Review: Broken Monsters

Last year, The Shining Girls was one of my favorite reads. SO, I was expecting a lot from Broken Monsters. I wasn't disappointed. The book started out so well. Beukes is a wonderful writer and is excellent with suspense and horror. Detroit was a perfect setting for this story. The characters all had issues, but issues that you could relate to and sympathize with. This storyline was so bizarre, but in a good way. I love a unique story. It was also realistic. I don't think we will ever understand what killers are thinking or why they do the things they do. I didn't have a problem not knowing what was going on with the killer. I did have a problem with the supernatural "dream" elements. They were not needed for the story to succeed. In fact I found that they took away from the story. Maybe if they were only experienced by the killer they could have been overlooked, but drawing the other characters into his twisted outlook, in my opinion, ruined the story. It's sad because this could have been one of my favorites, the ending ruined that for me. Beukes is a wonderful writer and she should let her writing and her characters carry the story. She doesn't need the bizarre, out of left field, elements. Her stories are wonderful enough to succeed without them.