Review: Monsters Born and Made

Monsters Born and Made by Tanvi Berwah
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was provided an print and audio ARC of this book via Netgalley, all opinions are my own.

This book started off slow for me, but once I settled in I really enjoyed it. If you liked The Scorpio Races and The Hunger Games, I think this is a good book for you. It mashes up the race aspect and the mythical creature aspect of The Scorpio Races with the brutality and politics of The Hunger Games. There is a large focus on the caste system that is in place, and our main character Koral and her family are victims of that system. They are permitted to hunt and breed maristags and sell them to the upper class. This allows them to have barely enough to survive, but because they interact with the upper echelon of society, they are outcast by the lower class as sellouts. What is a maristag you ask? It is a fantastical and violent creature of the water, that can also walk on land. They are enormous, scaled, and have antlers. I have a hard time envisioning exactly what they look like but hope as this book gains popularity we see some fanart of the maristags and the creatures mentioned in the book. The author did a good job describing them on the page, but I know there are some extremely talented artists out there to life. The world building was great, the author does a great job describing the creatures and the setting. Koral's family are "hunters" and they capture maristags and raise them for the rich to compete in teh Glory Race every 10 years. The race is extremely violent and competitive. The winner gains riches and fame, while the rest of the population celebrates and gambles on who will win.

While I thought the world building and the concept of the plot was really interesting and I loved the action, I do think that the character development suffered a bit. Koral panics in every situation and that carries on throughout the book, despite the fact that she does many brave things to save herself, her family, and the people around her. It is very clear that she has been put down at home but by by the caste system, and that oppression has shaped her as a person. She doesn't believe in herself, and often doesn't think through her decisions. This unfortunately leads to Koral getting herself tangled up in some pretty rough political situations that she is not equipped to deal with. I hope there is more to this tale as I would really like to see Koral develop, as she only just started to come into herself at the very end of the book and I would love to see her continue to shine.

This book has an open ending so I expect that there is a book 2. I've got lots of unanswered questions, but if this truly is the end it did leave me fairly satisfied. I have enough information that I can imagine my own ending for Koral and Stormgold, but I would much prefer a concrete conclusion and hope that the author gets to keep telling this story.

Overall, I really loved this! It was unique and action packed. This leans on the darker and more violent side of things, so be sure to check out trigger warnings.

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