This was the first finalist I read for the Hugo Award for Best Novel. It's a fantasy novel about a monster who lives in the woods in a fantasy kingdom, and a family comes to kill it to rid itself of a curse. The monster kills people (and other animals) to keep itself alive, absorbing body parts it needs into itself. Only the novel is told from the perspective of the monster, who finds herself falling in love with one of the members of the family that comes to kill it!
Someone you can Build a Nest in by John Wiswell |
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Published: 2024 Acquired and read: April 2025 |
Obviously this worked for a lot of people, or it wouldn't be a Hugo finalist. It didn't work for me. I can even imagine that it could work for me, it's a fun premise that could also be a disturbing one. I haven't seen other people online make this comparison, but I very much got Legends & Lattes vibes off the whole thing: despite the grossness of some of the material here, it ultimately feels rather anodyne and twee. Does this count as "cozy fantasy"?
Unfortunately, it probably does. The two characters fall in love, congrats, that's it. Why do they do this? I dunno, I guess they're nice? I found most of the characters one-note, and the worldbuilding shallow. I think fundamentally the premise is a good one, but having come up with it, it seemed like Wiswell was done; I think a good premise is a jumping-off point for complexity but this book takes its premise as an end point. What's the point of horror tropes if there's never a sense of real danger or jeopardy?
I will say that the book did manage to wrongfoot me with how the prophecy was resolved; that was mildly clever. Indeed, "mildly clever" might be the damning cover blurb for this novel. It might work for you, whoever you are, but it certainly didn't for me.
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