Monster by C.J. Skuse Review

Monster by C.J. Skuse

“What a monster I had inside me. And I never even knew it.”

Monster follows the story of a group of girls stuck over the Christmas Holidays at their boarding school. Nash is worried about her brother’s disappearance and on top of that she’s pretty sure she’s spotted the Beast of Bathory. Things take a turn for the worse after certain disappearances and news of a prison escapee running wild somewhere near the school.

The plot is slightly different to what is typical of a boarding school mystery thriller. Firstly the main red herring isn’t what I expected it to be, which was good because the beast as the main killer wasn’t what I wanted. Who the killer is, is hinted at really early on which was disappointing because when it was revealed it wasn’t surprising. In addition the big reveal was also disappointing because of the reasoning behind it was rushed into, although the person was hinted at, the reason why they did it wasn’t so it felt out of place.

I really liked the characters in the book. They were all so different and each of them had their own part in the story based on either their past or present actions. Most of them did not get along which was really enjoyable to read and funny. Nash takes on the leadership role and she makes pretty smart decisions, what I also liked about her is that she’s practical.

The romance was bad. It’s not a love triangle but both guys liked her – surprise surprise! And by connecting her to the two male characters it made the story really cringe worthy also how she acted around the second guy was a complete personality change.

Nash has this thing when she loses control her mind blocks out the bad things she does which I think would have been an interesting subplot which the author could have delved into but sadly that didn’t happen.

I liked the writing style of the novel I think the author developed the mystery aspects really well but best of all I loved how creepy the atmosphere was sometimes.

The ending was pretty abrupt and it didn’t feel the story had finished.  

★★★☆☆