When I finish good books, I have several reactions. Sometimes, I just want the next book immediately. Often, I have to put the book down and let it dwell in my thoughts. Occasionally, I want to go back and reread the finished book immediately. Rarely, very rarely, the reading experience is so enjoyable that I wish I could experience reading the book anew all over again. Like I want to forget all of it and read it once more with fresh eyes to experience the joy all over again. J.M. Miro’s Ordinary Monsters is one of these rare books. I’d love to learn all about Marlowe, Charlie Ovid, Komako, Ribs, Alice Quick, and Jacob Marber all over again. This is a book that will stick with me, and it’s going to the top of my reread list.
Disclaimer: The publisher provided a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Any and all opinions that follow are mine alone.
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TL;DR
Life and death battle in J.M. Miro’s Ordinary Monsters. This historical fantasy opens the Talents trilogy, and it’s a wonderful read. Come for the superpowers, stay for the amazing characters. Highly recommended.
From the Publisher
A STUNNING NEW WORK OF HISTORICAL FANTASY, J. M. MIRO’S ORDINARY MONSTERS INTRODUCES READERS TO THE DARK, LABYRINTHINE WORLD OF THE TALENTS
England, 1882. In Victorian London, two children with mysterious powers are hunted by a figure of darkness—a man made of smoke.
Sixteen-year-old Charlie Ovid, despite a brutal childhood in Mississippi, doesn’t have a scar on him. His body heals itself, whether he wants it to or not. Marlowe, a foundling from a railway freight car, shines with a strange bluish light. He can melt or mend flesh. When Alice Quicke, a jaded detective with her own troubled past, is recruited to escort them to safety, all three begin a journey into the nature of difference and belonging, and the shadowy edges of the monstrous.
What follows is a story of wonder and betrayal, from the gaslit streets of London, and the wooden theaters of Meiji-era Tokyo, to an eerie estate outside Edinburgh where other children with gifts—like Komako, a witch-child and twister of dust, and Ribs, a girl who cloaks herself in invisibility—are forced to combat the forces that threaten their safety. There, the world of the dead and the world of the living threaten to collide. And as secrets within the Institute unfurl, Komako, Marlowe, Charlie, Ribs, and the rest of the talents will discover the truth about their abilities, and the nature of what is stalking them: that the worst monsters sometimes come bearing the sweetest gifts.
Riveting in its scope, exquisitely written, Ordinary Monsters presents a catastrophic vision of the Victorian world—and of the gifted, broken children who must save it.
Review: Ordinary Monsters by J. M. Miro
Ordinary Monsters starts with a woman finding a glowing baby aboard a freight train. The baby Marlowe makes his way from England to the U.S. Alice Quicke and Mr. Coulton are in Mississippi looking for a young, black man who cannot die. They find young Charlie Ovid abused and incarcerated by racist southerners. Upon freeing him, Mr. Coulton takes Charlie straight back to England. Ms. Quicke heads to Illinois to find Marlowe. Both Marlowe and Charlie are Talents. This means they have superpowers of a sort. Charlie can heal from anything, including drowning and burning. He feels every bit of pain, once healed, his body is pristine, no scars, not even a blemish. Marlowe can turn blue and heal others. Alice and Mr. Coulton want to take them back to the Cairndale Institute in Scotland. This special school for Talents seeks to protect the special children from the world and more. It turns out that Talented children are being hunted by a Jacob Marber, a man surrounded by clouds of soot that he manipulates. Marber hunts Charlie and Marlowe across the Atlantic, in London, and even on the train trip north to Scotland.
Ordinary Monsters reminds me a bit of Gardens of the Moon by Stephen Erickson in that Miro drops the reader in media res. Eventually, explanations will come for the reader who is patient enough to continue reading. Miro’s world closely resembles the Victorian Era, but there exists a supernatural element that most don’t know about. Talents manipulate flesh or dust or other things, but limits to their powers exist. It takes a while but Miro explains how their powers work. This was a unique take on superpowers that works very well.
Miro’s narrative involves a lot of traveling in both space and time. No, this isn’t a time travel novel. Instead, it’s a nonlinear narrative. Flashbacks fill in important parts of the story that further flesh out the universe while providing explanations and motives for certain characters. In addition, the locales for the story are London, Edinburgh, Tokyo, Mississippi, and Illinois.
Miro cares about fleshing out each narrative. Even tertiary characters who leave the story quickly are given fair treatment. The woman who finds Marlowe has a backstory and a full, though, not fair life. His attention to detail with character drew me into the narrative. I loved each character exploration. Even though this is a superhero narrative, there’s no black and white. Everything’s a bit gray. Our heroes aren’t always selfless or brave. This makes them so much more believable and likable.
Victorian Times
Miro does a great job setting the book in Victorian times. It seems like he’s done a lot of research into the time, and he puts in enough to make the scenery believable without overwhelming the reader. Most of the descriptive scenery that we get is in London. We get some in the U.S., some in Japan, and some in Edinburgh. I’d have liked more scenery in Edinburgh. This book has a lot of ground to cover; so, adding more description would just increase page count. However, I would have liked to dwell more in Japan or Edinburgh because I liked the descriptions that we did get.
Superheroes
Talents are superheroes that don’t act like the superheroes we’re used to. In this book, they’re not out saving the world. They’re not stopping criminals. Though, Marlowe and Charlie are fleeing a supervillain. Most of the action is intra-Talent conflict. Any damage to non-Talents is collateral. We’re not given causes or reasons for why the Talents exist, but there does seem to be some sort of magic in this world. But it’s not a magic that we recognize or understand. Maybe I could be wrong because there’s so much about the superpowers that aren’t explained. Honestly, I don’t care either because it’s so well written, and it’s all internally consistent. Maybe in future volumes we’ll learn more about the workings.
The superpowers are grouped into five categories. I forgot to mark the location where they were defined. But it’s interesting that they seem limited to certain specialties. Within their own category, they can use their powers in a variety of interesting ways. But however they are used, it seems to cause all of them pain. Their powers come from their life force and causes them to live shorter lives. Each power usage comes with a cost.
The Cairndale Institute
When I began reading the book, the talk about the Cairndale Institute and Dr. Berghast made me immediately think of Dr. Xavier and his School for Gifted Children, a.k.a. the X-men. However, as the book goes along, the comparison is surface level at best. There’s so much more going on with Dr. Berghast and the Cairndale Institute. There’s a lot to love about Ordinary Monsters, and learning what’s going on at the institute is up there at the top of the list. Miro’s world gets weirder and weirder the more we learn, and that’s a great thing.
Conclusion
J.M. Miro’s Ordinary Monsters is a beautiful book taking place in London, Boston, Tokyo, and Scotland. It’s exploration of found family is balanced against the corrupting influences of power. Life and death are important to Ordinary Monsters, and it’s a moving meditation on how just how close life is to death. Highly recommended.
Ordinary Monsters by J.M. Miro is available from Flatiron Books now.
© PrimmLife.com 2022