J. M. Miro

I can credit this book with helping me discover that I have a soft spot in my heart for a late-Victorian lady bounty hunter.

Ordinary Monsters is a very well written novel with highly memorable characters. Ms. Quicke and Mrs. Harrogate will certainly stay with me for a long time. (I hear this book is one in a trilogy, and I eagerly await the release of the next one).

I was pleasantly surprised by the twists that this novel placed on some existing tropes (eg. Magic school, children with special abilities, crossing into another world). While this novel did feature many stock characters and tropes in the beginning, they quickly morphed into their own shoes and did not disappoint.

Besides the excellent writing style of the author, the thing I most enjoyed about this book was the shades of moral ambiguity that it dealt in. Most of the characters have good and bad sides, good and bad characteristics, and most notably the plot shares these features. Till the chapter I was trying to figure out the motives of some of the characters, and that was wonderful. That being said, the last scene was a bit gut wrenching, and made me rather sad.

The main issue I had with this book was, that although the characters were well written, and had great potential, I never got to know any of them intimately. Ms. Alice Quicke was probably the best character in the book. At nearly 700 pages, I feel like the book could have given a bit more intimate insights into the characters. At the end of the day, I was still very attached to them, so this is a minor point.

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I did this on audio (on Libby), with no encouragement other than the summary blurb sounded interesting. So glad I did. I really loved the plot, I loved the talents, I loved how creepy the bad guys were.

I didn't love the length, there was a bunch of repetition (same scene but expanded upon later) that could have been dropped out. Still totally worth it, will definitely be reading more from Miro. And also, when is the movie coming out? This would be so amazing as a series or a movie!

The narrator's voice was one of the lowest I've heard, but I loved it. Though some of the higher, scratchier voices made it impossible to understand sometimes.… (more)

I feel like JM Miro had a bunch of disparate scenes and characters in his head, and stitched them all together onto a patchwork quilt. The result is a plot in need of tightening. The tone and atmosphere are great, the characters are even better, the fight scenes are exciting, and the creepy sections are foreboding, but the actual storytelling is an absolute mess. It makes it hard to describe this book. At its heart, the story is about a home for magical children, but it takes approximately three hundred pages for characters to even get there. It might be better to describe it as a gothic superhero book. There are also various monsters and magics that pop in and out of relevance just for the vibes. Then again, I have fallen in love with those vibes, so maybe this book is actually fantastic. Maybe the author accomplished exactly what he set out to do: Write a story that centers neither the plot nor the loveable characters, but is solely driven by the atmosphere.… (more)