Review – Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell (4/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Fantasy/Humor
Length: 363 pages
Publisher:‎ DAW
Release Date: April 2, 2024
ASIN: B0C9ZF3T8B
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Borrowed ebook from Library
Rating: 4/5 stars

“Shesheshen has made a mistake fatal to all monsters: she’s fallen in love.

Shesheshen is a shapeshifter, who happily resides as an amorphous lump at the bottom of a ruined manor. When her rest is interrupted by hunters intent on murdering her, she constructs a body from the remains of past meals: a metal chain for a backbone, borrowed bones for limbs, and a bear trap as an extra mouth.

However, the hunters chase Shesheshen out of her home and off a cliff. Badly hurt, she’s found and nursed back to health by Homily, a warm-hearted human, who has mistaken Shesheshen as a fellow human. Homily is kind and nurturing and would make an excellent co-parent: an ideal place to lay Shesheshen’s eggs so their young could devour Homily from the inside out. But as they grow close, she realizes humans don’t think about love that way.

Shesheshen hates keeping her identity secret from Homily, but just as she’s about to confess, Homily reveals why she’s in the area: she’s hunting a shapeshifting monster that supposedly cursed her family. Has Shesheshen seen it anywhere?

Eating her girlfriend isn’t an option. Shesheshen didn’t curse anyone, but to give herself and Homily a chance at happiness, she has to figure out why Homily’s twisted family thinks she did. As the hunt for the monster becomes increasingly deadly, Shesheshen must unearth the truth quickly, or soon both of their lives will be at risk.

And the bigger challenge remains: surviving her toxic in-laws long enough to learn to build a life with, rather than in, the love of her life.”

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I borrowed this on ebook from my library.

Thoughts: I enjoyed this book it is a creative and intriguing premise. At times, the story does get a bit slow and I never really related to the characters. However, I appreciated the craziness of the situation they were in.

This is about Shesheshen, a shapeshifter who eats humans (and many other things) for sustenance…think gelatinous cube but more aggressive. When she is fleeing some hunters after being poisoned by them, she falls off a cliff and wakes to find herself being nursed back to health by Homily. Initially, Shesheshen doesn’t know that Homily is the daughter of a famous hunter and a hunter in her own right. Shesheshen starts to fall in love with Homily and struggles with the lies she is having to tell. When the history of a curse comes to light, Shesheshen decides to help Homily solve this mystery.

This is an odd book. Shesheshen is an incredibly odd monster of sorts and the fact that she starts to fall in love with a human is…both odd and strangely sweet. Homily struggles with her own issues; she has a mother and sister who have demeaned and abused her most of her life. Shesheshen hates seeing this and wants to save Homily from her own habits and family. Unfortunately, Homily is under a curse that has its origins from Shesheshen’s history so that mystery needs to be unraveled before Shesheshen can pull Homily away from her family.

I enjoyed the uniqueness of this read but I struggled with some aspects of it as well. I didn’t find any of the characters particularly easy to engage with here. Shesheshen is just too non-human to really understand. Homily is too much of a people pleaser with a strangely violent streak. Homily’s family are just awful people. Because of this lack of engagement with any of the characters I did struggled some to get through certain parts of the story.

I also felt like the pacing was inconsistent. The beginning is kind of cozy and slow, but then so much happens in the last third of the book it seems frantic. It also feels a bit repetitive with Homily abasing herself for her family over and over again. I enjoyed how it all ended but the ending didn’t feel like it matched the tone of the rest of the story. I guess the flow was a bit off for me as well.

My Summary (4/5): Overall I enjoyed the uniqueness and creativity behind this story. I struggled some with character engagement, pacing, and the flow of the story. I am happy I read this and would recommend it if you are looking for something a bit different. However, I am on the fence about whether or not I will read more books by Wiswell.