Make Me a Monster

MAKE ME A MONSTER is a contemporary book with horror and fantasy elements. Meka is a mortician’s assistant at her parents’ funeral home and, even though it’s considered strange by others, she enjoys the work. When her boyfriend, Noah, suddenly dies she has to face her grief and bizarre occurrences that begin to happen.

What I Loved:
The relationships in Bayron’s books are always a lot of fun to read about. Familial, platonic, or romantic, Bayron manages to craft detailed and emotionally rich bonds between her characters. This book was no different. Her love for her boyfriend, the love between her family. They feel deep and realistic, like a relationship that the readers may recognize in their own life.

Meka’s involvement in her family’s funeral business as well as the death of her boyfriend leads to interesting conversations and realizations around death. Meka, who thought she understood death, has to confront that there might be more to it than what she’s seen in her work.

The details of mortician work, even if not explicitly shown a lot, was a really interesting tidbit. I don’t know how accurate they are, but they allow readers to feel more involved in the story. The little details that allow the story to feel rich and deep.

Bayron’s writing style suits horror really well. The fear that Meka is feeling, the sense of unease, is passed along to the reader. The settings and odd occurrences are creepy. There is a build-up that adds to the tension and pushes readers to the edge of their seats. They want to read more, but there is a sense of unease about what might happen on the next page.

Final Verdict:
An eerie retelling of Frankenstein set in the contemporary day MAKE ME A MONSTER is chilling in all the right ways. With deep bonds and a likeable main character, Bayron manages to craft an eerie retelling while adding twists to the story to make it unique. It still keeps some of the original themes, but it is also a story uniquely its own.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is one of my favorite horror classics, so I was intrigued to see how Bayron would tackle the famous creature in this novel. Make Me a Monster is a spooky and thrilling read from start to finish. It keeps the readers on their toes through each chapter, and just when you think you've figured out the answers to the mystery, you're thrown in a new direction. The unsuspected surprises made this a very entertaining reading experience.

I think the setting of the story alone and having the main character, Meka, who is a mortuary assistant at her family's funeral home, makes this an eerie read. It's great for the spooky season or the cooler months, where readers are seeking out thrillers to add to the ambiance. While haunting with its descriptions of death and things that go bump in the night it is also a story grounded in reality.

One of the major themes of the novel is grief and dealing with death as a part of life. Through tragedy and revelations later uncovered in the novel, Meka has to come to terms with her mortality (and her work). The story though supernatural in nature, is also a commentary on how time is not promised and that grieving is not a linear process. Meka grows over the course of the journey because of her healing process and I think readers will be able to relate to this part of the story.

This is a great read for the Halloween season that is ode to classic horror that readers will enjoy!