Thank you Sourcebooks Fire and Netgalley for the review copy. HERE THERE ARE MONSTERS just wasn't my cup of tea, the pace was too slow and a bit on the boring side for what I normally enjoy reading and I struggled to connect with the characters. Would recommend to a couple of friends looking for a creepy read, just not for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a digital arc in exchange for an honest review!

Here There Are Monsters begins when Skye's sister, Deirdre, disappears. Deirdre has always been the "weird sister" and when their family moved to a new town, Skye started to make friends while Deirdre didn't. But Deirdre didn't seem too bothered; all she needed was Skye. They had their childhood games together, which Skye has recently grown out of. But now Deirdre's gone, and Skye needs to find her.

But Skye's search leads to her places and things that she doesn't expect. She find something much more sinister and otherworldly than a regular disappearance of kidnapping. It leaves her wondering - how much will she need to sacrifice to get her sister back safely?

I thought this book was creepy and intriguing! For anyone looking for something to read for the upcoming Halloween season, this is a good one. Once I really got into Here There Are Monsters I could hardly put it down.

Thank you again to Netgalley!

Honestly, I inhaled this book. I read it in two sittings and a couple of stolen pages in between. Atmospheric, slow-building, I often find that with books that toe the line between the real world and a magical element, I tend to enjoy the story less after the magical element becomes more prominent or the rules made more clear (which is pretty much always nothing to do with the books themselves and more to do with... me not knowing what it is I want from that dynamic) but Here There Are Monsters never tripped that feeling in me. The monsters in the woods are genuinely creepy in a Guillermo del Toro way, and I loved watch Skye navigate between hating herself for not doing anything, and worrying over how far she was capable of taking things. And the supporting cast were wonderful! William has to be one of my favourite male love interests in a YA in a while, and I would read a whole book about Sophie.

Creepy, page-turning, psychological: this was great.

Truly an intense read that sucks you in. We’ve all lived in fantasy worlds but this brought them to life. Excellently written characters and plot line.

Some horror books are straightforward and present easy scares. Others are richly layered and dreamlike, which often makes them polarizing with readers. Here There Are Monsters falls firmly into the second camp, making it the type of story that fans of A24’s arthouse horror films will enjoy.

Labeled as YA fiction (but definitely a quality read for adults), this book explores how far someone will go to save a family member. In the beginning, teenager Skye seems like a bratty older sister who takes her disdain for her younger sister, Deirdre, way too far. But after Deirdre disappears and Skye has to face her worst fears and tumultuous past, it becomes clear just how damaging her sister’s fantasy world has been.

The author mixes horrible dreams with real life, making the reader occasionally question what’s actually real. The titular monsters are a great example, and they’re different enough from the norm to truly stand out for horror lovers.

Don’t go into this expecting a dark fantasy that wraps everything up with a happy bow. This is a surreal horror novel that isn’t afraid to get grisly, nor does it shy away from brutalizing the main characters.

Some will call this a slow burn, and it is, to a point. But it’s also a fully realized tale about what drives us, the choices we make, and whether or not we can ever be redeemed for them. Here There Are Monsters, indeed, along with the shocking complexities of the human condition.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an ARC. This review contains my honest, unbiased opinion.

I have been given this book a while back and I have tried to read it on multiple occasions with no success. I have read a chapter at a time but haven’t been hooked and unfortunately will need to DNF it. I hope down the road when I am in the mood for this kind of book I can try picking it up again and giving it another go.

Skye has always been the knight in shining armor that her little sister Deirdre needed. After moving clear across the country, she hopes for a fresh start in their new, remote neighborhood, leaving behind the childish games she and her sister used to play for new friends. But Deirdre is being weirder than ever, fixated on the swampy stretch of woods behind their house and constructing terrifying and monstrous sculptures out of sticks and bones.

Then Deirdre disappears and one of her creatures, now animated by some unknown force, comes scratching at Skye’s window in the middle of the night. Skye knows that nothing will stop her from bringing Deirdre home, not her new friends, well-meaning parents or the secrets she’s been keeping. Although she tries to keep herself from getting wrapped up in the fantasy world her sister has created, she is eventually drawn into something dark, creepy and all-together unexpected.

Flashing between past and present, Here There Are Monsters by Amelinda Bérubé was dark and intriguing from the very start. Although this isn’t the type of book that I would normally read, I’m glad that I gave it a chance. I truly enjoyed the writing, even when it made it hard for me to leave the bed to just use the bathroom. It was just so creepy. Especially the creatures that Deirdre created - the descriptions of them gave me goosebumps every single time!

My biggest problem with the book was that I didn’t really care much for Skye or Deirdre. Skye was kind of awful and Deirdre wasn’t any better. I think most of the time, Skye used her sister being weird and needing protection as an excuse to get away with doing terrible things. Plus, for the whole first half of the book, she didn’t even care that her sister was missing. And Deirdre was so selfish and rude. She didn’t want Skye to have any friends outside of her. I’m all about co-dependency but this relationship was a bit much for me, even when they weren’t exactly speaking to one another anymore. Fortunately, I don’t need to unconditionally love a character to enjoy their story.

With good pacing and smooth writing, Here There Are Monsters was a quick and enjoyable read. I would definitely recommend it to fans of creepy atmospheres and thrilling dark tales. Especially ones about how easy it can be to get wrapped up in your own fantasy and how quickly those fantasies can become nightmares if allowed.

Started off well but got muddied down midway. Disjointed.

Also Skye is kind of the worst. I think it would have been better without her. Give me this story from Deirdre's perspective.

This Story is hard to wrap my head around there a lot to it and not everything is fully explained like was it some waking dreams those kids were having? I don't know, but I do know it creepy and it makes you think twice about going in the wood alone twice let alone with someone with you. The Author does a great job making the main character's sister seem creepy and a bit crazy like she needs some mental help. She also makes the main character not fully likable she herself is slightly on her crazy side and don't know how to take responsibility for her actions. Overall I really enjoy this creepy read that I wasn't fully sure of what in the world was going on.

This book was unexpected, but as I do not want to give away the ending, I will say that I found the characters to be realistic and compelling, and the story carried me along. It did not end as I was expecting, but that's a good thing, because the ending did give me a lot to think about. Overall, I think this is a good read that delves into the topics of mental health and the role of escapism in our lives.

Here There Are Monsters is not the worst book I read. There were too many things going on in this book. If it didn't have the monsters in it, this book would have been terrific as a young girl dealing with her missing sister and her own troubled past. Take out the older sister and this would have been a great fantasy that was about
a young preteen dealing with her imaginary world becoming real,. The writing was great just too many things happening.

The book is creepy and it's got the right horror factor but unfortunately I couldn't care about the characters and the book fell flat.
A well written book but not my cup of tea.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

[M]aybe the Queen of Swords ins't a monster. Maybe she never was. Maybe she just needed monsters to fight.

Thank you Netgalley and Sourcebooks Fire for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! I am just going to take a moment here to talk about this absolutely amazing cover. A young girl with a terrifying and ritualistic mask - is it her head, is she wearing it? It is entirely the selling point for me, even if I have an interesting history with Sourcebook's young adult imprint.

Here There Are Monsters
by Amelinda Berube
Published Date: August 2019
Read Date: June 2019
Format: e-ARC
Genre: YA, Horror, Fantasy
Page Count: 352 Pages
Rating:  3.5/5 Moose

Synopsis 
The night of Halloween, Skye's younger sister Deidre goes missing. Deidre, who is weird and complicated and unable to adjust to their new town and new schools. Deidre, who has always preferred to live in fantasy worlds fighting monsters with her sister Skye, the Queen of Swords.

But Skye doesn't want to live in a fantasy world anymore. She has friends and a life, and wants to be normal. Yet Deidre keeps trying to pull her back in. So when she goes missing, Skye remains torn on finding her sister and trying to move on.

Until the monsters come for her.

Characters
Skye - The older sister who fell asleep early the Halloween night. She is also the Queen of Swords.

Deidre - The younger sister. She's picked on in school, and has gotten increasingly weird since her family has moved.

William - Skye's new friend and crush. Deidre considers him an outsider and doesn't like him.

Rants, Raves, and Reviews
I still don't know how I feel about this book. It has a strange structure, the main sisters are incredibly unlikable, and it takes nearly 50% of the book before the monsters show up. And yet, I still enjoyed it, I think?

The book opens with Deidre missing. Skye was supposed to be watching her, but she fell asleep incredibly early. (Did she actually fall sleep or was it some kind of magic? Who knows!) It is a great opening...that then goes into a flashback, thus cutting into all anxiety build up. It's just hard to worry about a missing girl when every other chapter is a flashback. This is also why it takes so long to get to the monsters, of course.

There is no one likable in this book. Okay, maybe William. But the base family? All terrible. The dad is forgettable, the mom is supposed to be disliked but is also a bit forgettable, and the two daughters are just horrible people, to each other, to everyone else, and to themselves. It is incredibly difficult to read. Seriously, Skye's sister is missing, and she's basically throwing a fit that she has to care? I mean, I know I am a selfish terrible person, but I would put effort into caring that my sister is missing.

Then again, my sisters are more well adjusted than Deidre. We all may be neurotic and balls of anxiety (okay maybe they aren't all), but even at their worst days, they're still better than Deidre. She is just angry and mean. There's a problem when there isn't any redeeming qualities of your main characters.

Skye and Deidre's relationship is fascinating. In some ways, they view their relationship as being the only ones they can rely on. Skye protects Deidre. They're the most important people to each other. But that comes with some major consequences: isolation, bullying, delusion. Deidre builds fantasy worlds where she and Skye are queens: Deidre is the queen of everything and Skye is her champion, her protector. A role that bleeds into real life. A role that Skye no longer wants. A role that monsters are pushing her to take again.

In some ways, I couldn't put this book down. I wasn't pushed to read it, to skip showers and meals for it, but it kept my attention. And once the monsters finally came - real ones, creepy ones, it was definitely leaning more into the horror genre.

This book doesn't have a happy ending, really. I started to realize that it couldn't once the monsters gave Skye her first task to find Deidre. When you're being forced to relive horrible moments publicly, or perhaps kill people in order to find your sister, it cannot end well.

Final Moments 
I still don't know how I feel about this book. It is dark and creepy, it doesn't quite flow right, the characters are a mishmash, and maybe I am currently afraid of the woods. (Thank god I live in Brooklyn.)

I really wish I had liked this book more, but unfortunately it just kind of missed the mark for me. While I enjoyed the creepy setting, I had a hard time really liking any of the characters. For the most part, they were pretty unlikable. On top of that, the ending made me pretty angry, especially the selfishness of the main character, as well as the unecessary graphic description of animal death. It was a pretty unique concept, but overall, it just wasn't for me.

First, a thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks for providing an advanced reading copy in exchange for my honest review.

Ever been in a place where even the air is oppressive, where you feel watched and unwelcome, where the trees whisper menacingly? This is the swamp and wooded area where Skye and her family have just moved to allow them to have a new beginning.

Except that it wasn't. They were moving to an ending.

If the cover doesn't betray the creepiness you will find in these pages, then Berube's writing certainly will. She is descriptive without spoon feeding and she weaves in elements that have the reader constantly questioning what is or isn't real.

To be fair, the reader will at some point have to acknowledge that both Skye and Deirdre are pretty awful humans that are seriously in need of therapy. I mean this beyond the scope of the general behavior of teens. Skye is manipulative and calculating and Deirdre withdraws further and further into her fantasies. It will make an adult shake their head as to why the parental response was a cross country move instead of intense treatment.

That aside this is a sufficiently creepy story that will grab the reader from the opening pages. Yes, you will question the narrator and from time to time I wondered if she was responsible for the events of the book. You will feel the dread coming from the woods and you will be actively trying to figure it all out.

What I enjoyed most was the wondering about Monsters. The ones in the woods or the ones that we conceal underneath pretty smiles. There are monsters within that are just as terrifying and the author does a good job of making that a key part of the story. For Deirdre it was withdrawal and playing with things that weren't ever meant to be games "By wood, stone, water, and bone."
For Skye, it was realizing what it meant to be the Queen of Swords. This was the truly creepy part to me. Especially the final conversation between Skye and her nemesis, Kevin.

A solid read!

The beginning grabs you and pulls you in, then it kind of stopped for me. Slowed down and then got a bit too creepy for my liking. I didn't finish it. Just not my kind of thing.

Unfortunately I had to DNF this book at 20%

I kept pushing through multiple attempts to try and get into the storyline but it felt far too slow moving for me.

One sister goes missing. The other believes faeries may have taken her. By 20% nothing had really progressed beyond this information and basic police search protocol.

Likes

Holy crap this book was a hell of a ride from start to finish. It reminded me of so many different books, tv shows and movies I've read/seen in the past and loved. Think Blair Witch (as advertised), but also Haunting of Hill House and Pet Semetary. It gave me the chills and it was just the right amount of 'weird' and 'off' to make me question what was real and what wasn't. Skye's character proved to be curious, inquisitive, but also just a normal teenager who was annoyed with her younger sister. But, when your younger sister goes missing, you're going to have a lot of questions and want to find out where in the heck she went off to. Especially if you have some creepy woods right behind your house. No way would I be venturing into those woods under any circumstances and you felt that fear while reading the book. Things get even creepier when you throw in some mysterious beings and there is a supernatural element to it. This book, in a word, was raw. I feel like that's the accurate way to describe it. It was all around a book that makes you want to sleep with the light on and keeps you hooked from the first page. I was trying to figure out what happened to Deirdre and what lengths Skye was going to go to in order to get her sister back safe and sound.

Dislikes

My dislikes for this book just herein lie with the fact that I didn't absolutely want to be buried with this book. I'm pretty hesitant to give a book a 4 star rating if I didn't really really like it, so this passed that test. I think it would be a perfect book for end of summer and early fall reading, gearing up for Halloween.

Recommendation

I would recommend this book to fans of the shows I mentioned above as well as anyone who is in the mood for an uber creepy read.

Thank you to Netgalley and Sourcebooks Fire for allowing me the opportunity to read and advanced digital copy of Here There are Monsters, by Amelinda Berube.

I enjoyed the story and the writing of this book. The characters were real, and I cared about what was happening to them. There came a point in the book, however, during which I had to stop reading. It became a bit too creepy, weird and impossible. The writing is vivid, though. And the plot was well-developed.

HERE THERE ARE MONSTERS is a bit of an odd duck. The book begins with Skye being awoken to learn her sister is missing. Deirdre is thirteen and lives almost entirely in her imagination. She has constructed whole worlds there and insists on wandering around in the woods around their house to live them out. As such, Skye did not think much when she noticed her sister was out when she got home. She must have fallen asleep and not noticed her sister had not returned. As the police conduct their search, Skye feels guilty and seeks answers of her own.

With past and present viewpoints, the first half of the book reads like a contemporary young adult novel. Skye and Deirdre had been so close, living out the worlds of Deirdre’s imagination, until they moved to this new town. Skye had made friends and become somewhat popular, leaving Deirdre to her own devices. Skye must balance these with her sister and family, a common problem facing teenagers.

The second half of the book reads as more of a horror, when Skye begins the search for her sister, and the creatures she encounters. The ride gets stranger and stranger as we creep towards the enigmatic and strange ending. Skye and Deirdre were somewhat hard to like- they both seemed rather self-absorbed and a little bit rude to others. However, some of that is due to their age maybe, and the efforts required when you are a little bit different. I was surprised at some of the reactions Skye had to Deirdre being missing, but maybe these align with the stages of grief.

My bigger problem I had with the book was all the labeled “slut shaming” that seemed otherwise unnecessary to the plot. I would have liked more acknowledgment or discouragement of this behavior, but it happens a few times. There are also excuses for sexist behavior by one of the teens that is brushed aside, despite being very offensive.

Overall, it was an interesting read, but not one that I would pick up again. It seemed part YA contemporary and part horror and part fantasy, and I had a bit of a hard time getting into the story and characters as such. Please note that I received an ARC from the publisher through netgalley. All opinions are my own.