Review: Broken Monsters

Author: Lauren Beukes

Started reading: February 3rd 2022

Finished the book: March 26th 2022

Pages: 441

Genres: Horror, Crime, Mystery

Published: June 16th 2015

Source: Received the book as a gift

Goodreads score: 3.61

My score:

Synopsis

Detective Gabi Versado has hunted down many monsters during her eight years in Homicide. She’s seen stupidity, corruption and just plain badness. But she’s never seen anything like this. Clayton Broom is a failed artist, and a broken man. Life destroyed his plans, so he’s found new dreams – of flesh and bone made disturbingly, beautifully real. Detroit is the decaying corpse of the American Dream. Motor-city. Murder-city. And home to a killer opening doors into the dark heart of humanity.
A killer who wants to make you whole again…

My thoughts

Thanks to Arjen for reading this book with me. I received this book as a gift a while ago, and was curious about it, so I chose it as our buddyread book! I have very mixed feelings about this book, I was sure I was going to give it 2 stars, then 4 stars, but overall I gave it 3 stars. The ending was completely bonkers and I did not like it.

Pros

• Unique murder cases: The unique murder cases is what really made the book special for me. It's not your regular murdered people, it's really gruesome and gory. People get killed and are turned into some weird art project. That was really something else for me!
• POVS: The different POVS were fun to read for me, I think I would have DNF-ed it if it was just 1 POV, because I was not especially intrigued by one of the main characters. The diversity and variation is what kept it interesting for me in this book.
• Side stories: The side stories were maybe even more interesting to me than the main story. I loved Layla and her story. The things she goes through with her friends and at school were the most fun for me.

Cons

• Writing style: I'm not sure if it's the Dutch translation or the writing style overall, but it did not grab me for some 300 pages. I had a HARD time getting into this. I felt like there were a lot of words that had no meaning and were just thrown in there for it to look quirky or special.
• Ending: This book just went completely batshit bonkers at the ending and I was so disappointed by it. I love true crime novels and this turned into some weird paranormal/sci-fi something. I don't know. I was sure I was going to give it 4 stars, because it all comes brilliantly together, but then it turned into something else. Maybe there are people who LOVE endings like this, but not me.

Overall

The side stories and the true crime aspect were something that really drew me in for this book. Sadly the writing style and the ending took away too much. Overall I will give this book 3 stars, which isn't that bad. I'm sure that people who love gruesome murder cases and a bit of paranormal thrown in will have a good time with this book!

Other opinions on this book

"Scary as hell and hypnotic. I couldn't put it down. I'd grab it if I were you."

- Stephen King

"Exquisitely paced and impeccably controlled. An enormously satisfying novel that employs the best attributes of multiple genres to dramatize big ideas about art, the Internet and urban decay."

- New York Times Book Review

Thanks for reading!

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