Rating: 5 out of 5
Genre: YA, Scifi/Fantasy, 5 Stars, Diverse
People who should read this: If you love a different take on fantasy with a diverse set of topics covered including well thought out imagery of mental illness.
*I was given a free copy of this book to write an honest review*
“During baseball and football seasons, pretty much everyone wore a blue baseball cap. It was to show support for the team, they said, although really it was because if you didn’t wear one, you were likely to get bullied, yelled at, or otherwise interrogated by a slick, smiling, button-nosed jock who looked like he was already planning his presidential campaign.”
If you saw my early rating on Instagram then you’ll be surprised to see I’ve changed my mind - I just can’t shake this book off my skin. The longer I stew over it, the more I realize how amazing it is. My heart swells with joy and shrinks in pain at the same time.
Ugh...
I can’t decide if I need to cry or scream with joy.
All I know is Miller must continue creating art.
Like the Fountainhead, Destroy All Monsters stole my heart. I can’t put my finger on the reason why. Was it the characters - Solomon’s soul seeping through the page? Was it Miller’s creative way to bring up topics that we ignore in our daily lives? Was it the imagery that Miller masterfully created. It could be any of those things.
For the past few weeks I’ve been in a reading slump. Every book I read fell flat, even my most anticipated book of the year Aurora Rising. When Destroy All Monsters came in the mail, I wasn’t excited. Great… Here I am, having to be all peppy and excited to read this book. And it also meant a quick turn around without the option to pick the next book I wanted to read - all of this occurred after the Aurora Rising let down. Let’s just say I wasn’t in a good place. Drudgingly, I picked up Destroy All Monsters and was sucked in after the first few pages. Who knew all I needed was some Miller in my life. Thank god I already bought Blackfish City and I can dive in during my next free window.
So what made this book so special?
You might want to sit for this long list of reasons.
I’ll start with the most obvious one - Miller’s approach to mental illness. How do you make a mental illness interesting without turning the story into a sob fest? How do you show what a person might be experiencing? Queue the Darkside. Miller took a huge chance but I think he pulled it off. After a horrible accident when Ash and Solomon were twelve, both of them have been struggling. Each of them has dealt with it in their own way - another excellent point - but Solomon has become lost inside his brain. Miller shows this by creating a fantasy world for Solomon to live in, complete with dinosaurs. It can’t get any better. Between the two POVs, Miller weaves aspects of the two worlds together so you can see how Solomon is affected living in his head. It’s a work of art. Perfectly done to show mental illness while keeping the darkness from bogging down the story.
And Miller doesn’t just leave it with mental illnesses. He covers so many topics, I’m surprised the story wasn’t drowning in them. You want a list… goodness if I’m going to remember all of them… Toxic masculinity, sexual abuse, emotional manipulation, depression, sex…. I’m sure the list is a lot longer.
“The morning hallway stunk of cinnamon, which meant that autumn was here, and Dunkin Donuts was selling Pumpkin Spice everything, which meant that Hudson High would be full of hot, milky beverages.”
Now let’s do a u-turn and come back to that scary word:
SEX.
Miller... I could hug you right now. Somehow, he found a way to make sex a natural thing while also talking about some of the reasons sex might not be the right choice. If only the entire world could pull this off. Ash is sexually active but not for the right reasons. She even talks about how it might not be the healthy choice at the moment. In having sex, she’s not just stuffing a part of herself down, but she’s also hurting the boy she’s having sex with.
Wow.
On the flip side, toxic masculinity is also discussed. Yes, it’s a real problem and society plays a large role in creating it, but not everyone is a monster which Miller shows. The point is even brought home in the end. Some guys don’t fall into the trap that society lays down for them even if they play football or enjoy the realm where the toxicity resides.
Wrap all these topics into a well crafted plot and you’ll keep turning the page not understanding why the world isn’t screaming this book at the top of their lungs.
“She was an addict hooked on the never-ending stream of news that washed across her desk.”
And as I approach the end of this blog, I have something to say about the ending of the story. At first I was very disappointed. I wanted more from the ending but it couldn’t realistically happen. Miller stayed true to his world and characters. Nothing was going to flip a switch and right all the wrongs. Still, in its own way, the ending was happy.
Please… I beg all of you to read this book. I’m seriously considering making this my favorite book of the year. We still have almost half the year left so we’ll just have to see if it stays there. I have a strong suspicion it will.
After writing this blog and reading the whole thing through, I feel like there is still so much more to talk about. This book could spark so many conversations. If you would like to talk with me about it, feel free to email me or send me a DM on Instagram. I would be ecstatic to continue the conversation.
Happy Reading
Love Kait
Reading Challenge: 62/100