Destroy All Monsters audiobook

Effing brilliant.

Laini Taylor meets John Green in this poignant young adult tale of parallel worlds and deep magic where trauma breaks but friendship heals. Miller offers no easy answers for fighting the all-too-real monsters in our lives but still allows space for hope, healing, and above all, bravery.

A traumatic event happened when Ash and Solomon were twelve years old. Ash can’t remember and Solomon retreats into a fantastical world. Destroy All Monsters is a blend of a hard-hitting YA contemporary and fantasy. It’s similar to Shaun David Hutchinson or A.S. King where the speculative elements seem to be the way that characters cope with hard aspects of their lives. I think that the “reveal” of what happened when they were twelve was pretty easy to predict. That part of the story didn’t offer many surprises. However, the way the story was told through Ash’s eyes in “the real world” and Solomon’s eyes in “Darkside” was pretty unique. It was interesting to try and figure out which parts of “Darkside” related to which things in “the real world.” Sometimes Solomon’s sections could get a little convoluted. I’m also not entirely sure if the mental health representation was the best. I think that mostly things get called out or at least proven to be wrong by the end, but it just left me wanting a little bit more. I think this book definitely won’t be for everyone. The story is told in an odd way and covers some really heavy topics. I’d suggest looking up trigger warnings in some other reviews if you feel so inclined. But it worked for me. I found it to be compelling from start to finish.

this book is beautiful. it’s beautiful, heartbreaking, real, raw, amazing, eye opening, loving, heartfelt ... and just aH. i really loved it. most of the book left me confused, and there’s still a lot of questions unanswered now that the book is over. but it carries a meaning and a purpose which is why i love it. i honestly believe that the storytelling and world description could be slightly better. but. i still think this book was incredible. i also love how real the characters are, specifically Ash and Solomon. i fell in love with both of them immediately. i also really liked how strong their friendship was, and how much they loved each other, without having a romantic relationship. it was refreshing to see a strong, loving, friendship as the main part of the story, instead of a romance, which i feel is pretty rare in ya. but yeah. i can completely understand why some people wouldn’t like this book very much, ‘cause it’s written in a mildly confusing way. some questions are left unanswered. but the deeper meaning behind it is what stood out to me the most. :)

I think I liked this even more the second time around! Miller champions the oppressed, the marginalized, the tossed aside, but he imbues these characters with agency and often badassery. They are not their hopelessness nor their trauma. They chop away at the patriarchy. I am a better person and reader because of Sam J Miller. ......................I'm going to start this review with a "Hell Yeah!" and disclose that I've read nearly everything Miller has written. I'm a huge fan of his work. I'd encourage readers to find his blog to read the many science fiction stories he's written, many of them award-winners, in addition to the now-three novels he's published. Miller's debut novel for teens, The Art of Starving, is probably my all-time favourite of the genre, and his debut novel for adults, Blackfish City, is a gloriously hopeful glimpse at a future dismantled by the destruction of climate change.I feel like I have a pretty firm handle on (and appreciation of) the project(s) Miller tackles with his work. His ability to write in these distinct forms—novel, short story, adult, teen—both impresses and delights me since I never feel like I'm reading the same story just repackaged.I had high hopes for Destroy All Monsters, considering I've been awaiting this novel since January, and I'm entirely satisfied and spent with this latest output. It's original, emotionally stirring, wholly human, and never bleak—even though it covers some heavy topics (which I'm going to avoid talking about for fear of spoilers). If you want to know potential trigger warnings, other reviewers have mentioned those, but so long as a writer is generous with its reader, I tend to simply surrender to the world of the book and be surprised by the world that unfolds here—even when an author or a book ends up gutting me. When I read Miller's earlier work, I felt an undeniable and generous empathy for his characters and a genuine hope for a better world that makes the bleaker moments of the book less crippling. I think you can trust that you are in good hands.This newest novel is the story of two friends, Ash and Solomon, and a bond that they share, even while time and a suppressed trauma from the past has caused a crack in their friendship. Ash's narration is grounded in a cold dissatisfaction with a brutal status quo, while Solomon's is untethered to reality. Solomon embodies an "other side" world where people keep dinosaurs and dragons as pets and those with magic powers are persecuted and othered into oblivion. As I happily grappled with Solomon's complex imaginary world and tried to unlock what haunted these two characters, I was brought into a literary vision that also calls for change—a signature of Miller's work. His stories insist that we can be better—in this case, that we aren't our traumas and that we are capable to "destroy our world's monsters" if we can imagine possibilities, create art, lean on one another, and never lose hope in our inherent goodness.Sam J. Miller is a modern science fiction writer, and you kinda have to expect an unusual and wild ride, but I guarantee you are getting a full-hearted vision if you choose to read this novel. His work is as visionary as Octavia Butler's but he's also more concerned with human relationships than anyone I've read in the genre so far. I cherish his stories because they use the tropes of science fiction to explore often tough issues of identity and friendship and sexuality and activism. Miller's work may appear more akin to Butler in terms of genre, but I would also link his work to that of Audre Lorde and the feminist stance that the personal is political. In "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House," Lorde writes: "For women, the need and desire to nurture each other is not pathological but redemptive, and it is within that knowledge that our real power I rediscovered. It is this real connection which is so feared by a patriarchal world."When you choose to read a Miller novel, you know you are going to learn something about the power of how individuals try to make the world a better place through creativity, the daring to imagine a better world, and the necessary bonds that must form to bring lasting change. There is definitely a loathing of patriarchal oppression in this novel, and he upholds the daring outsider again and again in his work. It's a stirring joy to watch these characters struggle and vie in order to take down the pillars of patriarchy.With Destroy All Monsters, you'll enter a YA world that feels both familiar and unforgettable, scary and redemptive. Comparisons to Patrick Ness' Chaos Walking series and A.S. King's Glory O'Brien's History of the Future are entirely apt, but given his distinctly science fiction pedigree and background, Miller adds his own flavor to the YA realm. This is still a science fiction novel, yes, but it's imaginative and weird and painful and generous and about very real traumas and failures and heroics. It's damn good heart-on-sleeve hand-gripping-armchair writing that makes you feel all sorts of things. So worth the wait.

I loved this. It was a fun mix of magic with life, reality with the unreal. Sam J. Miller is so good - the words were beautiful. I’m going to be thinking about this book for a really long time. Trigger warning for sexual abuse of children.

In his second YA book, Sam J. Miller returns to Hudson, NY to tell the linked stories of Ash and Solomon, two friends who share a strong bond, fallout from trauma, and of course, magic. The characters alternate 1st-person POV through the book, and while both narratives are wildly divergent---Ash is learning to cope with depression in the "real world" by taking prescribed medication; Solomon copes with trauma in a world his mind has constructed to protect him---both protagonists share a mission to protect their town from the monsters who would destroy the marginalized. Recommended for readers who believe in the magic and power that reside in every person.

Hm maybe a little closer to 3.75 but I'm rounding up.

This book had the potential of a five star read, I read the entire thing in one night, so it was at least easy to get into. My main (and pretty much only issue) with this book was the dual narrative. I normally love more than one narrator in a book, but in this case I found myself rejoicing when Solomon's chapters were shorter. Ash was the interesting one to me, and it was easy for her chapters to fly by, reading Solomon's segments felt like a chore. But I would highly recommend this book to just about anyone! So if you're considering reading this, my suggestion would be to do so.

I read this one over a year ago, and while I don't remember the plot too much, the imagery and the surreal writing style that gaslights you into thinking that you're weird for not being able to accept this world as it is (um, in a good way) remains with me. The two worlds stitched together haphazardly, the super interesting relationship between the two characters, and the playground and the parents were my favorite parts. I think about this book very freqently, and if this is what Sam J. Miller can offer, I will be reading all the other books too.

Wow. Beautiful, poetic, and disturbing - a story threaded between the reality lived by Ash and the dark fantasy world inhabited by her best friend Solomon. As we move between them and they seek the roots of their shared trauma, Solomon’s spiral into mental illness is begins to pull her into his darkside world. Enthralling.

*I was given a free copy of this book to write an honest review.*I can’t shake this book off my skin. The longer I stew over it, the more I realize how amazing it is. My heart swells with joy and shrinks in pain at the same time. Ugh…I can’t decide if I need to cry or scream with joy.All I know is M

I wasn't sure what to think of this book in the beginning. It was very hard to follow so I kept getting pulled out of the story. Also there should be a massive trigger warning for Child Molestation, as this is a topic talked about in the book.With all that said, this book did get better and substantially so. By about the 200pg mark I could not put the book down, everything was changing and interesting. This was a very well researched book as it deals with trauma and how some people deal with their trauma. This was very insightful to how some mental illness seems to the person experiencing it. My only issue was I wish the ending was explained a bit more in detail, it wasn't rushed but I felt it could've been more in depth. However, with the more in depth, it would've been much longer and that could've been something the author did not want. This book I think will be harmful to some but also helpful to so many others that it outweighs the harmful aspects. I recommend this book to everyone unless the subject matter is triggering.

Destroy All Monsters, by Sam J. MillerAfter reading “The Art of Starving,” I wanted to read more from Sam J. Miller. After reading “Blackfish City,” I became a certified Sam J. Miller stan. After reading “Destroy All Monsters,” it is safe to say that Sam J. Miller is one of the best young adult and sci-fi authors I have read. This novel takes the perspective of two high school students experiencing terrible realities in different ways. Or perhaps they experience it similarly in two different realities. I can’t really discuss plot points (spoilers) but I can say that it’s dynamic and echoes of the world faced by so many of us who don’t fit the white, cis-hetero, middle-upper class, able-bodied, neurotypical mold of western society. I love the way Miller works with queerness in this story. Though one is gay, the real queerness of this novel is in the narrative and the imagery. I also really love the way Miller describes the world(s) inhabited by the characters. I’ve been following his Instagram for a bit over a year now. His photography is beautiful and I can see how his work there informed how he constructed the settings here.I have to admit, “Destroy All Monsters” is probably Miller’s work I have connected with least. It’s a young adult novel and I could feel that I was not the primary audience through the writing style. “The Art of Starving” was also a young adult book, but there I related to the protagonist on a personal level. There is nothing wrong with the protagonists here; they are fleshed out and dynamic, but their experiences don’t connect with me personally. They have lived through too much that I have not. Thus, I think I’m feeling the young adultness of this novel more clearly.However, that only slowed me down for 40 pages or so. After that, I devoured this book and completely enjoyed the ride. I want to give this book 4.5 stars, but Goodreads doesn’t do half-stars so it’s another 5 star read for me. Miller has released his three novels in quick succession, but I already can’t wait for what’s next.

Read my eARC from EdelweissTW: child sexual abuse, discussion and portrayal of mental illness (depression, PTSD)The structure of Destroy All Monsters is a fascinating one: one part fugue state into a fantasy realm of magic and dinosaurs, one part navigating the real world with its more subtle monsters. It tells the story of Ash and Solomon, two best friends who experienced something in a tree house that Ash doesn't remember and causes Solomon to be on the run most of the time. Using dinosaurs and the magic of photography, the story follows their tale of uncovering that mystery and putting a stop to the crimes happening around town.I really loved the focus on the friendship between Ash and Solomon. They never give up on each other, despite their independent struggles. She supports him but doesn't try to control his life. He cares deeply for her, both in the fantasy of Darkside and in real-life Hudson.This book is also steeped in such empathy. Even the monstrous teenagers are given the opportunity for insight and redemption. They have the opportunity to become monstrous adults, but Miller allows them an unlocked door for another way out. Even though you want to root against the football team, you're always reminded that these are just kids. In terms of content, Miller once again deftly depicts mental illness and trauma through the vehicle that is speculative fiction. Similar to his previous work, there's always that question of what's real and what isn't, but it doesn't distract from the story at all. If anything, it enhances the journey and draws you in with gorgeous descriptions and punchy prose.Come for the dinosaurs, stay for the empathy, friendship, and depiction and exploration of mental illness. Absolutely breathtaking.