Never a Hero by Vanessa Len
Product details
Web ID: 19875822fast-paced
For Joan Chang-Hunt saving her family by resetting the timeline came at a terrible cost: destroying Nick, the boy raised to be a hero and kill monsters like Joan and the Hunts--the only boy Joan ever loved. Now, Joan is the only one who remembers the previous timeline where she loved and lost Nick, where Aaron taught her what it means to be a monster and became an ally despite all of the odds. But erasing Nick hasn't eliminated the dangerous enemy that honed Nick into a weapon. When that threat resurfaces, Joan finds herself on the run again as the tries to convince both Nick and Aaron to trust her one more time. With threats on every side, Joan will need every ally she can muster if she wants to salvage the timeline once again in Never a Hero (2023) by Vanessa Len. Never a Hero is the second book in Len's Monsters trilogy which begins with Only a Monster (read my review). Joan is biracial (her mother is white and her father Chinese Malaysian) with other main characters assumed white although there is diversity among the monster families and secondary characters. Joan's narration strikes a good balance of recapping previous events while also underscoring what information has been lost to other characters due to the malleability of the timeline throughout this story. The push and pull between Nick and Aaron--and everything they each represent as a hero and a monster, respectively--is further developed as uneasy alliances are forged in an effort to once again protect the timeline and everyone Joan holds dear. Never a Hero expands the monster world as Joan dives more into the politics and fraught history of the monster families. With enemies in hot pursuit this installment has a faster pace and focuses more on the plot compared to the first installment's ethical dilemma's about the nature of how monsters time travel. A cliffhanger ending promises an explosive finale as Joan will once again have to see if she can reconcile the human and monster sides of her identity. Possible Pairings: In Every Generation by Kendare Blake, Passenger by Alexandra Bracken, The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean, The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow, The Last Bloodcarver by Vanessa Le, This Savage Song by V. E. Schwab, Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
A bit of a disappointment after Book 1
I loved the first book and was looking forward to continuing the journey with Joan, Nick and Aaron so much. Maybe my expectations were too high or maybe the second book is simply not as good and fresh as the first one. Book 2 was dragging and for a long time I felt that all the characters did is recall what had happened in Book 1. The old Nick, the new Nick. The old Aaron, the new Aaron. Going back and forth and analysing the differences made this a slow and repetitive read, and the story didn't go anywhere for quite some time. Now of course I'm curious about the upcoming instalment in the series, and I'd still love to see this turned into a movie.
Recommends this product
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com