Review Detail

I think that after the truly exhausting and grueling experience I had with The Ask and the Answer, I needed something different. And I got that, for which I am very grateful. Monsters of Men is just as intense and thrilling as the two books that came before, but it’s not as dark. This is the light at the end of a very, very long tunnel, and it’s a welcome relief.

Oddly enough, Monsters of Men is the one book where there’s actually a war going on. The “humans” are fighting with the indigenous aliens (oxymoron, I know). For the first time, Ness gave his readers a full-on battle scene—about 500 pages of battle scenes, for that matter. And it worked well, though I was honestly surprised that the author didn’t go into nearly the same amount of gruesome, graphic detail that he did in The Ask and the Answer.

The end—basically the final chapter—gets a lot of attention from readers who unanimously loved it. I…did not. Ness employed one of my all-time least favorite tropes, and I was rolling my eyes big time. But it’s still a good ending, and I will never say otherwise. I would have liked something different, though. (I actually had my ideal scenario all plotted out, but then it didn’t happen and I was peeved.)