Books: Ordinary Monsters By J.M. Miro (2022)

“England, 1882. In Victorian London, two children with mysterious powers are hunted by a figure of darkness —a man made of smoke. Sixteen-year-old Charlie Ovid, despite a lifetime of brutality, doesn't have a scar on him. His body heals itself, whether he wants it to or not. Marlowe, a foundling from a railway freight car, shines with a strange bluish light. He can melt or mend flesh. When two grizzled detectives are recruited to escort them north to safety, they are forced to confront the nature of difference, and belonging, and the shadowy edges of the monstrous. What follows is a journey from the gaslit streets of London, to an eerie estate outside Edinburgh, where other children with gifts—the Talents—have been gathered. Here, the world of the dead and the world of the living threaten to collide. And as secrets within the Institute unfurl, Marlowe, Charlie and the rest of the Talents will discover the truth about their abilities, and the nature of the force that is stalking them: that the worst monsters sometimes come bearing the sweetest gifts.”

Ordinary Monsters took way to long for me to finish. Its way too lengthy (658 pages), it sets up an unwieldy system of unexplainable magic, with gifted kids who are keys to saving the world, and all of it is very familiar (I felt Miro cribbed a lot from the Ransom Riggs Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children series -funny, another series I've yet to finish despite owning the last book). I simply struggled to finish it all because there is something great in it –but it’s very hard to explain.

Part of the problem, maybe, is the characters motivations. I struggled to understand how these kids got their talents, how they were found, why an ancient evil needed them to overrun the world with the dead. It all became a massive set-up with a telegraphed cliffhanger. Yes, there are some fine, well drawn characters –Marlowe and Charlie being the most likeable and endearing. And there are some strong female leads here, but there is a lot, I mean a lot, of repetitiveness to the narrative, which made it a slog to get through (lucky we were not dogged down with long chapters).

The writing is great, as well, but it reminds me of why fantasy novels are getting tiresome as I age. It was once a fun genre to read, back in the days. Most series were just three books, some no longer than say 400 pages. Now we get 600, 700, or well over a 1,000 page series that runs into eight to twelve (or more) novels. It’s all a bit gratuitous, were editors are allowing writers to take 40 or 50 pages per set piece and yet the book seems to still stand still, not really moving forward –or at a glacial pace.

If the two other books in this series are just as long, I believe I will not continue on. In the end, I feel there is nothing new here enough to keep me interested.