Book Review:
The Monsters in Your Neighborhood
(Living with the Dead #2)
by Jesse Petersen
4 Stars
As one of Frankenstein’s Creatures, Natalie Gray knows that unique parts sometimes make up a great whole. Still, leading a diverse support group for monsters—now including Cthulhu!—isn’t an easy task. Especially not since the internet arrived.
New York City embraces the different and the bizarre. Still, even for such a fun-loving city, the supernatural and monstrous might be a bit too much. It’s been six months since the members of “Club Monstrosity” overcame the most recent spate of anti-monster violence and they’ve reestablished their routine of meeting in a church basement once a week to (ugh!) talk about their feelings. Still, they also know a war against them is brewing.
Natalie and Alec (the werewolf) have begun dating, and the mummies Kai and Rehu are tighter than a bug in a…well, bandage. But when modern means (YouTube, Twitter, bits and bytes) are used to chilp away at the solidarity of these ancient monsters, it’s up to Natalie to save the day.
#MonstersInNewYork may be trending on Twitter, but this girl’s trending toward saving the day…somehow.
My Review
Monsters in your neighborhood is the 2nd book in Jesse Petersen’s CLUB MONSTROSITY series. MONSTERS IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD follows the lives of several “monsters” from literary history as they find ways to function in daily life and avoid bringing unwanted attention to themselves. When I requested this book from Netgalley, I didn’t realize it was the second in the series. That being said, at no point did I feel like I had to go back and read the first book in order to understand what was going on. There are enough clues throughout the book that make it so you won’t be lost.
Natalie is the daughter of Dr. Frankenstein. She runs a support group for other monsters which includes her boyfriend the werewolf, a vampire, a swamp lizard, a couple of mummies, and now a Cthulhu (click HERE to be taken to the Wiki page that tells you what that is!) They live in New York City and are all just trying to get by and live their lives. When an unknown monster shows up on the internet ripping apart an innocent human, things start to get dangerous. Between trying to find the monster, and trying to avoid the Van Helsings, these monsters are doing anything but staying safe and sound inside their homes. They are joined by Igor who has become a flamboyant, interior design-loving character who offers a whole different kind of humor to the situation.
Natalie is a very strong character. She is just trying to be a normal girl, scars, and all. She wants a normal life with a normal boyfriend and wants to prove to herself more than anyone else, I think, that she is not a monster. She is a very take-charge kind of character and I really liked that she was able to keep her cool throughout all of the craziness. There were actually 2 very strong female leads in this book, which is refreshing because you don’t see that all of the time. Now that I think about it, Petersen’s MARRIED WITH ZOMBIES has a very very strong female lead character as well.
I liked this book. It was easy to read and to follow. It was a quick read for me and I picked it out because I really liked Petersen’s other series, Living with the Dead. The first book of the Living with the Dead series is MARRIED WITH ZOMBIES. That series is really cool. Petersen’s writing is full of clever one-liners and awful, but entertaining situations.
I think pretty much anyone can enjoy this book. It is pretty much straight paranormal, not really much romance other than that this person is with that person kind of thing. It’s a cute book and I’m pretty sure I will go back and read the first in the series even though I think I know, at least to some degree, what happened at the end.
Purchase Link
All About Jesse!
(Copied from Jesse’s website.)
Jesse’s life as a writer began when her husband made the brilliant observation that she was much happier writing than doing anything else. So she took the plunge and decided to do that full-time. After many years and many books in different sub-genres, she was bitten by the zombie bug (not a zombie, but the bug) and took off on a zany adventure into the world of Urban Fantasy. Soon zombies were not enough and now she is poised to take over the world with her not-so-normal paranormal stories which inject dark humor into uncommon circumstances.
When not coming up with stories about the weird and wonderful she lives in Tucson, AZ, with her high school sweetheart husband and two cats. She plays video games, hangs out with her favorite nephews, hikes in the beautiful mountains, watches wayyyyy too much reality TV (and some really good scripted TV), ponders all things geekish and madly scribbles notes on her next idea while she laughs at people who still have to shovel snow.
Oh and from time to time she even writes, which is still what she likes to do best. She loves chatting with fans of her stories and lovers of geeky things. She encourages you to contact her!
Contact Jesse
Melanie
**DISCLAIMER** In full compliance with FTC Guidelines, I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review. I was in no way compensated for this opinion, and the thoughts are my own. Links above will take you to a site where you can PURCHASE a copy. Using those links will take you through an affiliate link and I will receive a small percentage of the purchase cost. You are in no way obligated to use affiliate links and there is no additional cost to do so.
