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Monsters #2
Never a Hero: The sequel to captivating YA fantasy novel, Only a Monster
This sequel to the contemporary fantasy Only a Monster will take Joan deeper into the monster world, where treacherous secrets and even more danger await.
Despite all of the odds, Joan achieved the impossible. She reset the timeline, saved her family – and destroyed the hero, Nick.
But her success has come at a terrible cost.
She alone remembers what happened. Now, Aaron, her hard-won friend – and maybe more – is an enemy, trying to kill her. And Nick, the boy she loved, is a stranger who doesn’t even know her name. Only Joan remembers that there is a ruthless and dangerous enemy still out there.
When a deadly attack forces Joan back into the monster world as a fugitive, she finds herself on the run with Nick – as Aaron closes in.
As the danger rises – and Nick gets perilously closer to discovering the truth of what Joan did to him – Joan discovers a secret of her own. One that threatens everyone she loves.
Torn between love and family and monstrous choices, Joan must find a way to re-gather her old allies to face down the deadliest of enemies, and to save the timeline itself.
Vanessa Len’s stunning Only a Monster trilogy continues with this second instalment, a thrilling journey where a secret past threatens to unravel everyone's future.
Despite all of the odds, Joan achieved the impossible. She reset the timeline, saved her family – and destroyed the hero, Nick.
But her success has come at a terrible cost.
She alone remembers what happened. Now, Aaron, her hard-won friend – and maybe more – is an enemy, trying to kill her. And Nick, the boy she loved, is a stranger who doesn’t even know her name. Only Joan remembers that there is a ruthless and dangerous enemy still out there.
When a deadly attack forces Joan back into the monster world as a fugitive, she finds herself on the run with Nick – as Aaron closes in.
As the danger rises – and Nick gets perilously closer to discovering the truth of what Joan did to him – Joan discovers a secret of her own. One that threatens everyone she loves.
Torn between love and family and monstrous choices, Joan must find a way to re-gather her old allies to face down the deadliest of enemies, and to save the timeline itself.
Vanessa Len’s stunning Only a Monster trilogy continues with this second instalment, a thrilling journey where a secret past threatens to unravel everyone's future.
496 pages, Paperback
First published August 29, 2023
399 people are currently reading
27134 people want to read
About the author
Vanessa Len
3 books1,897 followersVanessa Len is an internationally bestselling Australian author and educational editor. Her first novel, Only a Monster, won the 2022 Aurealis Award for Best Young Adult Novel, and has been translated into nine languages. The sequel, Never a Hero, is out now.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,934 reviews
February 26, 2022
praying for more aaron
November 24, 2023
Is anyone team Nick? We're all team Aaron right?
Nick better not come back.
After reading: 3.5 stars
Way too much time travel details which I had to work not to think about too hard or it gets messy, WAY TOO LITTLE AARON.
Nick better not come back.
After reading: 3.5 stars
Way too much time travel details which I had to work not to think about too hard or it gets messy, WAY TOO LITTLE AARON.
September 11, 2023
not as exciting as the first one (the first 150 pages were SO SLOW) but the it really pulled together for a compelling end! i can't wait to read the final book in the trilogy - i am firmly team aaron oliver. absolutely crazyyyyy reveals and i can't wait to see joan really take control of her power
10/19/22: SHE HAS A COVER AND IT'S BEAUTIFUL
02/08/22: so we're all dying until this comes out right?
10/19/22: SHE HAS A COVER AND IT'S BEAUTIFUL
02/08/22: so we're all dying until this comes out right?
August 20, 2023
"This isn't the first time we've met, she wanted to say. We knew each other in another lifetime."
HOW DID WE GO FROM THAT TO, "-you have no idea how much joy I'll take in your execution."
PLSSSSSSSSSS (love the angst ty vanessa). this universe got so much more fleshed out which i loved. the world building, the lore, everything is slowly connecting !! also, the little parallels between the old timeline and our current timeline had me squealing. not too much happened in the first half of the book but luckily i love our cast of characters so it was still enjoyable to read! the second half is where everything really kicked off. and the ending felt like i was in a marvel movie, it was PHENOMENAL
i'm still team aaron even though i'm constantly reminded nick and joan are soulmates in every timeline... (suddenly i can't read!). i can't wait for the final book! jamie and tom have my heart😭
(thank you vanessa len for personally sending me a copy <3 this review is entirely my honest opinion!)
HOW DID WE GO FROM THAT TO, "-you have no idea how much joy I'll take in your execution."
PLSSSSSSSSSS (love the angst ty vanessa). this universe got so much more fleshed out which i loved. the world building, the lore, everything is slowly connecting !! also, the little parallels between the old timeline and our current timeline had me squealing. not too much happened in the first half of the book but luckily i love our cast of characters so it was still enjoyable to read! the second half is where everything really kicked off. and the ending felt like i was in a marvel movie, it was PHENOMENAL
i'm still team aaron even though i'm constantly reminded nick and joan are soulmates in every timeline... (suddenly i can't read!). i can't wait for the final book! jamie and tom have my heart😭
(thank you vanessa len for personally sending me a copy <3 this review is entirely my honest opinion!)
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June 28, 2023Source of book: NetGalley (thank you)
Relevant disclaimers: None
Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.
And remember: I am not here to judge your drag, I mean your book. Books are art and art is subjective. These are just my personal thoughts. They are not meant to be taken as broader commentary on the general quality of the work. Believe me, I have not enjoyed many an excellent book, and my individual lack of enjoyment has not made any of those books less excellent or (more relevantly) less successful.
Further disclaimer: Readers, please stop accusing me of trying to take down “my competition” because I wrote a review you didn’t like. This is complete nonsense. Firstly, writing isn’t a competitive sport. Secondly, I only publish reviews of books in the subgenre where I’m best known (queer romcom) if I have good things to say. And finally: taking time out of my life to read an entire book and then write a GR review about it would be a profoundly inefficient and ineffective way to damage the careers of other authors. If you can’t credit me with simply being a person who loves books and likes talking about them, at least credit me with enough common sense to be a better villain.
*******************************************
Miraculously, I have managed to keep this almost entirely spoiler free.
Look … I … I just cannot be coherent about this.
Put it this way, okay. I’ve read a fair second-books-of-trilogies recently, stories I have enjoyed and allowed myself to be swept up in, and which have left me eager for the finale. But I’ve always begun my reviews with kind of a … second book in a trilogy disclaimer? You know, happy to be with these characters again, some development of the overall plot but lacking the impetus/stakes/tension of the first book, felt a little bit like treading water/setting up for the bit climax.
WELL, ABSOLUTELY NONE OF THAT APPLIES HERE.
Never A Hero is some kind of fucking masterclass in how to write the second book of a trilogy—
(wait, I am allowed to say this thing that is blatantly a trilogy is a trilogy, right? Sorry I’m apparently still a bit sore over being told a completely different YA author had declared such non-revelations verboten).
Anyway.
Assuming it is okay to say trilogies that are blatantly trilogies are, in fact, trilogies: Never A Hero is some kind of fucking masterclass in how to write the second book of a trilogy. Tension is maintained throughout. Stakes are established (and sky high) almost immediately. We get to visit old friends in new contexts. We get to see more of the setting than we saw in the first book. And—mostly importantly of all—information comes to light that completely re-shapes your understanding the world so the book never feels like filler or loses its forward momentum. I mean, honestly. How is this Vanessa Len’s debut series? HOW? It’s just so expertly put together in every conceivable way. The rest of us might as well just pack up and go home.
In any case, before I go on there are two things I need to get out of the way.
1. The book ends on the mother of all cliff-hangers.
Except I think you should read it anyway. I mean, no, you should do what works for you. On this occasion, however, I think there’s a pretty strong case to be made that it’s worth reading the book when it comes out rather than waiting for 3. I can definitely understand wanting to see a story through to its ultimate conclusion in one fell swoop but—having thought about why I was okay with Never A Hero when I’ve been less okay with other on-going book series—my sense is that cliff-hangers are only emotionally unsatisfying if they feel like they’re the *only* point of the book. Like if you all you got from reading it was big “what next.” With Never A Hero there is plenty to keep you going in terms of character development and new revelations. I finished the book in a welter of excitement for the next final instalment, but also completely satisfied. Yes, this book is, to some unavoidable degree, set it up for the next one but it also feels fully integrated into the broader arc of the series.
2. You will feel Aaron Oliver is not in this book “enough”.
And I think this is going to be complicated? I mean, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s not going to be complicated at all. But I’ve seen a few comments there and there and it kind of got of me thinking about … not shipping wars exactly, but the expectations we bring to authors when we fall in love with a particular character or characters. Let me just say first, though, it’s totally okay to have faves and it’s totally okay to want to, um, consume as much of them as possible. It’s also okay to have deep emotions about the quantity of Aaron Oliver in this book (although, let me make very clear, I challenge anyone to feel anything other than ecstatic over the *quality* of Aaron Oliver in this book). But I do lowkey get concerned when “I personally wanted more of [x] or less of [y]” doesn’t just become “so I didn’t like the book as much as I thought I was going to” but instead morphs into “so the book is bad” with a strong implication of or indeed explicitly stated, “ergo the author made an incorrect creative choice.”
I think where I’m going with this is that relationships between authors and readers are complex. Obviously it’s a breach of trust for author to deliberately (or ignorantly) make choices aimed at hurting or disappointing readers e.g. I will market this (or allow this to be marketed) as a genre romance but one of them dies in the end. But, at the same time, I don’t feel readers are baby birds into whose open mouths authors are required to disgorge their story in the most digestible format. Like, I don’t want to be fucked around by an author, but at the same time, it’s not an author’s job to give me exactly what I want exactly when and how I want it. To put it another way, I’m cool with how Never A Hero handled Aaron Oliver. Would I, in pure goblin mode, have wanted more of him? Yes, he’s my fucking favourite. I would take as much of him as I can reasonably (or unreasonably) get.
BUT: I also respect the author’s creative choices here. And I don’t even mean in that in a mindless acceptance way. I mean, the emotional journey of “oh no, it’s exactly like he said it would be, he’s a villain now, help my feelings” was more satisfying than any faster burn “get him on page as quick as possible” type outcome. More to the point, these are books about time travel: context is always significant. The “when” and the “how” of when you revisit something. The ways it may be different and the ways it isn’t. We spent Only A Monster mostly with Aaron and then got some revelations about Nick at the end. Never A Hero we spend initially with Nick and then we learn more about Aaron. Structurally, this really *really* works. And, finally, something I really appreciate about Vanessa Len as an author, and about how she’s put this series together, is there are always consequences to what happens. I personally find it kind of frustration when books or TV shows or other media set up twists or climaxes for the sake of being twists or climaxes, and then basically undo in the next book/episode etc. When Aaron warns Joan that he’ll be different in another timeline—that she can’t trust him—he’s partially speaking of, y’know, sexy self-loathing but also he’s correct. And treating that seriously—for Aaron to be a credible threat—is important and, frankly, a huge source of tension and anxious feels across the book as a whole.
Basically: it’s always okay to want what we want or for what we want to run contrary to the author’s own vison for the work or even for the author to fail to deliver on their own vision. But, at the same time, I think it’s important not to treat deviation from our personal preferences as authorial failure. Vanessa Len earned my trust as reader in Only A Monster and continues to maintain that trust in Never A Hero. I couldn’t particularly tell you what I *expected* from this book. But it’s a breathtakingly ambitious and satisfying sequel, and I wouldn’t want it to be anything other than what it is.
It's also kind of impossible to talk about without spoiling shit and I don’t want to do that. So I’m going to navigate that as best as I can with vagueness and enthusiasm. The book opens with Joan stranded in her new timeline, the only person who can remember that once things were different. Except this also isn’t wholly the same timeline as it was before: yes, her family are still, but there are subtle and persistent differences. People who have disappeared. Nick—who is, of course, no longer the hero, no longer the Nick she knew—joining her school. Then Joan (and coincidentally Nick) are attacked at the bakery where she works, putting them both on the run again, and drawing them back into the very conspiracy Joan originally un-made Nick to destroy.
What’s remarkable about Never A Hero’s build to its absolutely explosive climax is the way it circles the events of the first book, re-contextualising them, but never quite repeating them. There’s a getting the gang back together vibe for at least the middle third and ye Gods does it feel good to see those people again, especially after the intense loneliness of the opening where Joan is essentially stranded in a timeline only she understands is different. There is a lot of ground to cover here, especially in terms of just how much new information we get about the world and what was actually going on last book. This is, occasionally, to the detriment of character. Ruth, in particular, is less vivid than she was in Only A Monster, and I missed her. Plus, while I was happy to see Tom and Jamie together on page, they are often reduced to sharing looks in which magic couple communication takes place—I can understand not wanting to slow the pace with too much dialogue, but I personally could have taken more of the queer couple directly interacting with each other. Mostly, though, I was awed by the number of plates Vanessa Len has kept spinning here.
Joan remains an absolute hero to me, determined, yet vulnerable, and far from perfect. Also can I please just take a moment to celebrate a book that recognises that fucking with someone’s brain is an absolute violation, even if it’s happening to a person with relative privilege compared to those around them. I seem to have brushed up against too many things recently that have sort of cheerfully elided how messed up and consent-erasing it is to alter someone’s perceptions or behaviour (or allow them to act on the basis of incomplete information) if the someone in question happens to be a straight white man. Like, I’m not the biggest fan of straight white men myself but that doesn’t mean I think it’s okay to treat their brains like silly putty.
ANYWAY. I loved all the new insights Never A Hero provides, as well as all its superbly handled twists, turns, and revelations. I really love how Len handles her world-building. Magicians, time travellers, families, a sinister court: these are not, on their own terms, especially original elements but Len brings both a freshness and a darkness to them, as well as a stark awareness of privilege that is quite transformative. While this book is as much as a breathless adventure story as its predecessor, its explicit themes of memory, knowledge, perspective—and how those things might be controlled, changed or erased—foreground its on-going preoccupation with identity. Specifically what shapes identity and how power can be used to re-shape it, much as Nick was re-shaped into the hero in Only A Monster. I’m also beyond fascinated by glimpses of time itself we get throughout the book. The heroine’s sense of its curtailed will, the way it is essentially presented as a colonised being. I genuinely can’t wait to see how this is further explored in the third book.
I will, however, say that, despite my heartfelt defence of Nick’s presence and Aaron’s absence, Nick is a little bit the weakest link here. I admire what Len is trying to achieve with him—writing a genuinely good/heroic person is fucking difficult—but he’s just not as interesting as literally anyone else around him. Like, I’m sorry to say this but maybe being horribly tortured was what made him interesting? Because without that edge, he’s just a nice guy who is nice and whose flaws are all job interview flaws, along the lines of “well, maybe I’m just a little bit too loyal, understanding and amazing.” Obviously I want Joan to have all the good things—and there is no escaping the fact that Nick is a good thing—but I do find Nick hard to like (and/or fancy) on in any terms beyond any abstract recognition of his role in the book and what he represents. I don’t think that necessarily means I want Joan to end up with Aaron either. But I like Joan’s relationship with Nick only because Joan herself seems to like it, not because I myself like it, if that distinction makes sense. This setup of this book offers the reader (and indeed Joan) an opportunity to get to know Nick as something beyond the hero he was forced to be.
Unfortunately, all I really got from him was football, muscles, and a generalised sense of decency. And I’m afraid that just doesn’t feel like … enough. Especially because Aaron Oliver is a haughty, vulnerable, self-loathing charisma bomb and we all want to do him and/or heal him (although he’s a teenager, so not really, and also fictional, so not really). On top of which Nick and Joan are brushing perilously close to my least favourite romance trope which I won’t dig into because it’s a spoiler and also because I am reserving judgement until the third book. I just can’t believe that a series so embedded in ideas about agency and self-determination could, you know, be going down that route romantically speaking.
Back to Aaron, though. I need to take a moment to reiterate just how much I appreciate him as a character, and not just for inappropriate (he’s a fictional teenager) thirst-based reasons. We first meet him in book 1, non-heroically and humiliatingly begging for his life, and his personal horror of violence continues to this book. I mean, I honestly think all sensible people have a horror of violence, but it still feels rare to me for characters (especially male characters) who we are otherwise supposed to like/admire to be presented as physically cowardly. For that to be … okay? I think the only other piece of media I’ve seen that does this is, err, the Deep Space Nine episode ‘Nor To Battle The Strong’ where Jake Sisko singularly fails to discover his inner machismo/heroism when cast into a dangerous situation (this is extra fascinating in the context of Star Trek where particular kinds of strength are just taken for granted). Anyway, I think all Vanessa Len’s choices around Aaron—his fearfulness, his brittleness, his own core of goodness—are bold, and kind of unique. Which might be why Nick suffers quite so much in comparison, at least in this book.
Of course, having written that and thinking again about the way this series approaches identity, I think it we do have to recognise that Nick is someone who has had his identity stripped from him—or otherwise altered—multiple times. In that context, his slight blankness, and his lack of depth, are probably reasonable. But it still doesn’t necessarily make him super fun to read about.
In any case, I hope it’s coming across that pontificating is very much my love language. And my love for these books is through the fucking roof. I tried to keep my expectations in check, but Never A Hero is a more than worthy successor to Only A Monster. At this point, I honestly feel the third book is basically a victory lap for the author. I can’t wait to see her bring this phenomenal series home.
Relevant disclaimers: None
Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.
And remember: I am not here to judge your drag, I mean your book. Books are art and art is subjective. These are just my personal thoughts. They are not meant to be taken as broader commentary on the general quality of the work. Believe me, I have not enjoyed many an excellent book, and my individual lack of enjoyment has not made any of those books less excellent or (more relevantly) less successful.
Further disclaimer: Readers, please stop accusing me of trying to take down “my competition” because I wrote a review you didn’t like. This is complete nonsense. Firstly, writing isn’t a competitive sport. Secondly, I only publish reviews of books in the subgenre where I’m best known (queer romcom) if I have good things to say. And finally: taking time out of my life to read an entire book and then write a GR review about it would be a profoundly inefficient and ineffective way to damage the careers of other authors. If you can’t credit me with simply being a person who loves books and likes talking about them, at least credit me with enough common sense to be a better villain.
*******************************************
Miraculously, I have managed to keep this almost entirely spoiler free.
Look … I … I just cannot be coherent about this.
Put it this way, okay. I’ve read a fair second-books-of-trilogies recently, stories I have enjoyed and allowed myself to be swept up in, and which have left me eager for the finale. But I’ve always begun my reviews with kind of a … second book in a trilogy disclaimer? You know, happy to be with these characters again, some development of the overall plot but lacking the impetus/stakes/tension of the first book, felt a little bit like treading water/setting up for the bit climax.
WELL, ABSOLUTELY NONE OF THAT APPLIES HERE.
Never A Hero is some kind of fucking masterclass in how to write the second book of a trilogy—
(wait, I am allowed to say this thing that is blatantly a trilogy is a trilogy, right? Sorry I’m apparently still a bit sore over being told a completely different YA author had declared such non-revelations verboten).
Anyway.
Assuming it is okay to say trilogies that are blatantly trilogies are, in fact, trilogies: Never A Hero is some kind of fucking masterclass in how to write the second book of a trilogy. Tension is maintained throughout. Stakes are established (and sky high) almost immediately. We get to visit old friends in new contexts. We get to see more of the setting than we saw in the first book. And—mostly importantly of all—information comes to light that completely re-shapes your understanding the world so the book never feels like filler or loses its forward momentum. I mean, honestly. How is this Vanessa Len’s debut series? HOW? It’s just so expertly put together in every conceivable way. The rest of us might as well just pack up and go home.
In any case, before I go on there are two things I need to get out of the way.
1. The book ends on the mother of all cliff-hangers.
Except I think you should read it anyway. I mean, no, you should do what works for you. On this occasion, however, I think there’s a pretty strong case to be made that it’s worth reading the book when it comes out rather than waiting for 3. I can definitely understand wanting to see a story through to its ultimate conclusion in one fell swoop but—having thought about why I was okay with Never A Hero when I’ve been less okay with other on-going book series—my sense is that cliff-hangers are only emotionally unsatisfying if they feel like they’re the *only* point of the book. Like if you all you got from reading it was big “what next.” With Never A Hero there is plenty to keep you going in terms of character development and new revelations. I finished the book in a welter of excitement for the next final instalment, but also completely satisfied. Yes, this book is, to some unavoidable degree, set it up for the next one but it also feels fully integrated into the broader arc of the series.
2. You will feel Aaron Oliver is not in this book “enough”.
And I think this is going to be complicated? I mean, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s not going to be complicated at all. But I’ve seen a few comments there and there and it kind of got of me thinking about … not shipping wars exactly, but the expectations we bring to authors when we fall in love with a particular character or characters. Let me just say first, though, it’s totally okay to have faves and it’s totally okay to want to, um, consume as much of them as possible. It’s also okay to have deep emotions about the quantity of Aaron Oliver in this book (although, let me make very clear, I challenge anyone to feel anything other than ecstatic over the *quality* of Aaron Oliver in this book). But I do lowkey get concerned when “I personally wanted more of [x] or less of [y]” doesn’t just become “so I didn’t like the book as much as I thought I was going to” but instead morphs into “so the book is bad” with a strong implication of or indeed explicitly stated, “ergo the author made an incorrect creative choice.”
I think where I’m going with this is that relationships between authors and readers are complex. Obviously it’s a breach of trust for author to deliberately (or ignorantly) make choices aimed at hurting or disappointing readers e.g. I will market this (or allow this to be marketed) as a genre romance but one of them dies in the end. But, at the same time, I don’t feel readers are baby birds into whose open mouths authors are required to disgorge their story in the most digestible format. Like, I don’t want to be fucked around by an author, but at the same time, it’s not an author’s job to give me exactly what I want exactly when and how I want it. To put it another way, I’m cool with how Never A Hero handled Aaron Oliver. Would I, in pure goblin mode, have wanted more of him? Yes, he’s my fucking favourite. I would take as much of him as I can reasonably (or unreasonably) get.
BUT: I also respect the author’s creative choices here. And I don’t even mean in that in a mindless acceptance way. I mean, the emotional journey of “oh no, it’s exactly like he said it would be, he’s a villain now, help my feelings” was more satisfying than any faster burn “get him on page as quick as possible” type outcome. More to the point, these are books about time travel: context is always significant. The “when” and the “how” of when you revisit something. The ways it may be different and the ways it isn’t. We spent Only A Monster mostly with Aaron and then got some revelations about Nick at the end. Never A Hero we spend initially with Nick and then we learn more about Aaron. Structurally, this really *really* works. And, finally, something I really appreciate about Vanessa Len as an author, and about how she’s put this series together, is there are always consequences to what happens. I personally find it kind of frustration when books or TV shows or other media set up twists or climaxes for the sake of being twists or climaxes, and then basically undo in the next book/episode etc. When Aaron warns Joan that he’ll be different in another timeline—that she can’t trust him—he’s partially speaking of, y’know, sexy self-loathing but also he’s correct. And treating that seriously—for Aaron to be a credible threat—is important and, frankly, a huge source of tension and anxious feels across the book as a whole.
Basically: it’s always okay to want what we want or for what we want to run contrary to the author’s own vison for the work or even for the author to fail to deliver on their own vision. But, at the same time, I think it’s important not to treat deviation from our personal preferences as authorial failure. Vanessa Len earned my trust as reader in Only A Monster and continues to maintain that trust in Never A Hero. I couldn’t particularly tell you what I *expected* from this book. But it’s a breathtakingly ambitious and satisfying sequel, and I wouldn’t want it to be anything other than what it is.
It's also kind of impossible to talk about without spoiling shit and I don’t want to do that. So I’m going to navigate that as best as I can with vagueness and enthusiasm. The book opens with Joan stranded in her new timeline, the only person who can remember that once things were different. Except this also isn’t wholly the same timeline as it was before: yes, her family are still, but there are subtle and persistent differences. People who have disappeared. Nick—who is, of course, no longer the hero, no longer the Nick she knew—joining her school. Then Joan (and coincidentally Nick) are attacked at the bakery where she works, putting them both on the run again, and drawing them back into the very conspiracy Joan originally un-made Nick to destroy.
What’s remarkable about Never A Hero’s build to its absolutely explosive climax is the way it circles the events of the first book, re-contextualising them, but never quite repeating them. There’s a getting the gang back together vibe for at least the middle third and ye Gods does it feel good to see those people again, especially after the intense loneliness of the opening where Joan is essentially stranded in a timeline only she understands is different. There is a lot of ground to cover here, especially in terms of just how much new information we get about the world and what was actually going on last book. This is, occasionally, to the detriment of character. Ruth, in particular, is less vivid than she was in Only A Monster, and I missed her. Plus, while I was happy to see Tom and Jamie together on page, they are often reduced to sharing looks in which magic couple communication takes place—I can understand not wanting to slow the pace with too much dialogue, but I personally could have taken more of the queer couple directly interacting with each other. Mostly, though, I was awed by the number of plates Vanessa Len has kept spinning here.
Joan remains an absolute hero to me, determined, yet vulnerable, and far from perfect. Also can I please just take a moment to celebrate a book that recognises that fucking with someone’s brain is an absolute violation, even if it’s happening to a person with relative privilege compared to those around them. I seem to have brushed up against too many things recently that have sort of cheerfully elided how messed up and consent-erasing it is to alter someone’s perceptions or behaviour (or allow them to act on the basis of incomplete information) if the someone in question happens to be a straight white man. Like, I’m not the biggest fan of straight white men myself but that doesn’t mean I think it’s okay to treat their brains like silly putty.
ANYWAY. I loved all the new insights Never A Hero provides, as well as all its superbly handled twists, turns, and revelations. I really love how Len handles her world-building. Magicians, time travellers, families, a sinister court: these are not, on their own terms, especially original elements but Len brings both a freshness and a darkness to them, as well as a stark awareness of privilege that is quite transformative. While this book is as much as a breathless adventure story as its predecessor, its explicit themes of memory, knowledge, perspective—and how those things might be controlled, changed or erased—foreground its on-going preoccupation with identity. Specifically what shapes identity and how power can be used to re-shape it, much as Nick was re-shaped into the hero in Only A Monster. I’m also beyond fascinated by glimpses of time itself we get throughout the book. The heroine’s sense of its curtailed will, the way it is essentially presented as a colonised being. I genuinely can’t wait to see how this is further explored in the third book.
I will, however, say that, despite my heartfelt defence of Nick’s presence and Aaron’s absence, Nick is a little bit the weakest link here. I admire what Len is trying to achieve with him—writing a genuinely good/heroic person is fucking difficult—but he’s just not as interesting as literally anyone else around him. Like, I’m sorry to say this but maybe being horribly tortured was what made him interesting? Because without that edge, he’s just a nice guy who is nice and whose flaws are all job interview flaws, along the lines of “well, maybe I’m just a little bit too loyal, understanding and amazing.” Obviously I want Joan to have all the good things—and there is no escaping the fact that Nick is a good thing—but I do find Nick hard to like (and/or fancy) on in any terms beyond any abstract recognition of his role in the book and what he represents. I don’t think that necessarily means I want Joan to end up with Aaron either. But I like Joan’s relationship with Nick only because Joan herself seems to like it, not because I myself like it, if that distinction makes sense. This setup of this book offers the reader (and indeed Joan) an opportunity to get to know Nick as something beyond the hero he was forced to be.
Unfortunately, all I really got from him was football, muscles, and a generalised sense of decency. And I’m afraid that just doesn’t feel like … enough. Especially because Aaron Oliver is a haughty, vulnerable, self-loathing charisma bomb and we all want to do him and/or heal him (although he’s a teenager, so not really, and also fictional, so not really). On top of which Nick and Joan are brushing perilously close to my least favourite romance trope which I won’t dig into because it’s a spoiler and also because I am reserving judgement until the third book. I just can’t believe that a series so embedded in ideas about agency and self-determination could, you know, be going down that route romantically speaking.
Back to Aaron, though. I need to take a moment to reiterate just how much I appreciate him as a character, and not just for inappropriate (he’s a fictional teenager) thirst-based reasons. We first meet him in book 1, non-heroically and humiliatingly begging for his life, and his personal horror of violence continues to this book. I mean, I honestly think all sensible people have a horror of violence, but it still feels rare to me for characters (especially male characters) who we are otherwise supposed to like/admire to be presented as physically cowardly. For that to be … okay? I think the only other piece of media I’ve seen that does this is, err, the Deep Space Nine episode ‘Nor To Battle The Strong’ where Jake Sisko singularly fails to discover his inner machismo/heroism when cast into a dangerous situation (this is extra fascinating in the context of Star Trek where particular kinds of strength are just taken for granted). Anyway, I think all Vanessa Len’s choices around Aaron—his fearfulness, his brittleness, his own core of goodness—are bold, and kind of unique. Which might be why Nick suffers quite so much in comparison, at least in this book.
Of course, having written that and thinking again about the way this series approaches identity, I think it we do have to recognise that Nick is someone who has had his identity stripped from him—or otherwise altered—multiple times. In that context, his slight blankness, and his lack of depth, are probably reasonable. But it still doesn’t necessarily make him super fun to read about.
In any case, I hope it’s coming across that pontificating is very much my love language. And my love for these books is through the fucking roof. I tried to keep my expectations in check, but Never A Hero is a more than worthy successor to Only A Monster. At this point, I honestly feel the third book is basically a victory lap for the author. I can’t wait to see her bring this phenomenal series home.
December 21, 2025
why joannick when you can have joanaaron
September 16, 2023
Many thanks to Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley for providing me this e-ARC in exchange of my honest review.
This was absolutely terrible: not only the plot and the characters are, in my opinion, ridiculous and annoying, this wasn't even an enjoyable read. I had to force myself to finish this while skimming many pages.
The plot of this book was crazy, and not in a great way. The author spent too much time on the characters (which I will talk about later on) instead of developing her ambitious concept, especially when it's something as complex as time travelling and timeline manipulation. This book was 500 pages, and too much was spent on annoying dialogues and arguments between the characters instead of focusing on the plot. Additionally, the magic system of this series relies a lot on the "feel": to take time, to travel through time, to spot danger, to track the timelines etc... and for that, I expect a lot of "show", not "tell". For example, Joan only acknowledges a danger when another character explicitly says out loud the danger. This kind of writing is incredibly anticlimatic for a book that's supposed to be thrilling and engaging.
My biggest problem, however, is the same with the first book: the characters, especially Joan. Words cannot describe how I abhor Joan as the main character: she is whiny, arrogant, impulsive and naive if not to sayso fucking stupid. Being 17, she completely disregards any concerns from other characters, who actually have much more experience in the business than she does. She makes a show of telling everyone that she does what she does because she wants to protect her loved ones and create a better world, but her actions put them in danger more often than not, all of that because she blindly trust dudes that are good-looking enough. About the other characters: Ruth, whom I liked in the first book, is barely present: Jamie and Tom are still very cute; I especially liked Tom because he was the only one willing to talk sense into Joan and putting her in her place; Nick and Aaron are both bland, which is a shame, because the star-crossed enemies trope has so much potential (yeah and I am team Nick btw).
Overall, it was a terrible experience and there are much better YA Fantasy series on the market.
This was absolutely terrible: not only the plot and the characters are, in my opinion, ridiculous and annoying, this wasn't even an enjoyable read. I had to force myself to finish this while skimming many pages.
The plot of this book was crazy, and not in a great way. The author spent too much time on the characters (which I will talk about later on) instead of developing her ambitious concept, especially when it's something as complex as time travelling and timeline manipulation. This book was 500 pages, and too much was spent on annoying dialogues and arguments between the characters instead of focusing on the plot. Additionally, the magic system of this series relies a lot on the "feel": to take time, to travel through time, to spot danger, to track the timelines etc... and for that, I expect a lot of "show", not "tell". For example, Joan only acknowledges a danger when another character explicitly says out loud the danger. This kind of writing is incredibly anticlimatic for a book that's supposed to be thrilling and engaging.
My biggest problem, however, is the same with the first book: the characters, especially Joan. Words cannot describe how I abhor Joan as the main character: she is whiny, arrogant, impulsive and naive if not to say
Overall, it was a terrible experience and there are much better YA Fantasy series on the market.
Want to read
April 18, 2022praying we don't get a love triangle 😊😊😊😊
Want to read
July 22, 2022#teamaaron
fight me. 🤺
fight me. 🤺
July 31, 2024
Never a Hero is the 2nd-book in Vanessa Len's Monsters series, a high-stakes YA SFF series featuring time travel.
I really enjoyed the first book, Only a Monster, when I read it last year and have been looking forward to this sequel ever since. I'm so happy to report that it was just as exciting as I expected it to be.
In this installment, we continue to follow Joan, our incredibly strong teenage protagonist. Since the first book, Joan is starting to see the repercussions of her earlier actions. She's reset the timeline, but that doesn't ensure peace and happiness. Not by a long shot.
Only Joan remembers what happened, meaning those closest to her, such as Aaron and Nick, do not remember how close she was to them both. It crushes Joan's heart many times over interacting with them now.
After a deadly attack, Joan finds herself back in the monster world as a fugitive. It's clear someone is after her. She's on the run, but she's not alone, Nick is with her and Aaron is closing in.
First, let's be clear, I am Team Nick, so the two of them being on the run together, even if he didn't remember their previous relationship, made my heart happy. I know they were in serious danger, like really serious, so perhaps I shouldn't have been so happy about it, but I was.
We do get a lot more world-development in this one. This isn't to say the world wasn't built out incredibly in the first book, because trust me, it was. That was one of the things that drew me in actually, but we just find out so much more about Joan, her family and the history of the monsters.
If you aren't aware, this series does involve time travel. In fact, that's the coolest thing the monsters can do. They travel in time by stealing time from humans in a bit of a vampiric way.
One thing I did feel in this one that I either didn't notice with the first book, or maybe it didn't happen in the first book, is this was giving me serious Infernal Devices vibes. I'm not even sure quite what it was, maybe some of the time jumps felt very period piece, or maybe it was the antagonist, but I wasn't mad about it.
By this comment, I do not mean to say this is copy-catting in anyway, because it's not. This is 100% it's own unique story, it is just more of a vibe. A vibe that I'm addicted to.
It read so fast and some of the reveals had me gagging. I can't wait to get to the 3rd-book. I think this is set to be a trilogy and I can't even imagine how it's going to wrap up.
I definitely recommend this series to Readers who enjoy fast-paced, intriguing SFF. This story is filled with secrets, dangers and angsty love interests. Bonus points for well-plotted time travel.
The third book cannot release fast enough! Bring it on!!
I really enjoyed the first book, Only a Monster, when I read it last year and have been looking forward to this sequel ever since. I'm so happy to report that it was just as exciting as I expected it to be.
In this installment, we continue to follow Joan, our incredibly strong teenage protagonist. Since the first book, Joan is starting to see the repercussions of her earlier actions. She's reset the timeline, but that doesn't ensure peace and happiness. Not by a long shot.
Only Joan remembers what happened, meaning those closest to her, such as Aaron and Nick, do not remember how close she was to them both. It crushes Joan's heart many times over interacting with them now.
After a deadly attack, Joan finds herself back in the monster world as a fugitive. It's clear someone is after her. She's on the run, but she's not alone, Nick is with her and Aaron is closing in.
First, let's be clear, I am Team Nick, so the two of them being on the run together, even if he didn't remember their previous relationship, made my heart happy. I know they were in serious danger, like really serious, so perhaps I shouldn't have been so happy about it, but I was.
We do get a lot more world-development in this one. This isn't to say the world wasn't built out incredibly in the first book, because trust me, it was. That was one of the things that drew me in actually, but we just find out so much more about Joan, her family and the history of the monsters.
If you aren't aware, this series does involve time travel. In fact, that's the coolest thing the monsters can do. They travel in time by stealing time from humans in a bit of a vampiric way.
One thing I did feel in this one that I either didn't notice with the first book, or maybe it didn't happen in the first book, is this was giving me serious Infernal Devices vibes. I'm not even sure quite what it was, maybe some of the time jumps felt very period piece, or maybe it was the antagonist, but I wasn't mad about it.
By this comment, I do not mean to say this is copy-catting in anyway, because it's not. This is 100% it's own unique story, it is just more of a vibe. A vibe that I'm addicted to.
It read so fast and some of the reveals had me gagging. I can't wait to get to the 3rd-book. I think this is set to be a trilogy and I can't even imagine how it's going to wrap up.
I definitely recommend this series to Readers who enjoy fast-paced, intriguing SFF. This story is filled with secrets, dangers and angsty love interests. Bonus points for well-plotted time travel.
The third book cannot release fast enough! Bring it on!!
Want to read
November 2, 2022I can't believe I have to wait 2 years
update: less than 1 year left T_T
update: less than 1 year left T_T
July 18, 2023
I hardly ever root for the blonde love interest. Blonde men in books don't do it for me. But Aaron Oliver? AARON OLIVER. I AM ROOTING FOR YOU AGAINST THE TRUE TIMELINE.
Families with the ability to time travel, but to do so they must take the equivalent time from human life. In this sequel, Joan is facing the consequences of her actions at the end of book 1. She's created a whole new timeline, and once again she has to go on the run. However this time, it's with Nick. The boy that she may be destined to be with? But in the previous timeline, he was a trained killer of monsters that murdered her whole family... In this timeline, this never happened. I really enjoyed seeing Joan and Nick's relationship in this book. BUT as an Aaron Oliver STAN, I was sad that he didn't get as much time in the limelight as book 1.
If you enjoyed the first book, you will also enjoy this sequel. It's action packed, filled with revelations and plot twists, and Len takes the reigns and runs this book wild. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I am a big fan of the MCU so having a fantasy based book with time travel and talks of timelines was super fun.
I really can't wait for book 3 to see how everything wraps up. The stakes in these books are high! And the love triangle thoroughly has me hooked.
Families with the ability to time travel, but to do so they must take the equivalent time from human life. In this sequel, Joan is facing the consequences of her actions at the end of book 1. She's created a whole new timeline, and once again she has to go on the run. However this time, it's with Nick. The boy that she may be destined to be with? But in the previous timeline, he was a trained killer of monsters that murdered her whole family... In this timeline, this never happened. I really enjoyed seeing Joan and Nick's relationship in this book. BUT as an Aaron Oliver STAN, I was sad that he didn't get as much time in the limelight as book 1.
If you enjoyed the first book, you will also enjoy this sequel. It's action packed, filled with revelations and plot twists, and Len takes the reigns and runs this book wild. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I am a big fan of the MCU so having a fantasy based book with time travel and talks of timelines was super fun.
I really can't wait for book 3 to see how everything wraps up. The stakes in these books are high! And the love triangle thoroughly has me hooked.
May 11, 2025
2.5 ☆
well, this was disappointing.
don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t BAD; the writing was fine and the plot was stronger than in the previous book—both more engaging and better-paced. but being a person who’s more interested in characters and the bonds they share, what made it so terribly hard for me to enjoy it is how everything in this book is about nick, everything. I never liked him much, but even if I had before, I don’t think I would anymore now, because literally every other page we are hit with the same old song of how good he is, how handsome he is, how he reminds joan of a True Hero™… I think I reached my limit three chapters in, but it kept going and going, to the point that I started finding even joan unbearable. that was not my joan! everything she thought and did, every decision she made was driven nearly exclusively by what she thought nick would have done, it was like she wasn’t even her own person anymore but just a prop to hype nick up.
I also found her indecisiveness quite frustrating. the way she won’t choose between monsters and humans doesn’t feel like a moral struggle, which I would understand if it was, but more like she can’t make up her mind about who she loves more—her family or (yes, you guessed it!) nick. their romance keeps getting shoved down our throats, but I just don’t get it. not only I don’t see the chemistry, but if you really think about it, in all three of the timelines we know of, everything went wrong because of them. like, literally! every single problem they’ve ever faced is a result of them trying to be together. how am I supposed to root for that?
what I was rooting for instead was more of joan and aaron… I should’ve known better than to hope. aaron oliver, I’m sorry I wasn’t your mother. completely disregarded as a character AND a possible love interest. I understood why he wasn’t much in the first half of the novel, but I genuinely thought that once he came back there would be more of a level playing field between him and nick, right? no, wrong. joan had a 0.2 second realization that maybe she liked him, it took him 0.3 seconds to trust her even though he didn’t remember her, and then there was a mention of him maybe being in joan’s life in the original timeline that was never brought up again. what was that? just a mess. as much as I loved reading a little more about his backstory, even that wasn’t afforded the care and time it deserved.
I have not—maybe unfortunately—lost all hope about this story yet, I do believe it’s still salvageable. I just think that so much damage was done in this second installment, especially character development-wise, that it will take a lot of work on many aspects of it to bring it back to its original splendor.
thank you to Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
well, this was disappointing.
don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t BAD; the writing was fine and the plot was stronger than in the previous book—both more engaging and better-paced. but being a person who’s more interested in characters and the bonds they share, what made it so terribly hard for me to enjoy it is how everything in this book is about nick, everything. I never liked him much, but even if I had before, I don’t think I would anymore now, because literally every other page we are hit with the same old song of how good he is, how handsome he is, how he reminds joan of a True Hero™… I think I reached my limit three chapters in, but it kept going and going, to the point that I started finding even joan unbearable. that was not my joan! everything she thought and did, every decision she made was driven nearly exclusively by what she thought nick would have done, it was like she wasn’t even her own person anymore but just a prop to hype nick up.
I also found her indecisiveness quite frustrating. the way she won’t choose between monsters and humans doesn’t feel like a moral struggle, which I would understand if it was, but more like she can’t make up her mind about who she loves more—her family or (yes, you guessed it!) nick. their romance keeps getting shoved down our throats, but I just don’t get it. not only I don’t see the chemistry, but if you really think about it, in all three of the timelines we know of, everything went wrong because of them. like, literally! every single problem they’ve ever faced is a result of them trying to be together. how am I supposed to root for that?
what I was rooting for instead was more of joan and aaron… I should’ve known better than to hope. aaron oliver, I’m sorry I wasn’t your mother. completely disregarded as a character AND a possible love interest. I understood why he wasn’t much in the first half of the novel, but I genuinely thought that once he came back there would be more of a level playing field between him and nick, right? no, wrong. joan had a 0.2 second realization that maybe she liked him, it took him 0.3 seconds to trust her even though he didn’t remember her, and then there was a mention of him maybe being in joan’s life in the original timeline that was never brought up again. what was that? just a mess. as much as I loved reading a little more about his backstory, even that wasn’t afforded the care and time it deserved.
I have not—maybe unfortunately—lost all hope about this story yet, I do believe it’s still salvageable. I just think that so much damage was done in this second installment, especially character development-wise, that it will take a lot of work on many aspects of it to bring it back to its original splendor.
thank you to Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
August 26, 2023
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There's nothing worse than an anticipated read disappointing you and this not only disappointed me, it made me mad.
In Never A Hero, Joan is grappling with her actions in the first book. She saved her family but she is the only one to remember the other timelines and had to destroy the hero. Worse, Aaron and the Court are hunting her down and Joan has to go on the run - with Nick of all people.
From the very first chapter, we see Joan lowkey stalking Nick, which should have made me realize how weird girlie's behaviour was going to get. I honestly don't understand her obsession with Nick. My main gripe with them is that everything about their relationship was TOLD to the reader instead of shown, it never developed organically. We were told in book one that they were soulmates and together in a different timeline and that was enough for them to want to be together. They were friends before knowing that, but we never see that happen. This book tried to rectify that but it honestly didn't work. Ever single chapter (I'm not exagerrating!) we were told how PERFECT and GOOD and what A TRUE HERO Nick was and I was so over it. Nick is honestly a cardboard cutout of a man, he had zero personality and was just plain boring. He had absolutely nothing going for him, yet we were told that people are drawn to him like he's the SUN because of his PRESENCE and I was just sitting there like "what presence??"
I already didn't like Nick in book one, but at least being a brainwashed killer gave him something to do. In this book, he was absolutely useless and contributed nothing to the plot. In fact, he made it worse for everyone else. Him and Joan were just blundering along for the first half like absolute idiots. Nick honestly brought out the worse parts of Joan like her recklessness and moral superiority complex.
Joan herself had, in my opinion, a huge character regression. At the end of Only A Monster, I had felt like she embraced her powers, but in Never A Hero she did a complete 180 and cut herself off from her family (who she did everything to save before??). Even worse, she was so judgy about her family being monsters, to the point where she felt ashamed of them which was so out of character. Her conflict was exactly the same as in book one with her feeling like an outsider to both human and monster communities and not being able to reconcile the two parts of herself. This conflict went absolutely nowhere. From the beginning of the book, I had hoped we would see more of Joan's home life and her father and friends, but alas, it was Nick Central. Everything she did was informed by how Nick would react to it and it was tiring, as was their romance. Joan kept referring to her and Nick as soulmates but they're honestly more like starcrossed lovers because when they're together, everything goes to shit. By the end, I started empathising with the villain, because if I had to deal with those dumb teenagers effing up the timeline over and over, I'd turn evil too.
All of Joan's guilt over unmaking Nick also made no sense to me because that is the man that slaughtered your entire family?? In fact, the other characters make this exact point but who cares because they're ~soulmates~ and he's ~hollywood handsome~. Oh my god, shut up already. If the author was just going for writing a teenage girl idolizing her first crush, it was very realistic, because she was annoying as hell. Had Joan been a little bit more morally grey and had she actually traveled, we could have had some tension with Nick, which could have made their relationship interesting. Instead, they were both acting so morally superior to everyone else.
Apart from the messy characterizations, the plot was engaging and built well upon book one. We were still going at the break-neck pace of book one, but I did love the world Vanessa Len created and learning about the other monster families and their powers. We also finally found out more about the timeline and the King, which was the highlight of the book for me. As in the first book, we travel in time, in this instance both forwards and backwards. However, there was still no real interaction with the time period or its people. It was more like set dressing for the plot, which was a shame. The main antagonist was intriguing and mysterious and I wanted to see more of her. Had there been more scenes with her, the final reveal would have been so much more satisfying. I still liked it, but it could have used more foreshadowing. Which there would have been space for, had all the passages describing Nick's good looks been cut. They do make up about 20% of the book.
Look, the ONLY redeeming qualities this book had beside the worldbuilding were my beloved Ruth and the one and only Aaron Oliver. So the book gets two stars instead of one for the existence of those characters, although they were on the sidelines in this book. Aaron arriving in the last quarter of the book honestly gave me whiplash because the book was so much more engaging all of a sudden. There were the tiniest crumbs of Joan/Aaron and she at least admitted there might be feelings involved but that was about it. I don't think authors should necessarily cater to fans or deliver 'fanservice' but, Vanessa, please, give us SOMETHING.
My summary of the book would be, I just wanted more. I wanted more of the time travel, more of the monsters. More Hunts, more Aaron, more Tom. Literally anything other than Joan pining over Nick, someone knock some sense into that girl, I swear to god. There were moments that gave me hope that Vanessa Len will bring it all together in book three, but I'm not optimistic. 2.75/5 stars.
There's nothing worse than an anticipated read disappointing you and this not only disappointed me, it made me mad.
In Never A Hero, Joan is grappling with her actions in the first book. She saved her family but she is the only one to remember the other timelines and had to destroy the hero. Worse, Aaron and the Court are hunting her down and Joan has to go on the run - with Nick of all people.
From the very first chapter, we see Joan lowkey stalking Nick, which should have made me realize how weird girlie's behaviour was going to get. I honestly don't understand her obsession with Nick. My main gripe with them is that everything about their relationship was TOLD to the reader instead of shown, it never developed organically. We were told in book one that they were soulmates and together in a different timeline and that was enough for them to want to be together. They were friends before knowing that, but we never see that happen. This book tried to rectify that but it honestly didn't work. Ever single chapter (I'm not exagerrating!) we were told how PERFECT and GOOD and what A TRUE HERO Nick was and I was so over it. Nick is honestly a cardboard cutout of a man, he had zero personality and was just plain boring. He had absolutely nothing going for him, yet we were told that people are drawn to him like he's the SUN because of his PRESENCE and I was just sitting there like "what presence??"
I already didn't like Nick in book one, but at least being a brainwashed killer gave him something to do. In this book, he was absolutely useless and contributed nothing to the plot. In fact, he made it worse for everyone else. Him and Joan were just blundering along for the first half like absolute idiots. Nick honestly brought out the worse parts of Joan like her recklessness and moral superiority complex.
Joan herself had, in my opinion, a huge character regression. At the end of Only A Monster, I had felt like she embraced her powers, but in Never A Hero she did a complete 180 and cut herself off from her family (who she did everything to save before??). Even worse, she was so judgy about her family being monsters, to the point where she felt ashamed of them which was so out of character. Her conflict was exactly the same as in book one with her feeling like an outsider to both human and monster communities and not being able to reconcile the two parts of herself. This conflict went absolutely nowhere. From the beginning of the book, I had hoped we would see more of Joan's home life and her father and friends, but alas, it was Nick Central. Everything she did was informed by how Nick would react to it and it was tiring, as was their romance. Joan kept referring to her and Nick as soulmates but they're honestly more like starcrossed lovers because when they're together, everything goes to shit. By the end, I started empathising with the villain, because if I had to deal with those dumb teenagers effing up the timeline over and over, I'd turn evil too.
All of Joan's guilt over unmaking Nick also made no sense to me because that is the man that slaughtered your entire family?? In fact, the other characters make this exact point but who cares because they're ~soulmates~ and he's ~hollywood handsome~. Oh my god, shut up already. If the author was just going for writing a teenage girl idolizing her first crush, it was very realistic, because she was annoying as hell. Had Joan been a little bit more morally grey and had she actually traveled, we could have had some tension with Nick, which could have made their relationship interesting. Instead, they were both acting so morally superior to everyone else.
Apart from the messy characterizations, the plot was engaging and built well upon book one. We were still going at the break-neck pace of book one, but I did love the world Vanessa Len created and learning about the other monster families and their powers. We also finally found out more about the timeline and the King, which was the highlight of the book for me. As in the first book, we travel in time, in this instance both forwards and backwards. However, there was still no real interaction with the time period or its people. It was more like set dressing for the plot, which was a shame. The main antagonist was intriguing and mysterious and I wanted to see more of her. Had there been more scenes with her, the final reveal would have been so much more satisfying. I still liked it, but it could have used more foreshadowing. Which there would have been space for, had all the passages describing Nick's good looks been cut. They do make up about 20% of the book.
Look, the ONLY redeeming qualities this book had beside the worldbuilding were my beloved Ruth and the one and only Aaron Oliver. So the book gets two stars instead of one for the existence of those characters, although they were on the sidelines in this book. Aaron arriving in the last quarter of the book honestly gave me whiplash because the book was so much more engaging all of a sudden. There were the tiniest crumbs of Joan/Aaron and she at least admitted there might be feelings involved but that was about it. I don't think authors should necessarily cater to fans or deliver 'fanservice' but, Vanessa, please, give us SOMETHING.
My summary of the book would be, I just wanted more. I wanted more of the time travel, more of the monsters. More Hunts, more Aaron, more Tom. Literally anything other than Joan pining over Nick, someone knock some sense into that girl, I swear to god. There were moments that gave me hope that Vanessa Len will bring it all together in book three, but I'm not optimistic. 2.75/5 stars.
August 27, 2022
I’m waiting for the final gambit to come out and I just know my heart is going to be broken for still being team broody protective blonde Grayson and I’m accepting defeat but I WILL not accept defeat for AARON OLIVER, IM ALREADY SO SAD I HATE LOVE TRIANGLES BUT I WILL HAVE TO DO IT AGAIN, SO PLS VANESSA LEN PLS GIVE ME AARON OLIVER 😭😭😭💔💔
Want to read
April 21, 20222023!
Never have I wanted to be a part of a time traveling monster family more. 🥺
Never have I wanted to be a part of a time traveling monster family more. 🥺
September 12, 2023
2.5 stars rounded up.
Damn this was such a disappointment...
This sequel was literally Joan being mopey about Nick like 90% of the time and it got so old so quickly.
This was one of those instances where the author should've listened to fans and included wayyyy more Aaron and wayyyy less to zero Nick at all. I loved it when Joan was disappointed and upset that Aaron didn't "remember" her because that was the one actual connection we got in the first book.
Nick was barely in the first one as a good guy, so like none of us readers actually connected with him or the whole Joan/Nick thing. And the way that he's in this one made this entire novel feel like the author wrote a fanfic of her first novel, where Joan gets together with Nick even though NO ONE CARES ABOUT NICK!!!
I was here for the time travel and time fuckery, but those were few and in between. I relished those very few moments when they actually hunkered down and dealt with wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff. It felt like I was stranded in a desert, searching for an oasis.
Most of the book was just everyone talking and discussing and planning what to do next. There was barely any action. The pacing was so goddamn slow.
And the lead up to the ending? The final battle with the Big Bad? That shit felt like watching the Architect in that Matrix Reloaded scene where he explains everything to Neo. Big fucking yawn. 🥱🥱🥱
I'll probably pick up the third audiobook just to see how this all wraps up. Half the time I probably won't even pay attention.
Damn this was such a disappointment...
This sequel was literally Joan being mopey about Nick like 90% of the time and it got so old so quickly.
This was one of those instances where the author should've listened to fans and included wayyyy more Aaron and wayyyy less to zero Nick at all. I loved it when Joan was disappointed and upset that Aaron didn't "remember" her because that was the one actual connection we got in the first book.
Nick was barely in the first one as a good guy, so like none of us readers actually connected with him or the whole Joan/Nick thing. And the way that he's in this one made this entire novel feel like the author wrote a fanfic of her first novel, where Joan gets together with Nick even though NO ONE CARES ABOUT NICK!!!
I was here for the time travel and time fuckery, but those were few and in between. I relished those very few moments when they actually hunkered down and dealt with wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff. It felt like I was stranded in a desert, searching for an oasis.
Most of the book was just everyone talking and discussing and planning what to do next. There was barely any action. The pacing was so goddamn slow.
And the lead up to the ending? The final battle with the Big Bad? That shit felt like watching the Architect in that Matrix Reloaded scene where he explains everything to Neo. Big fucking yawn. 🥱🥱🥱
I'll probably pick up the third audiobook just to see how this all wraps up. Half the time I probably won't even pay attention.
August 30, 2023
i loved the angst but i’m gonna need much more aaron in the next book miss vanessa
Want to read
August 31, 2022I DIDN’T KNOW WE GOT A TITLE VANESSSSAAAAAAAAAAA
November 30, 2023
Well, we don’t have a cliffhanger ending but I wanna know how this story will end and also, I wanna know more about the Oliver power and why the Court say that if they see someone with the same eyes as Joan the will kill them.
WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? AND NICK DIED?! I NEED ANSWER AND I BEG YOU VANESSA, PLEASE DON'T WRITE A TRIANGLE LOVE.
————————-
Just say it louder: we need more Aaron Oliver content
I don’t know how to describe what I felt behind this journey. Sometimes I like it but sometimes I really wanna punch Joan. I need time to think what I’m going to say about this secuel
WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? AND NICK DIED?! I NEED ANSWER AND I BEG YOU VANESSA, PLEASE DON'T WRITE A TRIANGLE LOVE.
————————-
Just say it louder: we need more Aaron Oliver content
I don’t know how to describe what I felt behind this journey. Sometimes I like it but sometimes I really wanna punch Joan. I need time to think what I’m going to say about this secuel
May 11, 2025
Ok so the main issue i had with this book was how damn repetitive it was. I fully believe i could have skipped book one and just read this book with no issues because it over explained every single thing that happened in Only A Monster. The number of times it referenced the same things, literally even within the same chapter, drove me absolutely crazy but this book had really good reviews for the most part and i had major fomo and just HAD to see how the book ended.
Another issue I had: I’m just so damn confused? On how the magic system works, on what even is happening, on pretty much everything???
I’ve made it too far not to finish the trilogy since there’s only one more book left, so I do plan to finish the series when the final book comes out. But I hope it ties everything together and that it makes the series as a whole a lot easier to understand.
Another issue I had: I’m just so damn confused? On how the magic system works, on what even is happening, on pretty much everything???
I’ve made it too far not to finish the trilogy since there’s only one more book left, so I do plan to finish the series when the final book comes out. But I hope it ties everything together and that it makes the series as a whole a lot easier to understand.
September 11, 2025
aaarrghhhh this book (specifically the ending) broke my brain. sending vanessa len my therapy bill.
November 16, 2024
Obwohl ich "Only a Monster" nicht als Highlight bezeichnen würde, hat die Reihe etwas was sie ganz besonders macht – weshalb ich mich auch riesig auf den zweiten Band gefreut habe.
"Never a Hero" begann etwas ruhig für meinen Geschmack. Was aber aufgrund der Ausgangslage nach Band 1 völlig nachvollziehbar war. Jedoch muss ich anmerken, dass sich die erste Hälfte des Buches wie ein Abklatsch vom Vorgänger angefühlt hat – ich denke, jeder der das Buch gelesen hat, weiß worauf ich hinaus möchte.
Nachdem Joan in "Only a Monster" die komplette Zeitlinie (Vergangenheit und Gegenwart) verändert hat, kann sich niemand bis auf sie, an die vergangenen Ereignisse erinnern. Und das war soo frustrierend. Noch frustrierender war es, dass Kommunikation für Joan scheinbar ein Fremdwort war. Aber mehr dazu gleich im Anschluss...
Natürlich kreuzten sich auch in dieser scheinbar perfekten Zeitlinie, die Wege von Joan und Nick. Nick der nun ein ganz normaler Junge ist, läuft ihr ausgerechnet an dem Tag über den Weg, an dem Joan von unbekannten Monstern angegriffen wird. Fortan sind die beiden auf der Flucht, Nick ohne jegliches Wissen über Monster oder seine Vergangenheit als Hero.
Die ersten 50% fand ich leider etwas langatmig und stellenweise so frustrierend, da Joan Nick einfach ALLES vorenthalten hat und er sich quasi alles selbst zusammenreimen musste (was er auch geschafft hat). Ich kann das zwar, aufgrund Nicks Vorgeschichte, teilweise nachvollziehen, aber grundsätzlich fand ich es in sehr vielen Situationen einfach nicht richtig. Nicht nur hat sie vieles dadurch komplizierter gemacht, nein sie hat dadurch auch ihn und alle anderen immer wieder in schwierige Situationen bringen können / gebracht 🙄 Bzw. hat dies auch gezeigt, dass ein Versprechen von ihr nichts Wert ist.
Nick hat all die Lügen, das Vorenthalten der Wahrheit etc. absolut nicht verdient. Egal wie oft er belogen und verraten wurde, hat er dennoch jedes Mal zu Joan und den anderen gehalten. Verrat von den eigenen Leuten ist immer schlimmer als ein Messer vom Feind, nur hat das Joan scheinbar nicht gemerkt. Oder es war ihr egal, keine Ahnung. Hat sie als Protagonistin leider echt nicht sympathisch gemacht 🥲 Nicks beschriebener Schmerz und die Enttäuschung hat mir echt jedes Mal das Herz zerrissen. Sodass ich ihn einfach nicht mehr mit Joan shippen kann... Ich hoffe Joan zerstört ihn nicht unbewusst 😭
Und auch Aaron, der sich ebenfalls an nichts erinnern kann, taucht in diesem Buch auf. Nur leider viel zu wenig. Nachdem er als Part des Liebesdreiecks im ersten Band im Vordergrund stand, rückte er in diesem Buch mehr in den Hintergrund. Schade! Die wenigen Momente, die wir mit ihm hatten und bei denen ich mir auch nie sicher war, was seine wahren Intentionen sind, waren für mich nicht ausreichend. Dass er dann so schnell "überzeugt" wurde, war für mich dann auch nicht ganz glaubhaft.
Plottechnisch wurde es jedoch ab der zweiten Hälfte richtig gut und die letzten 10% waren sogar ein richtiger Mindblow 🤯 voller Plot Twists! Und obwohl auch der zweite Band prinzipiell abgeschlossen endete, war es bei weitem kein Happy End. Nach diesem Ende muss ich nun unbedingt wissen, wie es im finalen(?) Band ausgehen wird, der hoffentlich nicht so lange auf sich warten lässt.
PS: Nachdem ich mir eben noch schnell meine Leseupdates durchgelesen habe, hab ich gemerkt, dass die Sache mit Joans Oma entweder wirklich keinen Sinn ergeben hat oder es erst im nächsten Band aufgegriffen wird (hoffentlich) 😅
"Never a Hero" begann etwas ruhig für meinen Geschmack. Was aber aufgrund der Ausgangslage nach Band 1 völlig nachvollziehbar war. Jedoch muss ich anmerken, dass sich die erste Hälfte des Buches wie ein Abklatsch vom Vorgänger angefühlt hat – ich denke, jeder der das Buch gelesen hat, weiß worauf ich hinaus möchte.
Nachdem Joan in "Only a Monster" die komplette Zeitlinie (Vergangenheit und Gegenwart) verändert hat, kann sich niemand bis auf sie, an die vergangenen Ereignisse erinnern. Und das war soo frustrierend. Noch frustrierender war es, dass Kommunikation für Joan scheinbar ein Fremdwort war. Aber mehr dazu gleich im Anschluss...
Natürlich kreuzten sich auch in dieser scheinbar perfekten Zeitlinie, die Wege von Joan und Nick. Nick der nun ein ganz normaler Junge ist, läuft ihr ausgerechnet an dem Tag über den Weg, an dem Joan von unbekannten Monstern angegriffen wird. Fortan sind die beiden auf der Flucht, Nick ohne jegliches Wissen über Monster oder seine Vergangenheit als Hero.
Die ersten 50% fand ich leider etwas langatmig und stellenweise so frustrierend, da Joan Nick einfach ALLES vorenthalten hat und er sich quasi alles selbst zusammenreimen musste (was er auch geschafft hat). Ich kann das zwar, aufgrund Nicks Vorgeschichte, teilweise nachvollziehen, aber grundsätzlich fand ich es in sehr vielen Situationen einfach nicht richtig. Nicht nur hat sie vieles dadurch komplizierter gemacht, nein sie hat dadurch auch ihn und alle anderen immer wieder in schwierige Situationen bringen können / gebracht 🙄 Bzw. hat dies auch gezeigt, dass ein Versprechen von ihr nichts Wert ist.
Nick hat all die Lügen, das Vorenthalten der Wahrheit etc. absolut nicht verdient. Egal wie oft er belogen und verraten wurde, hat er dennoch jedes Mal zu Joan und den anderen gehalten. Verrat von den eigenen Leuten ist immer schlimmer als ein Messer vom Feind, nur hat das Joan scheinbar nicht gemerkt. Oder es war ihr egal, keine Ahnung. Hat sie als Protagonistin leider echt nicht sympathisch gemacht 🥲 Nicks beschriebener Schmerz und die Enttäuschung hat mir echt jedes Mal das Herz zerrissen. Sodass ich ihn einfach nicht mehr mit Joan shippen kann... Ich hoffe Joan zerstört ihn nicht unbewusst 😭
Und auch Aaron, der sich ebenfalls an nichts erinnern kann, taucht in diesem Buch auf. Nur leider viel zu wenig. Nachdem er als Part des Liebesdreiecks im ersten Band im Vordergrund stand, rückte er in diesem Buch mehr in den Hintergrund. Schade! Die wenigen Momente, die wir mit ihm hatten und bei denen ich mir auch nie sicher war, was seine wahren Intentionen sind, waren für mich nicht ausreichend. Dass er dann so schnell "überzeugt" wurde, war für mich dann auch nicht ganz glaubhaft.
Plottechnisch wurde es jedoch ab der zweiten Hälfte richtig gut und die letzten 10% waren sogar ein richtiger Mindblow 🤯 voller Plot Twists! Und obwohl auch der zweite Band prinzipiell abgeschlossen endete, war es bei weitem kein Happy End. Nach diesem Ende muss ich nun unbedingt wissen, wie es im finalen(?) Band ausgehen wird, der hoffentlich nicht so lange auf sich warten lässt.
PS: Nachdem ich mir eben noch schnell meine Leseupdates durchgelesen habe, hab ich gemerkt, dass die Sache mit Joans Oma entweder wirklich keinen Sinn ergeben hat oder es erst im nächsten Band aufgegriffen wird (hoffentlich) 😅
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 4, 2024
Rating ~2.5
Wow, this was a dive from how much I enjoyed book one.
I think the main problem was I did not give a lick about Joan and Nick. Literally zero cares about them. So since the first 60% or so of the book mostly focused on them, it dragged for me big time. The book honestly could have been shortened overall as well.
There was constant repetition from Joan about how she and Nick can never be, but how she still wants him and loves him even though he isn't her Nick blah blah blah. She mentions how they're puzzle pieces that no longer fit together blah blah blah. I don't care. This is made worse by the maybe love triangle shaping up with Aaron. Because every time he appeared Joan's heart would beat and she would talk about how much she missed him.
Now I too lived for all the Aaron sightings. He is my favorite character at this point. But girl you can’t have them both. This isn’t that type of book. I don’t think 👀😆
Anyways, I am honestly 70% sticking around for Aaron only and I guess to see how they fix the mess that this book ended on. The twist was admittedly a surprise. I did not see it coming. So despite my lack of enthusiasm about this book I will likely read the next book for answers.
Wow, this was a dive from how much I enjoyed book one.
I think the main problem was I did not give a lick about Joan and Nick. Literally zero cares about them. So since the first 60% or so of the book mostly focused on them, it dragged for me big time. The book honestly could have been shortened overall as well.
There was constant repetition from Joan about how she and Nick can never be, but how she still wants him and loves him even though he isn't her Nick blah blah blah. She mentions how they're puzzle pieces that no longer fit together blah blah blah. I don't care. This is made worse by the maybe love triangle shaping up with Aaron. Because every time he appeared Joan's heart would beat and she would talk about how much she missed him.
Now I too lived for all the Aaron sightings. He is my favorite character at this point. But girl you can’t have them both. This isn’t that type of book. I don’t think 👀😆
Anyways, I am honestly 70% sticking around for Aaron only and I guess to see how they fix the mess that this book ended on. The twist was admittedly a surprise. I did not see it coming. So despite my lack of enthusiasm about this book I will likely read the next book for answers.
October 28, 2023
DNF à 57%
J’ai décidé de m’arrêter à un peu plus de la moitié du livre, un peu frustré car j’avais envie d’avoir des réponses, mais le rythme ne me convient décidément pas.
J’avais apprécié le premier tome de cette saga, « Seul un monstre » malgré ses défauts. L’histoire était solide, intrigante, les personnages attachants, et les twists assez nombreux.
Si ce second tome avait assez bien démarré, j’ai assez vite déchanté.
(Attention aux éventuels spoils du premier tome dans ce qui va suivre)
Au début de ce tome nous retrouvons Joan, dans la « nouvelle » ligne temporelle qu’elle a créé. Assez rapidement, notre héroïne va être pourchassée par la cour des monstres (pourquoi ?) et se retrouver bloquée dans une époque avec Nick qui n’a plus aucun souvenir de la précédente ligne temporelle.
Si le début du livre se veut super dynamique et engageant, passé les 50 pages on passe notre temps à suivre Joan et Nick courir dans tous les sens pour ne pas se faire attraper, faire des choix stupides, le tout entrecoupé de passages où Joan s’extasie devant la beauté, le charisme, et les muscles saillants de Nick.
Si j’ai essayé de faire abstraction de ces passages, ils auront malheureusement eu raison de moi. Le livre ne cesse de se répéter en boucle, nous expliquant et rééxpliquant sans cesse les mêmes choses sans faire avancer l’histoire d’un pouce, tout en insistant sur le fait que Nick est si beau, si sexy, si musclé, si fort… c’était trop pour moi.
On notera aussi que l’héroïne est - comme dans le tome 1 - sans cesse désignée comme « la jeune sino-britannique », une répétition qui m’aura fait grincer des dents toutes les deux pages.
Je suis à vrai dire assez déçu de ne pas connaître le fin mot de cette histoire, dans la mesure où le plot de base était assez prenant et intéressant, mais ma patience aura été bien trop mise à l’épreuve sur ce second volume.
Malgré tout, merci à Lumen pour ce service presse, il y a des jours comme ça où ça ne fait pas plaisir d’écrire des reviews.
J’ai décidé de m’arrêter à un peu plus de la moitié du livre, un peu frustré car j’avais envie d’avoir des réponses, mais le rythme ne me convient décidément pas.
J’avais apprécié le premier tome de cette saga, « Seul un monstre » malgré ses défauts. L’histoire était solide, intrigante, les personnages attachants, et les twists assez nombreux.
Si ce second tome avait assez bien démarré, j’ai assez vite déchanté.
(Attention aux éventuels spoils du premier tome dans ce qui va suivre)
Au début de ce tome nous retrouvons Joan, dans la « nouvelle » ligne temporelle qu’elle a créé. Assez rapidement, notre héroïne va être pourchassée par la cour des monstres (pourquoi ?) et se retrouver bloquée dans une époque avec Nick qui n’a plus aucun souvenir de la précédente ligne temporelle.
Si le début du livre se veut super dynamique et engageant, passé les 50 pages on passe notre temps à suivre Joan et Nick courir dans tous les sens pour ne pas se faire attraper, faire des choix stupides, le tout entrecoupé de passages où Joan s’extasie devant la beauté, le charisme, et les muscles saillants de Nick.
Si j’ai essayé de faire abstraction de ces passages, ils auront malheureusement eu raison de moi. Le livre ne cesse de se répéter en boucle, nous expliquant et rééxpliquant sans cesse les mêmes choses sans faire avancer l’histoire d’un pouce, tout en insistant sur le fait que Nick est si beau, si sexy, si musclé, si fort… c’était trop pour moi.
On notera aussi que l’héroïne est - comme dans le tome 1 - sans cesse désignée comme « la jeune sino-britannique », une répétition qui m’aura fait grincer des dents toutes les deux pages.
Je suis à vrai dire assez déçu de ne pas connaître le fin mot de cette histoire, dans la mesure où le plot de base était assez prenant et intéressant, mais ma patience aura été bien trop mise à l’épreuve sur ce second volume.
Malgré tout, merci à Lumen pour ce service presse, il y a des jours comme ça où ça ne fait pas plaisir d’écrire des reviews.
August 14, 2025
If I'd had this series as a teen, I would have been OBSESSED. And I'm honestly really thankful for this series for giving me a similar experience now, because I feel like it's really hard to recreate that feeling as an adult.
Right away this book really pulled me in emotionally. I just have such a soft spot for books where someone forgets the other person... the ANGST. Between the time travel, the morally grey characters, and the angst of forgetting each other, this book, and this series as a whole, just hits all the right spots for me. I'm firmly Team Aaron, by the way, and this book cemented that for me even more.
And I love that Joan actually struggles with what happened, because a lot of the time in fantasy, they gloss over trauma, and characters go through the worst things and are always just fine. Which makes them feel more like a pawn to move the plot along than an actual human.
This book definitely did not have second book syndrome, and I could absolutely not put it down. I already can't wait for book 3!
Right away this book really pulled me in emotionally. I just have such a soft spot for books where someone forgets the other person... the ANGST. Between the time travel, the morally grey characters, and the angst of forgetting each other, this book, and this series as a whole, just hits all the right spots for me. I'm firmly Team Aaron, by the way, and this book cemented that for me even more.
And I love that Joan actually struggles with what happened, because a lot of the time in fantasy, they gloss over trauma, and characters go through the worst things and are always just fine. Which makes them feel more like a pawn to move the plot along than an actual human.
This book definitely did not have second book syndrome, and I could absolutely not put it down. I already can't wait for book 3!
September 2, 2023
Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick Nick Nick Nick.
Shut. Up.
This book would probably have been half the size if everything wasn't about Nick, Nick, oh Nick, he's not the same Nick, they're different Nick's, Ni-iiiiick, NICK.
And if everything wasn't repeated multiple times. No need to rephrase the same topic over and over. Got it the first time.
Joan was an insufferable character. I honestly hate her.
I'm also still team Aaron, but can we give him someone else?
Shut. Up.
This book would probably have been half the size if everything wasn't about Nick, Nick, oh Nick, he's not the same Nick, they're different Nick's, Ni-iiiiick, NICK.
And if everything wasn't repeated multiple times. No need to rephrase the same topic over and over. Got it the first time.
Joan was an insufferable character. I honestly hate her.
I'm also still team Aaron, but can we give him someone else?
January 16, 2024
*www.onewomansbbr.wordpress.com
*www.facebook.com/onewomansbbr
Never A Hero by Vanessa Len. (2023).
(Monsters; #2).
*Young Adult*
Despite the odds, Joan achieved the impossible by resetting the timeline and saving her family by destroying the hero, Nick. But it all comes at a terrible cost. She alone remembers what happened and knows that there is a dangerous enemy still out there. Now Aaron, her hard-won friend - and maybe more - is an enemy trying to kill her. And Nick, the boy she loved, is a stranger who doesn't remember her. When a deadly attack forces Joan back into the monster world, she finds herself in the run with Nick as Aaron closes in. Torn between love, family and monstrous choices, Joan must find a way to regather her old allies to save the timeline...
I've been looking forward to this ever since reading the first novel in the series, 'Only A Monster', which yes you do need to read before this novel. I was a bit surprised that the love triangle from the first book of Joan, Nick and Aaron was really reduced in this storyline as I expected it to be ramped up; to be fair, both Nick and Aaron have no memory of all of the events in the first book so there is that. This book is slower than the first and goes much more into the time travelling and differing timeline details, I think the author has done a good job of simplifying the concept enough so that readers don't get lost in the complicating details. It was great to see the return of the dynamic core group from the first book, although there was a lot less of Aaron than I would have liked (and as many reviewers online seem to agree with).
Overall: an enjoyable read, and now the long wait for the next book starts...
*www.facebook.com/onewomansbbr
Never A Hero by Vanessa Len. (2023).
(Monsters; #2).
*Young Adult*
Despite the odds, Joan achieved the impossible by resetting the timeline and saving her family by destroying the hero, Nick. But it all comes at a terrible cost. She alone remembers what happened and knows that there is a dangerous enemy still out there. Now Aaron, her hard-won friend - and maybe more - is an enemy trying to kill her. And Nick, the boy she loved, is a stranger who doesn't remember her. When a deadly attack forces Joan back into the monster world, she finds herself in the run with Nick as Aaron closes in. Torn between love, family and monstrous choices, Joan must find a way to regather her old allies to save the timeline...
I've been looking forward to this ever since reading the first novel in the series, 'Only A Monster', which yes you do need to read before this novel. I was a bit surprised that the love triangle from the first book of Joan, Nick and Aaron was really reduced in this storyline as I expected it to be ramped up; to be fair, both Nick and Aaron have no memory of all of the events in the first book so there is that. This book is slower than the first and goes much more into the time travelling and differing timeline details, I think the author has done a good job of simplifying the concept enough so that readers don't get lost in the complicating details. It was great to see the return of the dynamic core group from the first book, although there was a lot less of Aaron than I would have liked (and as many reviewers online seem to agree with).
Overall: an enjoyable read, and now the long wait for the next book starts...
Want to read
October 19, 202219/10/2022
COVERRRRR YES <3
IT'S SO PRETTY
im loving the vibe of it so amazing aaaaaa
30/05/2022
first things first this book is too far away for me currently which depresses me💀
secondly WE GOT A TITLE <3
dun dun dun *drumroll*
never a hero (ik u can see if but i really wanted to drumroll)
the title sounds SO COOL.
hopefully we get a cover reveal soon too
COVERRRRR YES <3
IT'S SO PRETTY
im loving the vibe of it so amazing aaaaaa
30/05/2022
first things first this book is too far away for me currently which depresses me💀
secondly WE GOT A TITLE <3
dun dun dun *drumroll*
never a hero (ik u can see if but i really wanted to drumroll)
the title sounds SO COOL.
hopefully we get a cover reveal soon too
May 17, 2023
Wow, this series, I have no words!
I was completely blown away by Only a Monster so it’s sequel immediately became one of my most anticipated releases of 2023. I was over the Moon when I got the ARC from Netgalley.
Second books in trilogies often can be just fillers until the big conclusion in the final book but this was very much not the case here. There were a couple of moments where I felt the story slowed down but it quickly bounced back to all angst and action.
The ending of book 1 left me totally devastated (in the good way, mind you) and with so many possible scenarios for book 2. I went in expecting lots of action coupled with lots of feel and the book didn’t disappoint.
The angst, the loneliness at the beginning were so palpable, really heart-breaking. And just when I thought I couldn’t take it any more and boom, the action starts and never lets go till the end.
I found this book to be just as intense and the plot as twisty as book one.
Joan is amazing here as well, more vulnerable but also sad. In opposition to book 1 where she was new and didn’t know anything about the monster world, here she is the one with knowledge/memories of the other timeline. At least it seemed so at the start but trust Vanessa Len to turn things on their head. By the end of the book, neither Joan nor the reader was sure of anything.
I am intentionally vague on the plot because I think this is the kind of story that one should read without any previous knowledge of the plot. Not knowing what to expect next is thrilling but also scary at times. I trust Vanessa Len to treat her characters with care and compassion but she did keep me on the edge of my seat most of the book.
We see most the characters from the previous book getting together here again – Ruth, Jamie and Tom, Nick and Aaron. None of them is the same as they were in book 1 and just because they are in a different timeline.
Now, Nick and Aaron and Joan, all the feels – from fear through compassion and love to resentment and anger. It’s complicated fully encompasses their relationship. A bit of fated mates element which I am not really a fan but I want to wait and see how this plays out in book 3. We get more focus on Nick than on Aaron but every tiny glimpse into Aaron’s soul just confirms it for me I am #teamAaron all the way.
And that ending, wow, that ending. It’s complete in itself but also making me excited and impatient for the next book.
Gorgeous writing, great character development, amazing world building (I can’t comment on the historical accuracy but the feelings and sense of place jump straight from the page).
CW: violence, extortion, murder, imprisonment, blood, loss of one's family
I was completely blown away by Only a Monster so it’s sequel immediately became one of my most anticipated releases of 2023. I was over the Moon when I got the ARC from Netgalley.
Second books in trilogies often can be just fillers until the big conclusion in the final book but this was very much not the case here. There were a couple of moments where I felt the story slowed down but it quickly bounced back to all angst and action.
The ending of book 1 left me totally devastated (in the good way, mind you) and with so many possible scenarios for book 2. I went in expecting lots of action coupled with lots of feel and the book didn’t disappoint.
The angst, the loneliness at the beginning were so palpable, really heart-breaking. And just when I thought I couldn’t take it any more and boom, the action starts and never lets go till the end.
I found this book to be just as intense and the plot as twisty as book one.
Joan is amazing here as well, more vulnerable but also sad. In opposition to book 1 where she was new and didn’t know anything about the monster world, here she is the one with knowledge/memories of the other timeline. At least it seemed so at the start but trust Vanessa Len to turn things on their head. By the end of the book, neither Joan nor the reader was sure of anything.
I am intentionally vague on the plot because I think this is the kind of story that one should read without any previous knowledge of the plot. Not knowing what to expect next is thrilling but also scary at times. I trust Vanessa Len to treat her characters with care and compassion but she did keep me on the edge of my seat most of the book.
We see most the characters from the previous book getting together here again – Ruth, Jamie and Tom, Nick and Aaron. None of them is the same as they were in book 1 and just because they are in a different timeline.
Now, Nick and Aaron and Joan, all the feels – from fear through compassion and love to resentment and anger. It’s complicated fully encompasses their relationship. A bit of fated mates element which I am not really a fan but I want to wait and see how this plays out in book 3. We get more focus on Nick than on Aaron but every tiny glimpse into Aaron’s soul just confirms it for me I am #teamAaron all the way.
And that ending, wow, that ending. It’s complete in itself but also making me excited and impatient for the next book.
Gorgeous writing, great character development, amazing world building (I can’t comment on the historical accuracy but the feelings and sense of place jump straight from the page).
CW: violence, extortion, murder, imprisonment, blood, loss of one's family
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