I love it when a debut novel catches me completely by surprise. A Cosmology of Monsters is creative, engrossing and just plain entertaining. It's a mash-up of monster horror, coming-of-age and family saga with a splash of strange fantasy and fate. The Turner family's story spans decades and is told by the youngest child, Noah. His family is plagued by monsters....both real and imagined.

I don't want to give away too much and ruin any part of the story, so I'm not going to say much about the plot or even the structure/POV of this novel. It all works together to bring the story full circle. I can say that this story completely sucked me in. I was up reading until the wee hours because I wanted to finish. Very entertaining read!! And very well-written. The story was something new....and it's well told. Nice mix of creepy and emotional.

I totally did not expect to enjoy this book as much as I did. I expected a run-of-the-mill monster sort of story. But this book is so much more. Totally surprised me! Loved it!

I'm definitely looking forward to more by this author. I like his style.

**I voluntarily read a review copy of this book from Knopf-Doubleday via NetGalley. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.**

I don't think I'd classify this as a horror story. More like a weird fiction love story. An incredibly interesting story.

Great characters, compelling plot, amazing setting. Will definitely recommend this book. Can't wait for the public to discover it!

Shaun Hamill's inventive, entertaining debut focuses on a Texas family stalked for decades by monsters.

This very literary novel offers more than thrills and scares, though. It explores grief, mental illness and the way secrets corrode a family.

I'm not a regular reader of horror. A Cosmology of Monsters reminds me a little of Colson Whitehead's Zone One – a fresh take on a genre novel from someone who can really write. (Check out a passage where a character takes flight.)

*I received an advance review copy of this book.

This first book by the author is disturbing, unpredictable, strange, unique and fantastic! It might not be for everyone, but I appreciated how different it was!
Literary horror and fantasy with a nod to Lovecraft.
It begins with how Harry and Margaret Turner met.
They eventually marry and have a family. Daughters Sydney and Eunice and son Noah.
The family is haunted and tormented by monsters.
Only Noah sees them and accepts them. They comfort him when he is younger, and as he gets older it turns into a different sort of relationship.
The family is put through so much, it is a terrifying, yet heartwarming story of their journey through darkness.
Thank you to Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for the e-ARC via NetGalley.

This was an interesting, sometimes smart, and creepy horror story. It was an extremely well-written novel and I appreciated the author's not to Lovecraft throughout the book. I would recommend this book to my customers who like their horror offbeat and literary.

A COSMOLOGY OF MONSTERS
Shaun Hamill
Pantheon Books
ISBN
Hardcover
Horror/Suspense


A COSMOLOGY OF MONSTERS, Shaun Hamill’s debut novel, deftly and effectively straddles a number of genres. It is certainly a work of horror. Hamill pays tribute to H.P. Lovecraft and Ray Bradbury in separate epigraphs at the beginning of the book and the influence of each of them is manifested throughout this grim and haunting coming-of-age tale. There are other elements of other genres, however, including mystery, thriller, and even romance which ultimately make A COSMOLOGY OF MONSTERS a novel with potentially much broader appeal than would appear at first blush from its title.

A COSMOLOGY OF MONSTERS centers upon the Turner family who for reasons gradually made clear over the course of the novel are both cursed and blessed, though mostly the former. The story is narrated by Noah, the youngest son, who does not make an appearance in the proceedings until nearly a third of the way through the book. That said, the history of the family is anything but a contemporary boring begat. We are first introduced to Harry and Margaret Turner, who meet, wed, and conceive two daughters, Sydney and Eunice. Harry at a certain point begins to wander off of the deep end (for reasons eventually made clear), a situation partially manifested by his building and managing a Halloween haunted house before such things became a fixture in popular culture. Harry and Eunice eventually and inconveniently conceive Noah, who brings himself into his own retrospective and not without great insight. Noah seems weird from the start, but that is only because he sees the world from a view that others do not possess. That vision includes a monster which comes a-rapping on his bedroom window each night, a monster who eventually persuades Noah to let it in. These nocturnal visits continue far beyond childhood and evolve into different forms, some expected, some not so much. There are also a couple of quiet and matter-of-fact shockers attached to those visitations, one of which is a series of disappearances over a number of years which include children as well as Noah’s mother and sisters. Noah suspects his monster friend of being behind them, but the truth is much more complicated than that. Things proceed to a twisted ending which is more Grimm than Disney, for certain, and which leaves the reader haunted long after the last page is read.

Hamill wears some of his influences on his sleeve. There are homages to Lovecraft, of course, as well as to Stephen King. With regard to the latter, Hamill gets the subtle message of King’s early work, that being that the true horror in the story isn’t the monster but rather that occasioned by the heartbreak and tragedy found in the everyday visible world and which strikes unpredictably and without warning. That message shines well and darkly in A COSMOLOGY OF MONSTERS as well. There are also nods to Steven Spielberg, Hans Christian Andersen, and the Brothers Grimm. There are even some passages that bring to mind the artwork of Arthur Rackham. The bedrock of the story, however, is all Hamill who will keep you up all night reading and keep you wondering, pondering, and checking your windows for weeks.

Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
© Copyright 2019, The Book Report, Inc. All rights reserved.

Noah and his family are special, but I'm not so sure that's a good thing! A COSMOLOGY OF MONSTERS is a unique story. With a great opening line like: <b> "I started collecting my older sister Eunice’s suicide notes when I was seven years old.” </b> how can one NOT get sucked in?

This tale about a family, the haunted house/attractions they've managed and their unique relationships with, (I'll just call it "the other" for the purposes of this review), made for fascinating reading. As a longtime fan of horror, I loved the shout-outs and homages to those who have come before, most especially Lovecraft and King. (Check out the blurb from King on the cover!)

I also enjoyed the character development here, even if I didn't like most of the characters. Almost none of the characters are perfectly good or bad, they are a mix of both, just like in real life. I did, (mostly), root for them anyway, especially Megan because I thought she got a raw deal.

That said, the story fast-forwarded a bit after extensive time was spent on Noah's early years. At first it was a bit jarring, and then I became accustomed to it. Other than that, one other thing bothered me, but I can't get into it without spoiling a few plot points. I'll just say that I wanted to know more about "the other." More being everything, really. I just wanted more.

For a debut novel, this one kept me turning the pages and I think it will be interesting to see how others react to it. For that reason, I'm going to keep my eyes open for other reviews on this unique and intriguing story. In the meantime, I recommend it!


*Thank you to NetGalley for the e-ARC, (in exchange for my honest review), and thanks to THE LINEUP for their giveaway, in which I received a beautiful hard copy with no strings attached. This review is my honest opinion.*

I wasn't entirely sure what I expected from Hamill's debut novel, but I can certainly say that it wasn't what I got: a really beautiful story about loss, grief, mental illness, and family, with a lively backdrop of horror and science fiction. I was most impressed at how Hamill weaved these different concepts together -- anyone who has experienced mental illness (or had a loved one with mental illness) can surely appreciate how it might feel similar to the sensation of having a great and unknown beast tapping at your window.

I thought the last quarter or so of the story wrapped up too quickly, and maybe too neatly, for my liking; some revelations came awfully fast, and the resolution reached for most of the Turner family members was almost perfunctory. But the very end of it all was great, and I left this story and its characters feeling very satisfied and excited to see what else Hamill has in store for us. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced reader copy.

Noah Turner has a secret he has held close since he was a young boy. He sees monsters and has befriended one for many years. Noah’s father saw them as well. He went on to build an entire immersive horror experience called The Wandering Dark as an homage to the monsters he saw. The themes within this exhibition have in equal measure brought the Turner family wealth and happiness while also tearing them apart.

This is the story of an outside force impacting the fate of a family. At the center of this tale is Noah and his monster and how their relationship affects the rest of the Turner family.

A COSMOLOGY OF MONSTERS is part horror, part speculative fiction, and part fantasy. It is also a story of family interaction and how everything we do impacts those around us. I’ve kept the synopsis vague because I feel that it’s a story that needs to be experienced without too many hints to what may happen.

At the core of this book is Noah Turner, who is telling us the story of his family. We actually aren’t introduced to Noah until later into the book when he is born, as the book launches with how his parents meet. This gives the reader a unique connection to Noah as we experience not only how he views himself, but also how he views his family’s history. I loved getting to know everyone through Noah’s eyes. He has a true sense of honesty for those around him as well as himself.

The structure of this story is uniquely assembled. While the narrative is coming from Noah, as mentioned before, it is broken into parts that are essentially dedicated to specific family members or events from the family’s history. There are at times large time shifts between the parts, which helps to accelerate the story much faster into present-day Noah and how he came to be writing the story of his family. At the end of each section there is also a section featuring a script. At first these threw me off, as they feature an alternate timeline and location, however, as you read more of the script you start to understand their presence in the story and how they link to real-world events.

A COSMOLOGY OF MONSTERS is not a book that I would place in any one single genre. There is an overarching element of horror to the story, which seems obvious when you know you’re walking into a book about monsters. The horror is not straightforward in the sense that you’re reading a book of jump scares. What Hamill gives the reader is much deeper with side of mild gore in some parts of the book. I recommend this story to anyone open to trying something a bit outside of the norm. This is a wonderful, weird, and visceral story that belongs on any TBR!

Disclosure: A huge thank you to Pantheon Books for sending me a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!

A Cosmology of Monsters is the type of horror novel that doesn't feel like a horror novel until you're halfway through and realizing that what you thought was the scary part....actually wasn't.

I almost feel like I'm doing this novel a disservice by attempting to review it because I wasn't the right audience.

Noah is a boy who sees a monster outside of his window. But that's not actually what this story is about. It's also about the life saga of the Turner family in the 1970s-2000s, and their collective experiences with this monster. Some ignore it. Some get intimate (yes, in that way) with it. Some turn to suicide. Some are diagnosed with mental disorders. Some disappear. Some get weirdly cult-ish about it. (Given those phrases, it feels redundant to bring up the triggers for this story but they are numerous.)

All of them find their lives enriched and ruined by its presence.

Told from Noah's precarious point of view as both a semi-omniscient narrator for his pre-birth years and a main character for his life, A Cosmology of Monsters analyzes the everyday horror and not-so-everyday horror. I found the individual scenes extremely gripping and well written, but the overall arc of Noah's Friend, the monster, didn't call to me and at times it seriously irked me. This might be the case of a novel that was just on the wrong side of the knife's edge for my taste—instead of the perfect blend of the everyday literary with the horror, it felt like the wrong blend of both.

I definitely recommend checking this out if you're a hardcore Lovecraft fan—the nods to his work are both in the writing and meta in the text—or if you're willing to dance with a different kind of horror that doesn't rely on blood or ghosts to make it scary.

WOW. I’m struggling to even clarify this book in my mind; this is a genre bending story that is both disturbing and beautiful. Engaging from the first moment, this story manages to be complex without being confusing, reticent without being dry, and horrifying without being crass. I loved it (and didn’t expect to).

Creepy and strange. Such an overall tragic family story. At times it felt a bit too over the top. But I did enjoy the premise of the book.

Shaun Hammill used the best parts of his own horror diet to create a truly memorable first novel (with a killer first line). Cosmology of Monsters is an original, nightmarish horror fantasy with fantastic visuals. While not a YA book , Cosmology should be a smash with teens, and will make an outstanding film.

I can honestly say that this one of the most original books that I have read this year. It tells that story of obsession and love. Of family and monsters, a story that I could barely put down. I would recommend this book to just about anyone who loves horror and a story that projects along at a quick pace. This is one my favorite this year!

I enjoyed "A Cosmology of Monsters" by Sean Hamill, but I did not love it. While I liked every character and the background we got on each of them, I found the horror elements lacking in the second half of the book. I was very intrigued by the monster and the City but I thought it would have served the story better for details about them to remain more mysterious. I also felt that the relationship between Noah and the monster was extremely inappropriate. I realize it's a horror novel and horrifying things are meant to take place but they need to be justified within the terms of the novel and I don't feel it was. I would probably recommend this to fans of Lovecraft as it seems to pay ode to his novels.

Cosmology of monsters is a really excellent melding of family drama and eldritch horror about both the lingering scars family trauma can leave and the the literal scars a cadre of monsters leave. The language is straightforward and the mysteries in the story reveal themselves at a satisfying pace. I will say, I have mixed feelings about some of the subplots, especially the Eunice one, which seemed a bit over the top; I could almost feel the author dragging this character through grief to fuel the main character's sadness. I think Shaun Hamill was ambitious and had a lot he wanted to fit into the story without lingering too much on details. It's just much more plot driven than I usually read, which isn't a bad thing. That's the only reason it loses a star, in my view. That being said, the actual narrative is a quick absorbing read. In fact, I couldn't put it down and finished in two days.

Highly recommended for anyone who liked the Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House, family dramas with an otherworldy twist, and monster lovers.

This stunning literary horror debut hit me in all the right places. I was up way past lights out flipping the pages, fully invested in the Turner family's story and the monster(s) that haven't stopped haunting them for generations.

Good horror is like a good lie, there's a lot of truth mixed in with the rest. In A Cosmology of Monsters, I would say that truth element is generational trauma. The turner family faces a lot of hardship, but their biggest struggle is one of communication and forgiveness. It's a story of regret, reconciliation, and family healing.

But don't get me wrong, it's also about big scary monsters and a hidden inter-dimensional city hungry for your soul. Don't worry, there are true horror elements wrapped up in the interpersonal family drama. Hamill's writing is so beautifully descriptive that it will make you cry and shiver in equal measure.

A Cosmology of Monsters has absolutely landed itself on my favorites of 2019 list. If you enjoy family sagas, literary fiction, horror, or science fiction I highly recommend this debut novel by Hamill. This is, weirdly enough, a book for fans of both Stranger Things AND This Is Us.

It's decently written, and definitely more on the Lovecraftian-inspired, creepy atmosphere side of horror than the gore side (although it has its moments there too). So if horror is something you enjoy, you'll probably like this book. I liked the idea of the Wandering Dark, but beyond that there wasn't anything in the book that made me want to shout about how great it was. A decent debut novel; it'll be interesting to see where Hamill goes next.

As someone who is a fan of horror, I loved this book. It was an original story and I truly enjoyed the monsters and the Turner family.