(This review was written based upon an advanced digital review copy provided through Netgalley.)

REVIEW
The Monsters in Our Shadows is a decent speculative horror with likable, engaging characters. In terms of setting, barebones plot elements, and occasionally tone, it reminded me quite a bit of Fallout, specifically 1 and 3. A protagonist leaves their isolated home to venture into a dangerous, unfamiliar apocalyptic landscape in search of a scientific resource that will save their home. If you enjoy narratives about travelling through a destroyed world and having to navigate what humanity means when most of the population is dead, you'll enjoy The Monsters in Our Shadows.

I also will say that the characters were enjoyable (save for one, Ribs, who I disliked due to issues with his character tropes). Anthem does his best to treat those he is responsible for Exiling with respect and kindness (sometimes to the point of putting himself and others in danger). He's a good father and he is concerned with his daughter's safety before his own. Children in fiction are hard to write and become irritating so easily, but Melody is written appropriately for her age and clearly has her own character beyond "child." Zoe, too, is an interesting character. When she first showed up I was so worried she was going to be a manic pixie dream girl and have a romantic thing with Anthem, but she doesn't, thank God. Even the side characters are likable; Mrs. Juliet Daniels is perfectly written, and other side characters like Sal (who only shows up twice) are actually memorable, something that's hard to do.

I enjoyed the world and the concept, but--in my opinion--it suffers from having predictable plot twists and flimsy, clumsily executed lore.

ANACHRONISMS
Okay, I know this is a strange complaint to have. It's also my pettiest, so it's going first. The book is set in a fictional post apocalyptic world, in which the tiny town of Atlas is barely surviving on crickets and ice cream. Though it's difficult to pin down an exact timline from memory, based on

the painting at Doubleday's house, Shivers first appeared at least four generations before Anthem's (so approximately a century before the book's events).

Yet there were things mentioned by the close third person narration or by Anthem directly that threw me off; for example, at some point, Anthem is reminded that "[salvation] was an impossble fantasy, like being pulled under by a sea of tar and thinking water wings might lift you up." How does he know what water wings are? Does Atlas have a pool or lake to swim in? Nothing like that is mentioned. How would water wings, those flimsy plastic things, last that long in concept or use for it to be something that metaphorically makes sense as a comparison? Even if it was meant to be only for the reader, not to be understood as something Anthem is thinking (which isn't likely considering context and the use of close third person), it still took me out of the narrative because it made me wonder whether water wings did still exist in this world; if so, why?

If this only happened once, it'd be something I'd have forgotten. But at the end of the book, Anthem directly states that something is a "superpower," something the people around him seem to understand. And, look, I don't doubt that the whole superhero thing was passed down as stories through generations, if there were solid family structures. But several times throughout the book, it's made clear that family units are fragile and easily, often interrupted. Atlas is also not a city where artistic expression thrives; thus, would oral storytelling about superheroes be enough of a thing to safely pass down the concept strongly enough for it to be understandable and appealing? The comics also could have been scavenged, but

the world ended at least 100 years prior sometime after 2025. Most print books aren’t going to survive for 100 years in an abandoned environment where they could be exposed to any manner of things without humans to intervene. No library is mentored either. Additionally, by that point lot of people would have been reading comic books digitally, and since computers aren’t mentioned, we can assume the populace no longer has access to them.

History books are mentioned, though; maybe he learned about superheroes alongside “singing boxes” and “dancing picture screens.”

Look, maybe I'm thinking too hard. But in an apocolyptic world, what survives and what doesn't matters, even if those things are just concepts, because it tells the reader a lot about the culture, history, and values of that world.

PETTY COMPLAINTS OVER, TIME FOR PLOT TWISTS
From this point on, there will be major spoilers for the plot. Be warned!

Okay. So. My main issue with the plot twists (both ones that are short term twists and long term twists) being so obvious is that they make Anthem seem kind of dumb. And, look, I love a dumb protagonist. It doesn't make me dislike Anthem by any means--he's a good father, he's kind, he's patient, and he's loner. I like those character traits. Him being a little oblivious and completely trusting of everyone around him to a fault is only icing on the cake. The issue here is that I don't think him being *that* oblivious was intentional.

For example, there's a point where Anthem is called to exile a woman.

The husband lets Anthem into the house; his hand is all messed up and bleeding, and he keeps telling Anthem to hurry up. Anthem goes upstairs to where the wife is locked in a room with the Shiver and manages to get the door open. Inside, the Shiver is completely ignoring the woman and is instead digging through the floor. There are buckets scattered around the room. Anthem still doesn't get what's going on despite his years of observing Shiver and human behavior, and tries talking to the woman (who is terrified out of her mind, obviously).

I understood what was happening the second Anthem entered the house, based purely on the information about Shivers that the narrative has made clear that Anthem understands.

So it was weird that he thought something might be off but had no idea what it was until the Shiver broke out of the room and went after the husband.

Also, in the beginning of the book, when Shivers are being established, Anthem talks about how he's been searching for a way to hold them off, kill them, or prevent them from attacking for years. He's got a notebook full of notes from interviews he's done with people he's about to Exile. When I was reading this, the solution seemed obvious to me.

Why not try feeding it? The problem is it's hungry, and it wants to eat its host, so... I mean, the solution seemed really obvious. And, of course, feeding them is revealed in the last third of the book to indeed be a solution to the issue. So why hadn't Anthem even considered it before?

There were a few other plot points that turned out to be predictable

(the Shivers ending up being controllable, the "haven" Doubleday was making just being a sacrificial field, Rib luring Anthem into danger).

I wouldn't have as big of an issue with the predictablility of the plot twists if they weren't so easily fixable and they didn't make Anthem seem like he doesn't have basic common sense. For example, how to fix the husband situation;

have Anthem realize what's going on immediately upon entering the house. It's far more interesting that way, too; now we get to see him try to figure out how to get the Shiver and the husband out of the house without harming the wife. Does he trick the husband? Force him? Nothing plot-wise would have to change, either. The plan could still fail, resulting in the chase, or the Shiver could burst through the ceiling (which would have been cool as fuck, pardon my French) and the husband could still run, also resulting in the chase.

The whole

feeding them blood thing to take the edge off their hunger is also easily adjustable to make it less easily predictable. All that needs to happen is Anthem reflecting on a case where he saw that happen, creating a horribly strong Shiver that resulted in something horrible happening. It doesn't even need to be a case he'd seen, just one he'd heard of. That way, the reader is misdirected, making the plot twist with the IV tube solution more surprising and more interesting because it adds another layer of uncertainty to Anthem's understanding of how Shivers work.

To wrap up this section, I'm making a petty complaint about the city's name, Atlas. It's very similar to Anthem (they both start with A and are two syllables), meaning that when I sat down to write this review I couldn't remember which was which and had to double check.

Additionally, if you know anything about Greek mythology, this makes the twist about what's going on with the city (spoiler, there's a giant Shiver hanging out on top of it) really obvious the second Anthem leaves the city and spots something in the clouds. Most people probably wouldn't notice that connection because, to be honest, Atlas isn't the most interesting Greek myth (and most people connect the word Atlas with maps, not with the mythology),

so honestly the Atlas/Anthem thing is more of a problem for me.

SIDE NOTE, RIB
Rib's character wasn't as bad as it could have been, but I hate the

cannibal savage

trope with such dedication I have to complain about it. I'm not going to get into all the deep-seated issues with this trope (it has a long racist, classist history) because it's too much for a book review and there's already plenty of writing out there analyzing it in-depth. Instead I'll just discuss Rib in terms of his position in the book at a more surface level.

First of all, Rib (and

his cannibal cadre, the Skulls

) all speak in severely broken English. Besides the issues with this relating to the trope's history as stated above, it's also just boring. The idea of how language would develop after the apocalpyse among differing factions is so interesting, but that wasn't explored at all in this novel. Additionally, it seems that

the cannibals

didn't only use this broken English with Anthem but also among each other, meaning it's their primary language, which is confusing because... why? Loss of human language is symbolic of

how they've lost their humanity by resorting to cannibalism, yes, but it doesn't make sense logistically.

Rib and

the Skulls

are also described as seriously deformed; Ribs is missing several parts of his face and is occasionally described as walking more like an ape. Like the language, this is meant to indicate

how inhuman they’ve become through the act of cannibalism.

Like the language, this is something that not only has a long and unfortunate history of ties to real world dehumanization of real people, but also is boring.

We have

weird supernatural parasitic creatures as a major plot element,

and we went with the overdone

mutant cannibal

option? It would have been so much cooler if they’d

formed a physical symbiotic relationship with Shivers—ex., fusing with them or something.

It’s way scarier, way more interesting, and way more unique.

THE LORE
Let's talk about the lore.

First, I'm going to get this out of the way.

While the Shivers are obviously a symbol for mental illness/trauma from the beginning, that connect is moreso an underlying element in the beginning. The parallels between Shivers and mental illness aren't subtle by any means, but they're also handled relatively well and aren't being clumsily shoved in the reader's face. This falls away by the end of the book, however, with Anthem giving a long speech detailing how hard it is to live with a Shiver; that it's "okay to not be okay," that it's survivable, how it's hard to get out of bed, choose to keep going, but all that stuff makes you a stronger person. He ends the speech shouing that he Shiver's aren't "afflictions" but rather "superpowers" that can give people with them a "deeper experience."

Yeah, it kind of loses the whole menal illness symbology by the end a little. By making the comparison so blatant, the metaphor gets messy. I hate it when mental illness, even a metaphorical symbol of it, is something that makes a character stronger or is compared to a superpower; I find it trite, overdone, and not helpful.

That said, there were good parts of this speech. I liked the part

where he talks about giving a little bit of attention to it, acknowledging it, and that Shivers are a part of people who have them. That they can be lived with. It's just that a lot of the speech felt... I know I already said trite, but it's trite. It's trying too hard. I know that sounds mean, but it's a story beat I really do not enjoy.

Anyway. Getting off track.

The lore about the Shivers is really confusing.

They're animalistic beasts; some can swim, many can climb walls or hang of ceilings, and they are voracious. We see one digging through concrete at one point. However, the people inside Atlas are completely safe from the ones outside, who seemingly just don't seem interested in getting into Atlas.

At the end of the book, it's revealed that

the Architect's great-great-grandfather's Shiver was fed in much the same manner as Atlas and Zoe feed theirs. It grew huge, and when he died, it ended up hovering over the city and feeding on the Exiles who get cast out. It's called the Goliath (though I wish they'd called it Titan instead; Goliath, after all, is a Biblical thing, and if the city is called Atlas it would make more sense for the giant Shiver's name to also be Greek in origin to match. But I digress). Doubleday states that when Anthem Exiled folks, he was feeding the Goliath.

This is where things get confusing.

See,

when people are exiled, their Shivers eat them; they consume them utterly, leaving almost nothing behind. Additionally, when Anthem was exiled and left drugged in a field for several hours, Goliath didn't eat him. Therefore, I assumed that the logical conclusion was that the Goliath doesn’t eat the hosts, but the Shivers. That would explain why, despite there being a hundred years worth of people with Shivers being banished outside the walls, there weren't actually any Shivers to be found nearby Atlas. (Anthem assumes this is because they went elsewhere to find food, something that kind of makes sense but not enough sense to be completely buyable.)

However, when

the Goliath goes after the city, it exclusively attacks people without Shivers, yoinking them up into the foggy sky eldritch horror style. This implies that it feeds off people, not Shivers. It also explicitly avoids going after people with Shivers, no matter how small those Shivers are. Anthem uses the fact that Shivers will fight to protect their host from other Shivers to save the people of Anthem, gathering them all into one place and having the little crowd of Shivers duke it out with Goliath, who eventually retreats.

So...

what was the Goliath eating when Exiles happened? If it was eating the Shivers that were Exiled, why didn't it eat the Shivers and their hosts while devouring Anthem? Or why did it attack and eat Shiverless people if its diet is now Shivers? If it was eating the exiled people, 1) how and 2) why didn't it eat Anthem?

What we do have concerning the lore of Shivers is cool, and I like the idea with

Goliath

. It just falls apart if you try to think about it, unfortunately, making it a weak end to a relatively good book.

FINAL THOUGHTS
The Monsters in Our Shadows is a decent horror specfic novel that starts off very strong but has a weak end and spotty but interesting lore. It’s really a shame—that first chapter is an amazing mix of character, plot, and exposition, all balanced with a real sense of tension and sadness. The last chapter pales in comparison.

I'm excited to see more from this author; his character work is fantastic and his worldbuilding is interesting despite its weak spots. Honestly, I think I’m being so harsh on it because it is genuinely good. I devoured it in four days and I would absolutely read a sequel (if one is ever written). I’m just left with a lot of questions that should have been answered by the conclusion. I want to know the answers because the rest of the book was so enjoyable.

If you’re interested in the Monsters in Our Shadows, it releases on 28 February 2023. You can find more information about the title here (https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-monsters-in-our-shadows-edward-j-cembal/1142873723).