Broken Monsters (Reading Group Guide)

Broken Monsters is making me reconsider genre novels. This was equal parts urban politics, tabloid drama and supernatural thriller woven together. Very satisfying read, especially as a new resident of Metro Detroit.

Because of grad school, I haven't been reading much fiction lately. And I"m a huge fiction fan. Anyway, this is the first book I read after graduating and my only regret is reading it so fast. I finished it in two nights and didn't get enough sleep. I'm not one for getting into details on reviews of books or other forms of entertainment, but I thought the characters were so well drawn and the themes felt very relatable. I highly recommend this book. I have moved on to reading other books by her at the local library. I love this book!

Good book from Beukes but there are too many viewpoint characters which makes it a mixes bag for me. The detective and her daughter are solid but the other chsracters are forgettable. Still I like this author but do wish she would get back to setting her books in South Africa instead of the US.

The author drove fingers and pencils into my nightmares and brought them to paper for all to read. She knows how to start on the sunny side of the street and coax you across into a Dar alley where the boogeyman waits.

Has a beginning and an end, not much substance in between. I bought it because, being from Detroit, I thought it might have some interesting sites and commentary (like Elmore Leonard or Jeffrey Eugenides). Sadly the author may have been in the city once or not at all. Throw in a couple of sites, it could just as easily been set in North Dakota.

Netflix or Rocky streaming device, thoroughly ruined this movie for mr. it would show approximately 45 seconds of the movie and then three minutes of the fella blinds from the store it went back and forth every three minutes we gave up after the 10th

South African writer Lauren Beukes had a hit with last year’s The Shining Girls, the story of a serial killer who could travel through time. Readers of both time travel novels and serial killer thrillers loved the way Beukes melded the two genres. Beukes has again given us a genre-bender with Broken Monsters. Both a horror novel and a police procedural, Broken Monsters is even better than The Shining Girls.

Broken Monsters is set in Detroit — today’s Detroit, bankrupt yet defiant, down on its luck but searching luck out wherever it can be found. The arts community seems to be especially thriving in this down-at-the-heels city, and it is a desire to make art that is the foundation of all the problems that are visited upon the victims of an especially perverse serial killer. The first body found isn’t even a complete body; it’s the top half of a ten-year-old child glued to the bottom half of a deer, as if the perpetrator expected the boy to dance away like a faun. Gabriella Versado — Gabi — is the homicide detective assigned to the case, working with a rookie uniformed officer, Marcus Jones, who can’t handle the stench of severed intestines of two different species. Gabi is intent on containing the story, but the whole city soon knows that a child has been killed, and it is up in arms over the seeming inability of the police to solve the crime.

Gabi’s life is complicated by her 15-year-old daughter, Layla, one of the most vibrant characters in the book. Layla isn’t happy that her parents and divorced and that her father has a brand new family thousands of miles away in Georgia. She always had a parent at home when her folks were married, because they worked different shifts, but now she seems to never hear from her father and never see her mother. She hangs with her best friend — basically her only friend — Cassandra Holt, known as Cas, who is white to Layla’s Hispanic and African-American mix, which doesn’t make the slightest difference to the two of them. Both are involved in theater, but it’s not the only thing they get into; with Cas as the leader, they tease boys on sex sites on the internet, and even decide to bait a pedophile by pretending to be even younger than they are. They are in way over their heads, and they don’t know it. Beukes makes them so real that the book lights up even more brightly when either of them is on the page.

Not that the other characters are mere sketches; quite the contrary. TK — Thomas Keen — is a homeless man who hustles for what he needs to keep body and soul together. He does his best to be polite to everyone, even those who scream at him for various offenses, like waiting on the curb as an evicted family packs to leave, hoping to find something left behind that he can sell. His friend Ramón is his dogsbody, the guy he looks out for and winds up giving the best stuff to. Both are recovering alcoholics, down on their luck but determined to climb back up to middle class life — or at least to stay alive for another day, another week, another month.

Jonno Haim is a failed writer who has moved to Detroit from New York, hoping to start fresh. A hipster who doesn’t know he’s a hipster, he makes his living off other hipsters, mocking them with the listicles he composes for different internet websites. He’s hooked up with Jen Q, for whom he falls fast and hard, and together they’re working on a YouTube channel about the murders Gabriella is working on.

Then there’s Clayton Broom, an artist who has worked in different media for years — paint, welding, clay, whatever he can use to make the visions in his head. And there’s the thing that comes to inhabit his body, using his limbs to create its own sort of art.

Beukes skillfully weaves the individual stories of these characters into a whole that is greater than the sum of all its fascinating parts. She guides us through high school, the Detroit art scene, the daily life of the homeless, and the process, politics and procedures of the police who are trying to catch a serial killer before he can strike again. All of the subplots come together beautifully; everything adds color, nothing is extraneous. Even though the reader knows who the serial killer is throughout the novel — or at least, whose human body the killer occupies — Beukes creates tension that keeps the reader reading on long after midnight. The culmination of the plot at an abandoned auto parts factory is hair-raising.

Broken Monsters is one of the best books of the year. I can’t wait to see what Beukes does next.

Originally published at Fantasy Liteature. 4.5 stars rounded up to 5.

Our book club read Broken Monsters for our 2017 Halloween/October book club. It was our 53rd book and seven female members attended (ages 31 to 41), all having read the book in its entirety. There are many reviews here that summarize this book, so I will keep this review simply to an examination of this book as a book club selection specifically. We rate books on quality, readability, and likeability, as well as the discussion the book prompts (and fun things like games/themes).

Most of the discussion on this book was trying to make sense of the plot, to find patterns, to explain phenomena, or to find a deeper meaning in the plot. The questions ran out of steam quickly at each inclusion. Some of the better topics included references to other books within this book (Island of Dr. Moreau, several Shakespeare plays, Neil Gaiman…) and how they may have inspired the plot. There were several subplots that may have expounded discussion, but they were lightly grazed topics within the storyline.

Overall feedback: The pacing of the plot felt uneven, with a strongly written “procedural” storyline supported by a less successful paranormal element. The author was very effective in engaging us when the detectives were on the scene, when the crime scenes were being viewed, inside the police station, and in moments we got to read the detective’s interviews. These portions of the novel were very clean, succinct, and absorbing.

Everyone enjoyed the main characters (pretty much every detective was likable and engrossing) and that was a big win. The characters that are meant to be likeable are. There are many characters within the story, and the author did a decent job at giving each character its own and strong persona for the most part. But the supernatural elements of the novel weren’t as pleasing. The book was advertised as a genre-bending novel, and we weren’t sure it was hugely successful in this way. We all liked the book and felt it had strong potential, but it was unevenly paced and the supernatural elements weren’t explained to any level of satisfaction. There were lots of moments in the story when things happen that seem like they may lead to something later, but the plot point isn’t revisited, or it’s seemingly forgotten (this was most of our discussion–comparing notes on plot points). There was a lack of proper and consistent build up leading to the climax and, when we got there, it felt rushed.

The grammar/word choice was very good (we only caught one probable typo). And this book rated high as far as readability. Almost everyone felt it was fast-paced, a page-turner, and was not overly difficult to understand. I usually include trigger warnings for book clubs, but this one is probably obvious (the descriptions will include it all – you should expect some gruesome stuff). It wasn’t as violent as we imagined, though there were several creepy portions. As a Halloween selection, it was fairly appropriate. (Previous successful Halloween selections included The Ritual by Adam Nevill, Joyland by Stephen King, and A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay – these were all highly-rated excellent Halloween reads for a book club.)

On a separate note, almost all members commented on the cover of the book being inaccurate (the hardback version with red spray paint over the girl). We even found some articles online about the cover art. Long story short, the cover art is supposed to be compelling… but it is a misrepresentation of what’s inside.

Overall: This book rated almost exactly above average coming in as a 6/10 (and placing at about 31 out of 54 books). As a Halloween selection, this was somewhat spooky and that was pleasing. As a regular book club selection, I'm not sure this one would help enough weight as far as discussion.

An exceptional cross between a Horror story, and a crime thriller-set in the decaying city of Detroit, Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes is a huge story constructed from many smaller ones.The spotlight is on Detective Gabriella (Gabi) Versado, a salty divorced single mother who is working around the clock to solve the gruesome murder of an 11-year-old boy. What sets this case apart from the usual cases, is that this child was cut in half and his torso was fused with the lower portion of a deer.

The little stories include Gabi’s daughter Layla, a typical teenager from a broken home who traverses the usual teen drama, such as trying to fit in with the cool crowd, meeting boys, and doing well in school. She also adds extracurricular activities such as shaming online pedophiles at gunpoint with her mysterious friend Cas. There are little story lines involving characters from a church homeless shelter, a community of artists, and a video-journalist named Jonno who struggles to make his name at all costs. All of these characters are either impacted, or involved with the crazed serial killer who happens to be a tortured artist possessed by an entity that turns dreams into 3D reality with alarming results.

The manner in which the murders take place are chilling, and altogether different from the usual fare, with an ending that is both action-packed and thought-provoking. What I most liked about this book is the attention spent on the problems within a city that is falling apart; issues of race, class, police ineptitude and lack of services are all brought to the forefront of the story. Also of interest is the author’s treatment of the modern conundrum of the internet and instant video streaming, which plays a major role in both the causes of many of the murders, as well as the end results.

I would love to see Broken Monsters turned into a film, because if produced correctly, it has the potential to be a blockbuster. I can see Michelle Rodriguez as Gabi Versado. This was a multi-faceted story with enough weight (448 pages) to build up a good level of suspense and an ample plot. Highly recommended for readers of Horror, crime fiction and thrillers.

Good horror novels are hard to find because sustaining a strong level of horrific suspense is difficult to maintain. Those few authors who've become synonymous with horror have done so by finding the key holding the reader's attention while delivering a strong, horrific story.

In <em>Broken Monsters</em>, Lauren Beukes shows that she's one of the newer authors that we need to pay attention to because she's got a tremendous sense of rhythm with her words and characters, but she's not quite there yet with her story development.

Beukes captures our attention right from the start when a body is found that is disturbing (even to Detroit detectives) because a young boy's torso has been fused with the carcass of a deer. More bodies are found that rival the deer boy and the local detectives are in a race to find the sick killer and keep the news of these twisted murders from terrifying the public. To complicate matters, the lead detective's daughter takes on crime fighting without her mother's knowledge and puts herself in tremendous danger, and a local journalist trying to track down the killer on his own.

The characters that Beukes creates are wonderful. Everyone is a living, breathing soul and she gives them desires and flaws that are recognizable in each of us. Beukes has a keen sense of bringing humanity to her characters on paper and it is this that keeps us reading.

But the plot dissolves for this reader. Once caught by that opening chapter, I wanted to get in and follow the good detective Gabriella Versado and find the sick killer and learn why the murders were happening in the way that they were. But in trying to create a novel from the story, Beukes adds subplots that do more to distract than actually add horror. We fade from a horror/thriller to a supernatural/horror and back again.

But we also get the sense that the 'broken monsters' aren't just the dead being combined with animals, but all of the characters in this world, including our protagonists. This suggests that Beukes is bringing a lot more literary power to a horror story than one typically finds, which is delightful, but it might also complicate a thriller unnecessarily.

We almost get the feeling that the author wasn't quite sure what story she wanted to tell and kept changing her mind along the way and because of this the literary ride gets bumpy.

I can see that I am going to really enjoy reading more Lauren Beukes. There is a lot of potential with <em>Broken Monsters</em> and combined with her collection, <em>Slipping</em> (which I've reviewed <a href="http://lookingforagoodbook.com/2017/01/10/slipping-lauren-beukes/" target="_blank">here</a>), I can tell that I'm really going to enjoy her works as she grows.

Looking for a good book? <em>Broken Monsters</em> is a dark, sometimes supernatural thriller by Lauren Beukes that may have you on the edge of your seat at times, but gets a little too involved in sub-plots to make it consistently thrilling.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 stars. Another fantastic book by Beukes. Wonderful mix of detective thriller, commentary on modern life and social media, keen observation of the impact of the economic downturn on a once-great city, exploration of the artistic process and mental health, with a final touch of the supernatural. The book is grounded by multiple narrative voices: a detective who struggles to balance work and single motherhood; her daughter who is navigating teenage life where social media has the power to consume and obliterate; an artist struggling with his work and sanity; a homeless man finding a way to survive in Detroit despite a fraught past; and a hipster-blogger-wannabe who is awash in pretension and an unattractive desire of recognition. Beukes manages some impressive character depth and sharp, believable dialog. She also depicts a struggling Detroit, weaving in realistic details and actual headlines to underscore plot points examining social media and how it drives daily life, for better or worse. In many ways, the book feels akin to a Stephen King in the best way -- no throwaway characters, no sloppy lines, no shortcuts in depicting the setting, and supernatural elements that accent rather than overwhelm the story. Highly recommended.

Technically, Broken Monsters is a “horror” or “suspense” novel, but to call it that is to diminish the power of this wildly ambitious, fascinating and thoroughly creepy book.
Someone is killing people and doing horrible things to their bodies. (It’s almost impossible for a writer today to come up with an original MO for a serial killer, but this one cuts a boy in half and glues his torso to the hindquarters of a deer. Beukes pulls it off in a way that feels utterly unique without being gimmicky.)
As we get pulled into the investigation, we also spend time with an interesting and complex group of characters from an aging, sleazy journalist who’s come to Detroit hoping for one last shot at fame to a teenager dispensing vigilante justice to pedophiles online. It’s all great, but even the very compelling cast wasn’t my favorite thing about this weird and brilliant book.
Broken Monsters is a novel of right now. It’s about post-bankruptcy Detroit and our relationships with technology. It looks at art, poverty, magic, race and power. And it beautifully explores how different people handle pain and loss and how it’s our reaction to hurt, rather then the hurt itself, that defines us. This is an excellent book.

While the characters are well drawn and the writing is at times outrageously good, the book suffers from a case of being undefined. It jumps around to different characters that you really have to pay close attention to to even figure out who they are. I wasn't completely sure who was who until way too far into the book. I was also not particularly invested in them, nor was I scared or fascinated by the horror element, which was vague to the point of being well nigh nonsensical. It moved quickly at the end, where it should (so many writers bog down with the minutiae of endless description near the end, thereby effectively killing the pace right when it needs to race), but I was not moved much by the story. At the end, the supernatural element was almost completely undefined, and thereby ineffective, and the characters just went along their merry way in a strange modern malaise of uncaring. I usually wait a couple weeks before reviewing to see if something sticks with me, but I know this one won't. I finished it last night and I can barely remember what happened. I started and finished three other books (not leaving them) while reading this one. That tells me all I need to know. I'm being generous with three stars. Beukes has immense talent, but this book is a mishmash of confusing and ineffective parts that do not make a very cohesive whole. It keeps you at arm's length. It is cold and the emotion is scarcely felt. Hmmm... did I say the characters were well drawn? Maybe I should take that back. When characters are well drawn, you usually care about them and the emotion hits home. Maybe Beukes doesn't know how to write emotion. Two and a half stars.

This book started off typically. A generic police procedural with a bit more emphasis on a cast of mismatched clichéd characters. Overworked single mom, dad left to start a new family, geeky girl who just doesn't fit in, hot friend everyone wants to be, etc. A true cardboard cutout army of characters. To the author's credit of the characters did stand out to me throughout the entire book. The realistically troubled but patient and compassionate TK. I later read that this character, including his background, was based off of a real person, which probably explains why he rang true against the host of cardboard characters.

The author also leaves many characters entirely un-described. While she seems almost compulsive to point out the race of the characters in the book, that is the only detail we get within a great deal of her writing. The setting was another aspect that seemed to be only described on the surface. Lots of talk of Detroit's ruins, abandoned plants and houses and... that's it. It seemed to be the absolute bare minimum she could have done to insert the story into Detroit. Yes, Detroit has miles of abandoned buildings, but everyone knows that. Is that honestly the only thing there is to write about? There was nothing in the author's writing that otherwise ground this story to the setting.
In all honestly this novel could have been set anywhere with the same success. In fact, I would say if the (South African) author had followed that first tenant of writing "Write what you know" this story could have been more successful. Why not set it in a city and culture she was more familiar with? Johannesburg or Pretoria could have contained this story nicely.

There are a few more issues I could discuss, but really the only one which would full-on stop me from recommending this book (if you found it on the sale table) came with the ending. Previous to the climax this was a pretty predictable procedural. And there's nothing wrong with that, they can be perfectly enjoyable. However, at that point the novel became a science fiction story. No lead-up, no foreshadowing, zero indication prior to that point that this would devolve into some absurd magical tale. While the crimes themselves were fantastical, they were based in the reality of a troubled mind, not magic. It's difficult to explain without spoiling, and I don't want to do that for those who may pick this up. But it's safe to say I really don't recommend this one. Such a wholly unsatisfying conclusion after 400+ pages.

Lauren Beukes's Broken Monsters is a bespoke rethinking of the serial killer thriller. Subversively, Beukes opens with a boilerplate scene: the seen-it-all cop arrives at the murder site. There's a body. Murder investigation starts. It's all very procedural. But then it gets weird: the body isn't just a body but a fusion of bodies: a child's torso has been glued to the furred legs of a fawn. It's a gag-inducing, gruesome discovery. It's also a perverse mythological image, a kind of devastated woodland creature, a broken-down Pan without his flute.

And it only gets better. Beukes gives us modern day Detroit in all its decaying glory through the eyes of several well-drawn viewpoint characters: a down-and-out journalist tracking an art story, hungry for a scoop; a pair of teens who play bully-vigilante and hatch a catfish scheme, entrapping creeps online; a group of homeless people who scavenge and live in the dilapidated abandoned houses and buildings strewn everywhere in the city; and the tough cop, Gabi, with a heart of gold.

A dark, malignant vein through this cast is the serial killer, the one who bisected the kid. He sees himself as an artist and listens to a kind of inner voice or consciousness he refers to as "the dream." Strangely enough the dream is very socially conscious. It's filled with righteous anger. It has nothing but contempt for the raging consumerism it sees as the city's blight. Forget the pretensions of all the art galleries in the city, it tells the artist. It has more noble intentions, a gnawing need to "reassemble the broken pieces."

Detroit is an iconic setting for this sort of story. With such a backdrop, Beukes goes big with her dark themes. Her characters are vivid and luminous in their personal anguish, and at times I thought their personal demons were actually where the true horror of this story lies.

The strongest role in the book belongs to that of Gabi's daughter, Layla. Beukes does teen snark and insecurity uncannily well. I found myself the most engrossed when seeing the mom and daughter together, and their relationship is filled with moments of sweetness and hilarity.

The least interesting character for me turned out to be the serial killer himself. He inhabits a weird space, something very much like the boy-fawn he created, a sense of reality pulled from different worlds. He himself is pulled between states of alertness and his dream. Reading him, I was never quite sure if the man was channeling some serious supernatural dark forces or if it was all just man-made madness. Something in the killer is trying to claw its way out. Each work he renders is shredding of the real. This is where the book veers into mystical, primordial territory.

Reading this I was worried that Detroit itself would come off as caricature but it doesn't. Far from it. Detroit is rendered without sentimentality and exaggeration. With her South African roots, Beukes may be far removed from this American city, but she recreates it well, with journalistic fervor in some spots, mainly through the characters' experience of the city—characters who also share a bit of the rusty patina of the city.

Also, snark. This book is chock full of sarcastic zingers. If you enjoy your characters tough and hard-eyed, then Broken Monsters delivers. You'll be saying "ouch" and wincing a lot as you read. There are also smart cultural references to today's internet culture: Reddit AMAs, Buzzfeed, texting, catfishing, Facebook, YouTube, and so on. Beukes doesn't sprinkle these elements to seem cool and contemporary but actually uses these modes of communication to explore how identity is formed.

Is this book scary? What is fear but a manipulation of our expectations, heightened anticipation. As I read, I didn't really have that sensation, though. What I did experience was something more quietly unsettling. Sure there are a few nail-biting moments centered around Layla, as she circles ever closer to the killer (will the killer be drawn to her?). But otherwise, the gritty social satire threaded throughout the book elbows out the horror for me.

Ultimately, the narrative drive in Broken Monsters isn't about finding out who is doing the deranged killings—we're introduced to the serial killer early on—but why. Beukes explores the psychological basis for this depravity through the cracks of society.

I’m still struggling to review Broken Monsters and it’s been a few days since I finished it. In truth, the book isn’t bad, and if it were up to writing style alone, it deserved more than three stars. Lauren Beukes is an excellent writer, and knows her craft.

However, books are about more than writing style. There’s also plot, and that’s where the book drops the mark. In theory, the plot is great. A murderer connects the upper half of a boy to the lower part of a deer, and that’s only the first murder he commits. The murders grow increasingly more strange, and one of our main charcter, Gabriella Versado, a detective with the Detroit police department, has to solve the case. In theory, it sounds good. There’s also a connection with the art community, and the city of Detroit is described in great detail, giving the book more credibility and causing a better writing experience.

Then the book warps from a murder mystery into a paranormal thriller, with the mention of doors serving as gateways. Now I’m the first person to admit I love police procedurals that morph into paranormal thrillers, but here it just totally unraveled the plot. No longer were we hunting for the killer, we were trapped in a paranormal nightmare that read more like a bad acid trip. Instead of enhancing the plot, the paranormal aspect weakened it, and the murders suddenly lost most of their importance.

Then there’s the characters. Gabriella is all right. She’s your stereotypical struggling working mom who also happens to be a detective, divorced and unable to have a healthy love relationship with anyone except her daughter. Said daughter, Layla, a teenager, gets a POV too and turns out to be a major part of the plot. Next up is TK, a homeless man who we don’t really learn all that much about, and Jonno a struggling author turned film maker who is a despicable human being and does everything to become famous, even if it means not giving vital evidence to the police. Each of those characters also seemed to have a subplot going on, and that took a lot of the focus away from the main plot. I don’t mind a few subplots, but we just got too much of those here. The many characters made it hard to connect to one. I could connect with Gabriella somewhat, and if the whole book had been from her POV, I probably would’ve liked it more.

If you like paranormal thrillers or just plain strange murder mysteries, I’d recommend to give this one a shot. It’s not bad, but it just wasn’t my cup of tea either.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I normally shy away from darker titles, it’s just not my thing and I really haven’t read a whole “scary book” in about twenty years. I’m a visualizer, so movies, imagery and good descriptions tend to stay with me far longer than the time spent reading or watching, and nightmares are often a problem. That being said – I was constantly stopping and walking away from this book, it was terrifying: lights on, read only when someone else is home, jump at every noise sort of terror. Made worse by the all-too- possible premise, this story was hard to walk away from.

Told in multiple perspectives: the killer, the cop in charge, her teenaged daughter and friend, a man rebuilding his life after career and relationship failure, an artist, and a man working to overcome his own violent past by working with homeless. These people all come together in the notoriously deadened city of Detroit filled with struggling, scavenging and even the ‘gentrifiers’ who are hoping to scrape up the rubble and decay to create a thriving artistic community.

There is so much going on in description and desolation that Beukes imbued into the setting perfectly suited the appearance and utilization of the demon that possesses the artistic muse of a character and creates hauntingly grotesque yet somehow oddly compelling pieces of art highlighted with pieces of people. And then it really got scary, and felt all the more real with the sadly all too modern habit of sensationalizing crime – making it public to ground it further in reality and the public conscience. How often have images and other atrocities been detailed (if not necessarily seen in photos) with painstaking detail that give it the buzz and have the story spread like wildfire, news as entertainment first, information second. Beukes does spear social media and the lack of real information in news and outlets as they take second stage to the actual atrocities and issues. Beautifully mixed in and used to show readers the double-edged sword that is the 24 hour news cycle, and the rush to gain the most ‘votes and views’.

But this is, at the core, a character driven story that allows the flaws and strengths, cares and concerns that each character has that builds them into a fully developed and realized human being, adding depth and creativity and a touch of ‘familiar’ to each character, no matter how broken. Procedurally, her research and details are wonderfully presented as the rush to the capture of the killer heats up. Many of the very ambitious ideas were carried through overtly and covertly to give readers solid conclusions and ones that feel correct. I don’t know that she has convinced me to read more dark-themed stories, they seriously are not for me, but this was a story that I am glad I took a chance on.

I received an eBook copy of the title from the publisher for purpose of honest review. I was not compensated for this review: all conclusions are my own responsibility.

Broken Monsters is without a doubt one of the most ambitious horror/suspense novels you'll come across. Unfortunately, it falters and often fails under its own weight. Simply, the narrative is spread painfully thin. No single protagonist is given a chance to develop beyond shallow characterizations. Once you've spent a chapter with one, you've essentially discovered their essence. By the end, each narrative either concludes about where you'd expect it too, or it simply ends with little thought or attention.
Then there's the chapters presented through the perspective of the killer. In a staggering move, Beukes decides to remove any mystery regarding who this is, the kind of person it is, how it thinks and operates, and at a number of points what it plans to do next. They absolutely remove any horror and suspense from the narrative. Other horror writers, like Stephen King and Joe Hill, have at times taken similar approaches to their villains and monsters, and while I'm not the biggest fan of their brand of horror, they were able to do so in a way that made this adversary a more menacing figure. Beukes' killer never comes close to becoming memorable or fearsome.
And the novel tries its hardest to be chilling and disturbing, and maybe it is for some, yet it can't settle on a specific approach to do so. Murder mystery, crime thriller, cosmic horror, twisted detective yarn. None of them stick because, like the book's characters, none of them are allowed to develop. Why include the "doors" if we're never given a reason to fear or be wary of them? Why try to build a mystery through the perspective of some characters while we know exactly what the killer is up to? Why include the pedophile-hunting subplot when it in no way ties in to the core narrative and does not seem to ultimately impact the characters it concerns in any significant way?
Ultimately, Broken Monsters reads like a gathering of ideas for a horror novel slapped together and never built upon. I'm not crazy about "epic" horror novels, yet with so much laid out here, the book could have used many more chapters for Beukes' vision to be truly realized.

Broken Monsters turns its spotlight on a probable schizophrenic serial killer roaming around the city of Detroit in real time. Yes, it hooked me with its narrative, and kept me reading past bedtime, and fed me answers just as quickly as it kept me asking questions. Each new chapter was just so freaking good that it left a weird feeling in the literary part of my gut - I really wanted to believe that all chapters would be so gracefully composed... but what if they weren't? What if the high of reading a perfectly proposed, interconnected narrative was just this one chapter? What if the narrative peaked too soon and left me feeling both disappointed in the story and also annoyed with myself for setting my hopes too high? (What if? What if?!)

Which brings me to this: Broken Monsters had so much s**t going for it and also how its ending left a gritty paste in my mouth. For example:
- our protagonist is both female AND fierce AND a single mum AND Latina AND in charge of her own sexuality
- each section is narrated by a rotating cast of characters who meet up and interact at various points in the novel (my kryptonite!!!)
- the novel opens on a murder victim and unfolds into the mind of a twisted serial killer who is probably schizophrenic or maybe suffers from paranoid delusions but is also definitely one of those narrators WAY before you realize that he's also our killer
- underneath it all, a very lovely homage to the city of Detroit, MI
And so you're reading about this awful murder - written in grisly detail - and you get to follow the development of the narrative along with three vastly different characters and everything is amazing and you're, like, yeah, Lauren Beukes! Get it, girl! Make me question my own moral values as I revel in the disgusting gore that is at the heart of your novel. Strip away my conscience. Slather me in filth. BECAUSE I AM DIGGING THIS SO HARD RIGHT NOW.

And then the last couple of chapters happen and you're like wait. Hold up. WTF is going on. Is this real life. How is this happening. I DON'T UNDERSTAND.

And, okay, I get that maybe this was just me: because both Rebecca Schinsky and Amanda Diehl of BookRiot.com liken the novel to season one of HBO's True Detective and I LOVED season one of True Detective. But the rest of the novel was strictly realistic fiction. (Hella creepy but still within the vein of reality.) And then the ending comes? And it feels like a fever dream? And not humanly possible? It just didn't flow with the rest of the story in a way that felt satisfying or coherent. Beukes didn't allow us to marinate in that head space for enough time so that I could buy that what was happening was truly happening. (Like in, say, American Psycho.)

And so it kind of sort of ruined the preceding 300 pages of amazingly constructed characters, plot, and narrative drive. If Beukes wanted to write a trippy "wtf is going on is what's happening really happening" kind of novel, she should have done it throughout - ESPECIALLY because she already puts us in the mind of the novel's killer. And never once did I question the reality of the story when I was reading his parts; I only questioned HIS reality - and that is an entirely different thing.

Beukes comes close here. I was swept away with the narrative and the characters. The author gives us Detroit, warts and all, and makes it not so much attractive but enticing, interesting and buzzing with life. In good crime novels the city serves not only as setting but also as character. Philip Marlowe starred with Los Angeles, Sam Spade with San Francisco, Charley Bird with Portland and Dave Robicheaux with Iberia Perish.

Detroit is broken...and that's an underlying theme here, broken marriages, broken relationships, broken promises...and it's not so much about mending broken things as surviving them. Here we have a Detroit not so much on the mend as in the embryonic stages of rebirth and renewal.

As in "The Shining Girls" we have a strong assertive and intelligent protagonists in Gabriella Versado -- Gabi, a homicide detective, who is involved with solving a growing number of grizzly murders. The story moves well, characters ring true...and then towards the end Beukes springs a supernatural element that pretty much shatters the plot line. Don't get me wrong, I love the so called occult crime fiction genre...but it needs to be consistent...in this instance it seems to be thrown in at the end and pretty much shatters any sense of verisimilitude. I'm willing to suspend belief and adopt the author's world but in this instance it comes too late.

For some it may work but it didn't for me. The climax, the resolution suddenly became too cluttered, too supernatural, too surreal and just too much. Beukes didn't have to go this far to resolve things. In the end she lets herself, the novel and the reader down.

With all that said...it's still a damn fine read and I recommend it.

[this review was originally posted to goodreads on 9/2/16] i didn't really like or dislike this book, i guess it just wasn't what i was expecting and i wasn't really sure what the point of everything was.

before i started this book i was expecting it to be a lot more ...i guess paranormal, than it seemed at first. the beginning of the book seemed mostly like a regular detective/murder story where the killer thinks all these things are real but it's actually all in his head. but then at the end suddenly it is all real and everything goes all weird, which after i had gotten myself used to the idea of finishing just a normal detective story was incredibly jarring. but then again maybe that was part of the point? because although i did find layla and her mother to be interesting characters i just wasn't sure what i was supposed to take away from the novel as a whole. it wasn't necessarily bad, just not really my kind of book i guess.

After finishing this book, I can’t help but ask myself why I have not read anything by Lauren Beukes before. This book is is just incredible (for lack of a more imaginative word). It is horrific, spell-binding and poetic, a fantastic story that left me both incredibly satisfied and wanting to read more by the author.

The setting is depressing and perfect. Detroit is a shell of a city, with evidence all around of a better life, the life the city used to have before it went bankrupt. The industrial remains of its once thriving economy are a constant reminder of what used to be, of what was lost. The crime rate is high and there are good people who are homeless, unable to find work after the city fell apart. The tone this setting gives the book is incredible.

There are multiple POVs, which I wasn’t expecting. I’m quite used to this in fantasy, but not so much in horror. This really gives the book a stronger presence than it would have if it were told with the more narrow focus of just one character. The characters all come alive, giving the reader a firm grasp of their personalities, their motivations, desires and fears. It’s the type of book where you feel like you can imagine one of the characters walking into the room and you’d feel you already know them. You also get a good glimpse in the disparity between their three lives (public, private and secret). Something that would not be possible with just one perspective.

And I won’t say which anything about who it is, but one of the perspectives is being overtaken by a darkness that controls them. As a reader, I was was incredibly intrigued if it was just mental illness or if there was a fantastical element of the book starting to take shape. I won’t say which way it goes, just that I would be pleased either way because either way, it’s some scary freaky stuff. And I did love how it turned out.

Another real strength of this book is the integration of social media. It takes what can be nothing and turns it, us, into monsters. It gives fuel to fan fires that would otherwise be nothing more than a flicker. And I’m not just talking major news stories, I’m talking about every day life, normal people that have a bad moment that get captured on social media, becomes sensationalized, goes viral (spreads like a virus). Everyone’s lives are subject to social media. And we are all broken in some way. This book shows what that can do to a person. Once again, some scary stuff, even if it’s not the type of scary that serial killer brings to the table.

I absolutely recommend this book, to just about anyone, really. I guess if you are someone who has trouble sleeping after reading scary things, maybe read it in the morning, start your day with a good dose of mystery and fright.

So poorly done, desperate to be fresh and trendy, ends up as lost and confused as the protagonist. By the time I got to the "scary' ending I was so annoyed I just laughed at the prose. Also. that will be the last time I let a pump on Io9 influence a book buy.

Detective Gabriella Versado knows this is going to be no ordinary case when the first body is found. Someone took half of a young boy and half of a deer and fused them together. And things only seem to get stranger from there. But Gabriella isn't hunting down this bizarre killer in a vacuum. There's a journalist, Jonno, hot on the story, hungry for redemption and hoping to break this story. And somewhere along the way, the killer may be getting help from other people, whether they understand what's happening or not. On top of this, Gabriella still needs to keep an eye on her daughter, Layla, who may just be wandering into some dangerous territory of her own. As they all everything comes together and the truth is revealed, everyone is about to learn that sometimes the truth really is stranger than fiction.

This case plays out to be truly bizarre. The story is constructed in a masterful way, with all of the layers that come in as readers spend a little time with each character. There's definitely a steady build to the climax, and it's one of those books that keeps you on the edge of your seat, not entirely sure what might happen next. Although this is dubbed a horror by many, I would point out that it's not really gruesome or anything like that. Although there are some mutilated corpses (though not described in graphic detail), it felt more like a paranormal thriller to me. And I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys that type of story.

This story reminded me of something, but for the life of me I just can't put my finger on it. Perhaps it was the whole bodies melding into each other and becoming strange portal like creepy horror shows.
It isn't so much broken monsters as a psycho serial killer, who comes into contact with something dark, evil and all consuming. Technically he was only a wee bit unstable before he meets the inspiration for his future pieces of art.
It isn't for the faint of heart or readers who don't like a bit of gore with their gruesome.
Beukes has incorporated the reality and use of social media in her plot. A modern approach I think many younger readers will find it easy to envisage and connect with.
How easy and quickly it is to communicate or share information with the world, and the dangers that can potentially arise from that particular freedom. The story is creepy, as in hairs on the back of your neck, and perhaps a little uncomfortable when you envision the scenarios.
I received a copy of this book via NetGalley

Mysterious Book Report No. 183
Broken Monsters
by John Dwaine McKenna

The city of Detroit has long been an American icon; The Shining City, or Motor City as it’s been called, is now an emblem of broken dreams and unkept promises. Now it’s bankrupt and known colloquially as Murder City. It’s a place where taxes go unpaid, homes are abandoned, and buildings are razed by the city because they’re eyesores: neglected, decrepit, crime-ridden, looted and decayed . . . eventually torn down because they’ve become so hazardous to public health and safety.
It is against this bleak, dystopian backdrop that an ingenious, frightful and thoroughly entertaining novel by a South African author named Lauren Beukes is written . . . and it’s enthralling.
Broken Monsters, (Harper Collins, $26.00, 520 pages, ISBN 978-0-00-746459-3) is the story of a failed artist named Clayton Broom, who’s trying to redeem himself—and the city of Detroit—through his ‘art,’ which he thinks will reanimate itself, Detroit and his career, if only people will pay attention to his installations . . . which he’s been putting in various public places.
Gabi Versado is an eight-year homicide veteran who always gets the bad guy, but she’s never seen anything like the murders taking place during the current winter. Bodies have been turning up grafted to parts of animals. The police are suppressing the news, trying to prevent a panic, while at the same time a failed actor-reporter-blogger from New York City is trying to reinvent himself by reporting on Detroit’s cultural renaissance through a series of art raves: underground, parties for the young, hip and economically challenged youths of the dying city. All the characters are in some way or another broken and all are looking for redemption. This is a complex, fun and entertaining read that will make you damned glad you’re not living in Detroit. Broken Monsters is a chilling novel that you’ll remember long after you’re done reading it.
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Gripping murder mystery that will give you chills for days. I received a copy on Netgalley, when this was a new release, and I regret not reading it sooner. It took me two days of non stop reading. A thrilling mesh of characters, grouchy police detectives, a teenager daughter of the lead detective, a homeless man, a blogger, and various others. It only takes about 15% percent of the book to hook you in and spins out from there in a forever loop. There are hints to the murderer's madness that makes you think he has schizophrenia, or a stroke. If you start this be prepared to be stunned.

I really enjoyed this book. The story all the way through really kept me interested. It's told through the point of view of a few different characters, which helps paint a clear picture of the overall story.

I feel some of the characters were pretty weak, and when I got to the end, I wondered why some of them were even in the book. They didn't really fit into the story arc, and I think the overall story suffered for it.

(Possible Spoiler)
I'll try to write this with as few spoilers as possible. But I felt cheated at the end of the book. It was all building up to something amazing. For a long time, you read the book wondering if the badguy is crazy, or if there's actually something 'more' going on. And while I feel the end does give you a definitive answer on that, I believe it came up just short. Imagine a door opening and showing you something great, but only to be slammed shut, and you never get to see what is on the other side - that's how I felt by the ending.

All that said and done, I find myself thinking of this story, even after about a year. It's stuck with me.

Broken Monsters is genre-defying. It's a thriller, and at first it seems like a cop vs. serial killer story. But the narrative is told by several perspective: the serial killer (who seems insane), the cop, the cop's teenage daughter, the homeless guy with a true sense of honor, and the hack internet "journalist". And if that seems confusing, it's only that way for a few chapters. You start getting pulled into the subplots, and then they're suddenly deftly woven together. I didn't even see the seams.

But I was drawn in. Despite the gruesomeness, the sometimes-vulgar language and graphic content, and the smattering of characters that I wanted to beat about the head with a large spoon, I was completely hooked. And then...what seems like insanity becomes reality. I don't want to give away any spoilers, but this is the best example of 'urban paranormal' that I've ever read. And it was creepy as hell.

The audiobook was narrated, very well, by five different talented narrators, which I think helped dispel any confusion about whose perspective we were getting. For that reason, I'd recommend the audiobook over the printed book. But either way, this story is haunting, gritty, and visceral.

I'm definitely #TeamTK, because he's awesome and felt incredibly tangible. I think there are thousands of TKs out there in every city, living on the street or close to, and it was nice to have a flawed but righteous character be the unexpected one.

I'm also a bit #TeamLeila, even though her judgement is questionable (like any teenager's) and she's sometimes way too self-centered (again like a teenager). But what she goes through, what Cass goes through....ah, it makes my stomach twist just thinking about it. Even more so because we all know this is based in reality, and who doesn't remember that moment in their own life when they learned the hard way that fairness is a myth?

I'm definitely not #TeamJonno, but Beukes does such an amazing job of keeping "good" and "evil" all in shades of grey that it's easy to see how anyone could be. It's all a matter of perspective, I guess.

I highly recommend this book for fans of thrillers, urban paranormal in a new and gripping way, ensemble casts, entropy, Detroit, getting creeped out, and compelling stories.

I received a free kindle copy of Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes published by Mulholland Books from NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.

There were too many points of view in this suspense-filled thriller. Even though the chapters were clearly marked as to who was currently speaking, it was still confusing. T.K. aka Tom Kelly is the custodian of food bank & homeless shelter. Johnno Haim & Jen, the DJ are video recorders intent on having their fifteen minutes of fame via the internet. Layla & her B.F.F. Cass are fifteen years old & looking for trouble. They find it. The Monster is being eaten alive by his dreams of art. Detective (Gabriella Versado) Gabi is the officer in charge of the homicide investigation & Layla's mother. She has her hands full with one of those jobs, let alone both. Cass has a hidden history & is a newcomer to Detroit. Sparkles is a rookie cop under Gabi's tutelege. He's optimistic & eager to please.

"Edward & Donna Russo's house is done up in rustic country style, with the wood showing through the paint. Liked ripped designer jeans; you pay more for a touch of shabbiness. Maybe it's like a magic ward, Gabi thinks, to keep the poor at bay."

Johnno thinks "Career highlights; playing Scheherazade to a serial killer."

I gave this page turning, suspense-filled thriller four stars. It would have had five with less 'main' characters.

Link to purchase: http://www.the store.com/Broken-Monsters-Lauren-Beukes-ebook/dp/B00I828856/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=&qid=

Lauren Beukes is really, really good at using the fantastical to shed light on some twisted, perverted, evil stuff.

And, in this book, to use characters believably immersed in the culture of their times complete with cell phone, social media, slut-shaming, slang, racism, and cop procedures to provide a gritty layer of detail beneath that light touch of fantastic.

Like the Shining Girls, Broken Monsters is the story of a killer and the girl who thwarts him. If you liked Shining Girls, you will also love Broken Monsters (as i did) because of this glimpse into some truly, twisted serial killing as well as the sometimes-tough, sometimes-pathetically vulnerable psyche of the main YA character, Layla.

There is a monster in Detroit who is cutting up bodies in horrific ways. (I'll forever have a horrible association with meat glue-- transglutiminase). Amongst the weird and sub-culture artist communities that congregate in the ruins of abandoned factories, something is trying to break through, and it will use flesh and art and people's belief to find its way.

There's also a girl, Layla, whose best friend has a mysterious past, and a mother who is the lead cop on the Detroit Monster case. Can layla make the right choices both to save her friend and her mother?

This is not a pretty book. There is lots of gore and swear words, and sexual activity and reputation-ruining going on in this book that made me, mother of a teen, wince sometimes, but grudging acknowledge as feeling authentic.

And the end, while bringing full-force the whiff of otherworldy you get throughout the book, wraps up satisfyingly the taste of how evil looks in the human soul without lessening the impact of it. (and the online reputation managing aspects were very cool)

Just don't pick up this book looking for a feel-good story. Pick it up for a glimpse into evil and how determined, flawed, but basically good people can survive it.