And gods above and below, I adored every second of it. Please read this book when it's officially published, I beg you

YIPPEE! Thank you NetGalley for an ARC!! ✨✨

This book is cozy fantasy to me. No I will not explain.
I first saw this book on the NetGalley page, and the title immediately caught my eye. I clicked in to read the synopsis, and I knew I had to get this ARC. The concept of a shapeshifting monster creature, with a chain for her spine and a bear trap of a mouth? Who must pretend to be human to find love?? Bitch, say no more. I sent my request and got to work, spending the next few weeks reading and reviewing the books on my shelf to get my ratio up in hopes of receiving it. Now that I have read it, I can safely say that this book has definitely met my expectations.

First of all, I loved Shesheshen so much. She makes a really engaging narrator, with her dry observations of human behaviour and her dark sense of humour. She brings the majority of the humour, from unintentionally saying something that comes off as funny, and her internal narrative.

I also found her super relatable, in the way she struggles to know the right thing to say, especially when she's trying to comfort Homily, and the sense of powerlessness that comes from knowing that there are no words that are enough.

I'm obsessed with how her shapeshifting ability works. By herself, she's a glob of meat slime, and she has to create body parts and limbs from other objects(including the bones and organs of the people she eats). I loved reading the parts where she assembles her body out of the different things, as well as the different ways she uses her ability to get out of situations.

I also loved Shesheshen and Homily's relationship so much!! The way they treat each other with such tenderness and care, and the way they accept and love each other as they are, the way each of their first experiences of kindness and acceptance comes from each other, the way they want the best for each other!!!

Something that I didn't see coming was how much of the book would be spent dealing with Homily's abusive family. I wasn't expecting that to be such a significant part of the plot, but as the story progressed, it became clear how family, and learning to break out of familial traditions and is an important theme.

Overall, I loved this story a lot, it was very funny and fun to read, and some parts were angsty and sad, and also poignant and touching <333

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.

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.

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.

This is a cute horror book, which I know can be seen as opposite but it really is. I love the sapphic relationship woven throughout, and how the main character is able to be gentle with the trauma her girlfriend has lived through. There is a lot of gentleness from the main "monster" character. It took me a while to get through this book, because the switch between cozy sapphic romance to horror genre meant I wasn't always in the mood. But, overall, I think this book was genre breaking and so unique. I am 100% buying a physical copy as a trophy for my bookshelf.

Thank you Netgalley and DAW for the ARC!

Wow. This book. I was planning to include some quotes that I found beautiful, but unfortunately, it would seem that my kindle didn't save any of my annotations. Oh noooo, now I have to buy a physical copy and re-read it and find all the beautiful quotes again...

If that doesn't tell you how I feel about this book, I don't know what will. I LOVED this book. It is so hard to describe what the vibe of this book is accurately because there are a lot of really important elements to the book. I feel like some useful buzzwords for this book would be sapphic monster romance, cozy quest fantasy, and intense body horror? This book is such a strange and LOVELY combination of genres. Definitely check Trigger Warnings though because while this has a lot of elements that fall outside of horror, there are some very effective depictions of some horrific kills and fights, as well as parental abuse.

Shesheshin (our main character) is a female blob monster that eats people and falls in love with a woman named Homily that saved her when people tried to murder her. Shesheshin decides because Homily was so good at caring for her when she was so vulnerable, Homily would be an incredible person to be a parent for her eggs. That she wants to lay in Homily's lungs. Yeah. Gross. Anyway, John Wiswell constructs such a beautiful and believable romance between these two women it's shocking. I have no idea how a man was able to write such a successful and realistic sapphic romance and also included incredible asexual representation. So much more happens in this story, but there's no way I could write more about it without spoiling.

In all seriousness, please pick up this book if this sounds like something that you would like. Even if it just sounds weird, please give this a chance.

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.

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!