Little Monsters

Product Information

Young children will be requesting this one at story-time today, and tomorrow and the day after and the next after that! As I said, I was extraordinarily concerned when I saw that Little Monsters had been compared to The Paper Palace and that it had been blurbed by Miranda Cowley Heller. The cover of Little Monsters depicts a gorgeous seascape with a dulcet sky, ocean blues and young children playing in the golden sand. I found it badly written and wildly irresponsible in the way that it depicted incest and sexual assault.

Abby plans to keep her surprise pregnancy a secret until her father’s 70th birthday party in August; that’s when she’ll give him a painting revealing the news. Here you'll find an authentic reflection of how day-to-day life moves forward, often slowly because real life takes time and getting to know the characters always lead to a better experience. Adam Gardner, approaching his 70th birthday, is a marine biologist, whose fading glory days include his expertise on humpback whales. Their father, Adam, a brilliant oceanographer, raised them mostly on his own in his remote home on Cape Cod, where the attachment between Ken and Abby deepened into something complicated—and as adults their relationship is strained. I really enjoyed how Adrienne Brodeur created strong female characters who were capable, intelligent and independent.The cover – a Cape Cod beach setting – and the description of a complicated family with secrets to share reminded me of many others with similar plotting that always appear in the early months of summer. The reader doesn’t get the details because the reader doesn’t need them… and the characters themselves don’t know all of them. There was no character development and the individuals were all just as shitty as they were when the book started.

This is a wonderfully written family/sibling saga with the language at times being almost lyrical and poetic. There is little objective truth here, as everything is revealed through interpretations: Abby’s art, Ken’s polished persona, Adam’s mania.Told through multiple POVs, Little Monsters has the right balance of family drama, flawed characters and the coastal, summer setting of Cape Cod.