Not interested in watching my video review of Someone You Can Build a Nest In? Then look below for the major bullet points.
Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links. If you click on one, we may receive a small commission at no cost to you.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Genre: Horror / Fantasy
Hello friends!
In this blog, I’m reviewing Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell. As usual, the first half of the review will be spoiler-free, and more about my overall thoughts. The second half will contain spoilers, so look away if you haven’t read the book yet.
Three words to describe this book. Love. Love. Love.
Going in, I was very apprehensive about the story. I wasn’t in the right mood for the style, and the beginning was hard to wrap my head around. Eventually, I got my head straight and started to handle the gore better, allowing me to sink into the story (pun intended).
Someone You Can Build a Nest In is told from the perspective of the monster. This is the definition of a grey character.
I shake my head in wonder how someone could develop this idea. What lights the spark? How did a glob of goo become something more? Wiswell is a well of imagination and he pairs it perfectly with heart.
The imagination didn’t override the writing. There were character arcs and fleshed-out backstories. The writing was perfectly paired with the style of the story.
This was not a book I expected to have twists. And there were a lot of them. All of them were perfectly foreshadowed (Funny that I would have back-to-back books with this topic). I didn’t see the twists coming, but looking back, I can see how they were perfectly set up. Also, perfectly timed. When the story started lagging there was another twist.
I appreciate that the ending was stretched out. I didn’t see why at first, but then I saw what the story was really about. It wasn’t about the “final boss” or the curse. The story is about connections. The ending wraps everything up perfectly. I walked away with the same warm heart I did after reading The House in the Cerelian Sea.
Toed that world-building line perfectly.
All the moving parts were balanced.
Now look away if you don’t want spoilers.
This book weirdly triggered me. There’s nothing specific for me to point out. Maybe I wasn’t fully recovered from This Wretched Valley. Maybe it was the perspective of the monster and the monster absorbing people. The body parts. I’m not sure. As much as I love horror, I’m starting to become fatigued on the death and torture side of things.
The reveal that Homily’s mother was actually Shesheshen’s mother was brilliant. I didn’t see it coming. The perfect betrayal. I will be taking notes.
Why was Homily called Homlily? Audience question time… Is this a common name in some areas? Do you think there was a reason behind it? Does it have nothing to do with being homily? Am I entirely pronouncing this wrong?
I would have liked to understand Shesheshen’s offspring a little bit more. It seemed that she had a centralized brain, so how did this glob of herself become sentient? And am I being too literal in thinking that she had a brain? Nothing would point that she does. But where does her sentience come from? Is it all consisting of the goo? And then are we going into a conversation of nature vs nurture, because her offspring developed its own personality and life completely outside of Shesheshen’s? And is it also interesting that all of the monsters were female?
Happy Reading!
Love,
Kait