Man Made Monsters is a book I’ve had on my shelf for a while and just gotten to reading now. I love an illustrated book and this truly has some great ones in it! There’s something about it that feels immersive. Keep reading this book review of Man Made Monsters for my full thoughts.
Summary
Tsalagi should never have to live on human blood, but sometimes things just happen to sixteen-year-old girls.
Following one extended Cherokee family across the centuries, from the tribe’s homelands in Georgia in the 1830s to World War I, the Vietnam War, our own present, and well into the future, each story delivers a slice of a particular time period.
Alongside each story, Cherokee artist and language technologist Jeff Edwards delivers illustrations that incorporate Cherokee syllabary.
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
Man Made Monsters is a short story collection following one family throughout time. Each story has a supernatural angle and you never know what to expect. My largest complaint is that some of the chapters are really small and quick paced. I’m talking a matter of pages or even paragraphs. These were pretty difficult for me to follow the narrative thread. My favorite chapters of the collection were the longer chapters because then we are really able to piece apart the story. We can witness and appreciate the supernatural angle to the stories and the ways they intersect with history.
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In Man Made Monsters we not only witness cruelty, but also bargains made in desperation. We witness devastation, loss, and injustice. It’s one of those collections that demands to be read in order. It takes me a while to fall into a story, especially a short story collection or style like this, and so I just wished there had been more space to appreciate. I think if I listened to this on audiobook maybe the flow would have been better, but in physical form it just felt a bit choppy in some places.
Find Man Made Monsters on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon, Bookshop.org, Blackwells, & Libro. fm.