{"id":36758,"date":"2015-01-07T09:57:46","date_gmt":"2015-01-07T14:57:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?p=36758"},"modified":"2020-12-31T15:06:39","modified_gmt":"2020-12-31T20:06:39","slug":"broken-monsters-by-lauren-beukes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/broken-monsters-by-lauren-beukes\/","title":{"rendered":"Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Broken<\/a>By about page 50 or within the first of 12 parts stuck in the ears (the multi-reader cast is absolutely superb, by the way), the whodunnit is pretty clear. That said,\u00a0serial murder mystery this is, finding out whydunnit-and-howdunnit is the thrill ride you won’t be able to exit\u00a0until the very, very end. Be warned:\u00a0your head will keep spinning (not to mention seeing horrible things)\u00a0for a good while after.<\/p>\n

In the broken city of Detroit, the appearance of a gruesomely conjoined\u00a0corpse\u00a0made up of\u00a0half boy, half deer shocks the city. In all her years of overwork on the police force, Gabriella Versado has never been this shocked and sickened. Being as effective as she is at her job makes being a single mother to her teenage daughter Layla that much more challenging. Left alone far too often, Layla and her best friend Cassandra have little guidance about\u00a0avoiding trouble; they’re currently baiting an online pedophile who likes to call himself Velvet Boy.<\/p>\n

Amidst the media frenzy, newcomer-to-Detroit Jonno who barely escaped his dead-end career choices in New York City, is working hard to get his five minutes of fame, determined to bring\u00a0the killer search to the people.\u00a0A mother in shock grinding plastic toys in the insinkerator, a homeless man sporting\u00a0red shoes, his friend trying desperately to build a safe home from others’ discards and left-behinds, cyber bullying and underage assault, hidden identities, shattered families, and art created of insistent nightmares, are all\u00a0somehow involved in the\u00a0process of forming, fighting, stopping these abominable, unspeakable creatures.<\/p>\n

Novelist\/scriptwriter\u00a0Lauren Beukes<\/a>\u00a0is quite the interesting literary enigma. Although she’s South African-born-and-currently-domiciled, her last two novels have\u00a0showcased her chameleon-like ability to write pitch-perfect\u00a0Americana.\u00a0Last year’s harrowing\u00a0The Shining Girls,<\/em> about a time traveling mass murderer, seamlessly captured almost a century of Chicago\u00a0history. With what seems to be similar\u00a0effortlessness, Beukes\u00a0succeeds again\u00a0here, imagining\u00a0a shuttered, depressed Detroit, albeit with glimpses of coming renewal, including fancy apartment complexes and even a reference to an artist revitalization housing project not unlike Write a House<\/a>. Such uncommon\u00a0details\u00a0are what make Beukes \u2013 a former journalist \u2013 seem like a local; ironically, that both novels feature seriously disturbed serial killers attacking their own might suggest\u00a0some not-so-hidden\u00a0aggression, but I might just be reading too much.<\/p>\n

What is absolutely certain is that Beukes has perfected the art of spooking, scaring, terrifying her readers.\u00a0As fantastical as her narrative premises might be \u2013 time travel and uhm … literal anthropomorphism? \u2013 the threat of harm (sadly) couldn’t be more universal:\u00a0any victim\u00a0could\u00a0be snatched to death in just the blink of an eye. That everyday, any minute, too real occurrence is exactly what keeps us edge-of-our-seat, torment-me-again, and still\u00a0wanting\u00a0more.<\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By about page 50 or within the first of 12 parts stuck in the ears (the multi-reader cast is absolutely superb, by the way), the whodunnit is pretty clear. That said,\u00a0serial murder mystery this is, finding out whydunnit-and-howdunnit is the thrill ride you won’t be…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36762,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,81,142,6,197,60,1161],"tags":[6608,6131,6141,75,10,242,123,6144,6132,129,212,216,39,6143,562,6142,9479],"class_list":["post-36758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-audio","category-black-african-american","category-fiction","category-hapa","category-nonethnic-specific","category-south-african","tag-bookdragon","tag-broken-monster","tag-christine-lakin","tag-death","tag-family","tag-horror-ghost-story","tag-illness","tag-j-d-jackson","tag-lauren-beukes","tag-mother-daughter-relationship","tag-murder","tag-mystery","tag-parent-child-relationship","tag-robert-morgan-fisher","tag-sunil-malhotra","tag-terra-deva","tag-time-travel"],"yoast_head":"\nBroken Monsters by Lauren Beukes - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/broken-monsters-by-lauren-beukes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By about page 50 or within the first of 12 parts stuck in the ears (the multi-reader cast is absolutely superb, by the way), the whodunnit is pretty clear. 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