Review: Gods & Monsters

Gods & Monsters by Saffron A. Kent
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Gods & Monsters grabbed me from the moment my eyes landed upon the book. It screamed out to me, begging to be read. It sounded like the perfect book for me, and I went in with extremely high expectations. I expected a romance that would touch my soul, one that would leave me thrusting the book towards every romance reader I know… Only it didn’t play out like that.

First off, if you’re looking for a paranormal read, you’ve come to the wrong place. Despite the title, there is no paranormal to be found. Your next thought may be priest romance – it is not that, either. This is a story of forbidden love, a story between two individuals from a small-minded town.

In truth, my feelings are rather mixed when it comes to this book. There were some parts where I felt as though I was done with the book and did not wish to continue, yet there were other parts where I wanted more and could not stop turning the pages. In most ways, I was experiencing dichotomous emotions with this one. I was being pulled from one emotional extreme to the other, feeling both positives and negatives towards this one.

I’ll start with the good, as it’s probably easier that way.

The writing is one of those good things. There were quite a few beautiful lines within this one, many lines that were worth re-reading. It wasn’t a case of every word being a thing of beauty, but there were enough throughout for my mind to pick up on the wonderful way the author can weave words together.

The small-minded town was another element I enjoyed. The nastiness inside of the town, the way people focused upon certain things and blew them out of proportion, and the way there was a focus on the history really grabbed me. It’s the kind of thing we hate in real life, yet in the literary world we really enjoyed. It was really well done with this one, and I found myself loving the way I hated the town.

However, the is a bit more to be found in the list of things I disliked.

The biggest thing is our characters. Our female lead was so naïve. I found myself wanting to shake some sense into her. I know this plays into her small-town experience, but I found myself unable to care about her. At the start I felt some interest, but the more I read the more I disliked her. The same is true for our male lead – the deeper into the story we got, the more I disliked him. I enjoy an alpha hero like any other, but this seemed to cross the line in a-hole category. I’ve had a-hole male leads win me over in the past, but such was not the case here.

Another element I didn’t enjoy was the way their story played out. I kept waiting for the good, that moment that makes it all worthwhile. Except it never seemed to arrive. I love a gritty romance, a dark romance, but even those have moments where I feel my heart fluttering. With this one, I was just waiting. Waiting for something, for anything, that would hit me emotionally. As it was, things were rather predictable and failed to pack the emotional punch.

This saddened me even more because there was such potential with some of the events. There was an element in this one that you do not see that often, something with the potential to have been shocking. As it was, no single scene stands out in the mind. Things happened, but nothing was overly memorable. It’s one of those stories where it will fade into a single blur of information when people ask me about, rather than having anything specific I want to gush about.

Throughout, the story was trying to send a message. When there were beautiful lines the message started to sink in, but it was mostly lost under the events that failed to pack the potential punch. Perhaps I went in with my expectations too high, perhaps this simple wasn’t for me, whatever the case, this one wasn’t all I had hoped it would be.

I’m sure many will enjoy this, but I had been hoping for something more.

View all my reviews