Originally posted to I Should Read That

The Monster of Elendhaven is a funny one for me, because it had all the ingredients for a great story but just didn’t come together. I love the author’s elegant writing style, the dark and twisted characters, and the atmospheric world building. But ultimately, something about this story didn’t work for me -- it felt rather pointless. I think I just didn’t get it.

The book starts out strong, and I was wondering why I had seen so many mixed reviews about it. However, things stopped clicking somewhere in the middle and it all just fell apart. I am always in awe of novella writers because cramming a fully fledged world, story, and cast of characters into under 200 pages is quite the feat. However, maybe this is a novella that needed more pages to become a fully realised story. I'm not really sure what it was that didn't work for me, but I didn't end up loving this one.