Interesting read. It was quite hard to get into, but I pushed through, and it ending up being a very insightful read.

The images worked well in this book, and I enjoyed the introductions to each character. The treatment of these titular monsters is analytical and literary, academic and entertaining. Manguel produces a book that is smart and yet does not make me want to eat my shoelaces. A perfect illustration of darker figures from fiction, and a book that would pair well with assignments in literature and composition courses.

Let me start by saying that I might have given this book 3 stars if it wasn’t so poorly titled. The characters that Manguel discusses are not all monsters. I get that it’s an homage to a book quote, but I think it’s misleading. If I had gone into this book knowing it was a series of meditations in the author’s favorite literature characters, I probably would have been in a better mindset to appreciate them.

I also think that the meditations were a bit self-indulgent and made some leaps and assumptions that I don’t think were necessary or correct. The writing was spotless in a technical sense, but I didn’t find myself truly enjoying this

This book is a very academic look at literary characters. It was an interesting read but was kind of bland at some points.

I would like to thank the publisher for giving me a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this and I'm sure any literary fan will too!