Someone You Can Build a Nest In

I figured out a prophecy in the first half of the book that convinced me I knew where it was headed, and that I would read a straightforward romance with stylised characters and a splash of exploration of what it means to be monstrous. The book delivered on its promises, but by a completely different route than I expected. Its main strength was the characters, whose actions all made sense with who they are. For me its main weakness was the language. Not badly written by any means, but I have a personal taste for more poetry. I also found the latter-middle section had a lull where the characters tried to achieve the same goal in a lot of ways. This book's most interesting feature is its refusal to shy away from the macabre and grotesque even as we explore the romance of the main character.

I really enjoyed this book. I expected that going in, given how much I enjoyed John Wiswell's short story Open House on Haunted Hill.

Shesheshen is a shapeshifting monster, more an amorphous carnivorous blob, who gets woken up from their hibernation by a group of monster hunters. Shesheshen repels them then sneaks into town to find the town celebrating the killing of the monster. Shesheshen is revealed, then driven off a cliff. Shesheshen is saved by a woman named Homily, whose caring nature causes Shesheshen to begin falling for her. Turns out that Homily is from a family of monster hunters here to kill the monster to end a curse on her family.

The book has a really big theme around the people we choose to be with and those connections as they relate to the families we are a part of by random happenstance of birth. Shesheshen and Homily both support one another through growth and change over the course of the book. I really like the way that Shesheshen's nature of selfishness and independence to the point of isolation is balanced and countered by Homily's nature of giving of herself to the point of allowing the giving to harm her and how each brings the other closer to their own nature by the end of the story.

Overall, this was really good, especially for a debut novel. I really liked it, really liked what Wiswell did with monster tropes and romance tropes to make something new, and I look forward to the next work Wiswell puts out.

This book was fantastic. The setup is that shapeshifting, people-eating, amorphous blob Shesheshen is rescued by overly kind Homily, believing Shesheshen to be a person. Ironically, Homily comes from a monstrously toxic family of wyrm hunters, who are all out to kill Shesheshen specifically, while not realizing that Shesheshen is said monster. (Hijinks ensue.)

It's a story that deals with passing and masking--Shesheshen works really hard at trying to be a person, physically and socially assembled from what she can scavenge. She's got a wry non-human perspective that's especially biology-focused, like how to form legs and have a humanish shape, the tricky mechanics of eating with your mouth closed, and the overwhelmingness of smells and noises.

This book also deals with physically and emotionally abusive family, and how hard it is to struggle through trauma, no matter how much you are being hurt. Also, as you might expect, this book is also about family and royalty being the true monsters.

Normally, I am not keen on stories where a good bit of relationship tension comes from an intentional deception leading up to an eventual awkward reveal. Even if you ignore the self-protective reasons here, I think the setup in this book works partially for comedy reasons, as Shesheshen considers devouring Homily at the outset, but as she gets more entangled in Homily's family life, it also works as a deception told for protective reasons. It narratively worked for me enough to not be feeling "just tell her already!" throughout the book. The fact that there are a number of worse deceptions elsewhere also makes this feel more minor than you'd imagine it could be.

I devoured (pun not intended) the whole book in one day. Strong recommend from me.