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Broken Monsters Lauren Beukes Books

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Broken Monsters Lauren Beukes Books

(Full disclosure: I received a free ARC for review through Goodreads’ First Reads program. Also, trigger warning for sexual assault.)

There’s a monster loose in Detroit. A whole lot of them, actually.

First and foremost is the so-called “Detroit Monster,” whose story forms the backbone of BROKEN MONSTERS: The sick you-know-what leaving a trail of dead bodies disguised as art installations across the city, starting with an eleven-year-old boy named Daveyton Lafonte. From the navel up, the killer fused his mutilated body onto the lower portion of a deer’s using meat glue. (Google it.)

But there’s also Philip Low, the middle-aged electrical engineer with the undeservedly kind face, who trolls the ‘net for young girls using the pseudonym “VelvetBoy”; Jonno, a “citizen journalist” from New York City, who exploits tragedy for page hits under the guise of journalistic integrity; and the adolescent boys of Hines High School, who think nothing of sharing a video of their classmate’s sexual assault – and then re-enacting the trauma for laughs.

The events in BROKEN MONSTERS unfold over the course of one chilly week in November, told from multiple perspectives: Detective Gabriella (“Gabi”) Versado, the Detroit Detective charged with leading the investigation into Davey’s murder; Gabi’s fifteen-year-old daughter, Layla; Jonno, who starts out covering the Detroit art scene but soon finds himself embroiled in the Detroit Monster’s master plot; Thomas “TK” Keen, a homeless ex-con who just wants to keep his adopted family safe; and Clayton Broom, a washed-up artist and stalker of women. (Well, one woman anyway: Louanne, with whom he had a one-night stand some three years ago.)

There’s quite a bit to savor here. First, the landscape: Set in Detroit, the beleaguered city is a character unto itself. From entire blocks of boarded-up homes to looted strip clubs and abandoned buildings reimagined as giant “Dream House” art projects, Beukes takes us well beyond the realm of “ruins porn.” Somewhat fittingly, the story’s climax/showdown takes place in the husk of what once was an auto factory, complete with creepy, tooth-like robot arms, basements long since flooded, and abandoned opulence. Most importantly, she captures the humanity of the people who still call this city home: people who struggle to survive in the face of an economic system that threatens to eat them alive.

Ghosts haunt the city, its buildings, the residents: “ghosts of the industries on top of ghosts of the natives – we’ve got thousands of years of ghosts here.” (page 185) The Detroit Monster’s “ghost doors” seemingly offer a means of escape.

I also love Beukes’s skillful use of pop culture and current events to augment the story. Exhibits A through F: Facebook’s desperately tedious and redundant process for deleting accounts. YouTube’s notoriously sexist policy re: videos and images that depict breastfeeding. The sexual wasteland that is SnapChat (or SpinChat as it’s called here). Layla and Cas’s “To Catch a Predator”-style sting. Trayvon Martin and Renisha Brown. The Flying Spaghetti Monster!

That said, it feels like BROKEN MONSTERS is missing that little, indefinable “something.” I think the blending of suspense/crime fiction and fantasy just didn’t sit well with me. For most of the book’s 435 pages, I read the killer as some poor schmuck with an undiagnosed/untreated mental illness (characterized primarily by auditory and visual hallucinations). Suddenly, in the last fifty pages or so, other people with whom he’s come into contact begin having similar experiences: Tattoos come to life. Glass birds take flight. Corpses reanimate. Doors to other dimensions swing open. And so on and so forth. The shift from reality to fantasy seemed to happen so suddenly that I found it jarring. Unsatisfying. And this comes from someone who reads a ton of Stephen King.

I actually found the subplots infinitely more interesting than the hunt for the serial killer. In Jonno’s rush to the top at any expense, we have a searing indictment of media sensationalism. Jonno doesn’t care who he hurts as long as he gets the scoop on the next big story. And indeed, he doesn’t even seem to care if something is news, just as long as it attracts ye ole eyeballs.

And Layla? She’s the real badass of the story. From exposing an internet pedophile to holding her peers accountable for their perpetuation of rape culture, I found myself on Team Layla from the get-go. And with Cas, Beukes puts a very real, very relateable face on the survivors of sexual assault in a digital age.
The interrogation of racism and rape culture makes BROKEN MONSTERS an especially engaging read.
The diversity of characters is also refreshing. Layla is an Afro-Latina, with a black father and Latina mother. TK is African-American, and his best friend Ramon is Latino. Like Layla, classmate Travis comes from a biracial household. (Etc.)

Though the ARC weighs in at a hefty 435 pages, I never found myself bored, or my attention wandering. While there are some aspects of the story that failed to resonate with me, Beukes’s writing style is mesmerizing. This is my first Beukes novel, but it won’t be my last: THE SHINING GIRLS has just been bumped to the top of my TBR pile.


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Broken Monsters Lauren Beukes Books Reviews

A very original novel in the oft-repeated serial killer genre that crosses into the realm of the supernatural. Detroit homicide detective Gabriella Versado is trying to hunt down a vicious serial killer who makes horrific artistic tableaus out of his victims while also trying to watch over her vigillante teen-age daughter, who has set out to entrap and blackmail pedophiles on-line. The twin narratives intersect for a horrifying conclusion.

Beukes clearly has a talent for suspense and horror, but also has a keen eye for detailing the real-life horror of a deindustrialize city. Detroit, itself, here is a monster of it's own... a city haunted by poverty and violence. This is one of the best Urban Gothic novels in many a year!
I liked the book. As a native Detroiter, I found the efforts to localize the story a bit heavy-handed; it may not strike non-natives the same way. Having just finished the book I'm, at the moment, on the fence how I feel about the genre-blending I went in thinking I was reading a horror novel and experienced an initial letdown at what appeared to be a procedural; it wasn't til far into the book that I got what I came looking for (though to be fair, murder and murderers and murdering are all, by definition, horrors). On the one hand the technique strikes me as fresh/modern seeming, showing authorly independence and freedom, which I'm in full support of. I gather this is a thing LB enjoys doing and it does feel deliberately handled, not like someone had written two pieces they couldn't bear to part with that didn't match up. Still, it felt jarring to me as a reader when I arrived at the seam. Still deciding how I feel about that.
Broken Monsters is both a police procedural and a horror. The body of a boy is found in... an unnatural state, one may say. We watch as a police officer tries to solve the crime; as her teenage daughter makes mistakes that ripple outside of her small world; as a homeless man takes care of those around him, including his closest friend; as a strange artist finds sudden inspiration; as a failed writer turns to Detroit for salvation. These characters' stories are interwoven, but not 'seamlessly' -- that is to say, the novel jumps between perspectives and times. While it does not suit some, I found this to be the perfect way of telling the story, as some Frankenstein-esque being of different limbs that come together to form a fully functioning body.

One of the things that I loved most about this book is all the extraneous detail. There are subplots that don't mean too much to the main storyline, but that doesn't matter, because they really show how messy life is. I also really enjoyed the setting -- the description of a decrepit Detroit -- and Beukes brief discussions of racism, rape culture, and art vs "art."

The only thing I didn't like about the book was the very end, which seemed so climactic it veered very slightly toward cliché. With that being said, it didn't fully take away my enjoyment of the book, and I still recommend it to anyone who enjoys either genre. I really hope that the rumours that this will become a movie prove to be true!

Started October 4, 2014
Finished October 12, 2014

Rating 8/10
(Full disclosure I received a free ARC for review through Goodreads’ First Reads program. Also, trigger warning for sexual assault.)

There’s a monster loose in Detroit. A whole lot of them, actually.

First and foremost is the so-called “Detroit Monster,” whose story forms the backbone of BROKEN MONSTERS The sick you-know-what leaving a trail of dead bodies disguised as art installations across the city, starting with an eleven-year-old boy named Daveyton Lafonte. From the navel up, the killer fused his mutilated body onto the lower portion of a deer’s using meat glue. (Google it.)

But there’s also Philip Low, the middle-aged electrical engineer with the undeservedly kind face, who trolls the ‘net for young girls using the pseudonym “VelvetBoy”; Jonno, a “citizen journalist” from New York City, who exploits tragedy for page hits under the guise of journalistic integrity; and the adolescent boys of Hines High School, who think nothing of sharing a video of their classmate’s sexual assault – and then re-enacting the trauma for laughs.

The events in BROKEN MONSTERS unfold over the course of one chilly week in November, told from multiple perspectives Detective Gabriella (“Gabi”) Versado, the Detroit Detective charged with leading the investigation into Davey’s murder; Gabi’s fifteen-year-old daughter, Layla; Jonno, who starts out covering the Detroit art scene but soon finds himself embroiled in the Detroit Monster’s master plot; Thomas “TK” Keen, a homeless ex-con who just wants to keep his adopted family safe; and Clayton Broom, a washed-up artist and stalker of women. (Well, one woman anyway Louanne, with whom he had a one-night stand some three years ago.)

There’s quite a bit to savor here. First, the landscape Set in Detroit, the beleaguered city is a character unto itself. From entire blocks of boarded-up homes to looted strip clubs and abandoned buildings reimagined as giant “Dream House” art projects, Beukes takes us well beyond the realm of “ruins porn.” Somewhat fittingly, the story’s climax/showdown takes place in the husk of what once was an auto factory, complete with creepy, tooth-like robot arms, basements long since flooded, and abandoned opulence. Most importantly, she captures the humanity of the people who still call this city home people who struggle to survive in the face of an economic system that threatens to eat them alive.

Ghosts haunt the city, its buildings, the residents “ghosts of the industries on top of ghosts of the natives – we’ve got thousands of years of ghosts here.” (page 185) The Detroit Monster’s “ghost doors” seemingly offer a means of escape.

I also love Beukes’s skillful use of pop culture and current events to augment the story. Exhibits A through F Facebook’s desperately tedious and redundant process for deleting accounts. YouTube’s notoriously sexist policy re videos and images that depict breastfeeding. The sexual wasteland that is SnapChat (or SpinChat as it’s called here). Layla and Cas’s “To Catch a Predator”-style sting. Trayvon Martin and Renisha Brown. The Flying Spaghetti Monster!

That said, it feels like BROKEN MONSTERS is missing that little, indefinable “something.” I think the blending of suspense/crime fiction and fantasy just didn’t sit well with me. For most of the book’s 435 pages, I read the killer as some poor schmuck with an undiagnosed/untreated mental illness (characterized primarily by auditory and visual hallucinations). Suddenly, in the last fifty pages or so, other people with whom he’s come into contact begin having similar experiences Tattoos come to life. Glass birds take flight. Corpses reanimate. Doors to other dimensions swing open. And so on and so forth. The shift from reality to fantasy seemed to happen so suddenly that I found it jarring. Unsatisfying. And this comes from someone who reads a ton of Stephen King.

I actually found the subplots infinitely more interesting than the hunt for the serial killer. In Jonno’s rush to the top at any expense, we have a searing indictment of media sensationalism. Jonno doesn’t care who he hurts as long as he gets the scoop on the next big story. And indeed, he doesn’t even seem to care if something is news, just as long as it attracts ye ole eyeballs.

And Layla? She’s the real badass of the story. From exposing an internet pedophile to holding her peers accountable for their perpetuation of rape culture, I found myself on Team Layla from the get-go. And with Cas, Beukes puts a very real, very relateable face on the survivors of sexual assault in a digital age.
The interrogation of racism and rape culture makes BROKEN MONSTERS an especially engaging read.
The diversity of characters is also refreshing. Layla is an Afro-Latina, with a black father and Latina mother. TK is African-American, and his best friend Ramon is Latino. Like Layla, classmate Travis comes from a biracial household. (Etc.)

Though the ARC weighs in at a hefty 435 pages, I never found myself bored, or my attention wandering. While there are some aspects of the story that failed to resonate with me, Beukes’s writing style is mesmerizing. This is my first Beukes novel, but it won’t be my last THE SHINING GIRLS has just been bumped to the top of my TBR pile.