Someone You Can Build a Nest In

by John Wiswell

Discover this creepy, charming monster-slaying fantasy romance—from the perspective of the monster—by Nebula Award-winning debut author John Wiswell

Shesheshen has made a mistake fatal to all monsters: she's fallen in love.

Shesheshen is a shapeshifter, who happily resides as an amorphous lump at the bottom of a ruined manor. When her rest is interrupted by hunters intent on murdering her, she constructs a body from the remains of past meals: a metal chain for a backbone, borrowed bones for limbs, and a bear trap as an extra mouth.

However, the hunters chase Shesheshen out of her home and off a cliff. Badly hurt, she’s found and nursed back to health by Homily, a warm-hearted human, who has mistaken Shesheshen as a fellow human. Homily is kind and nurturing and would make an excellent co-parent: an ideal place to lay Shesheshen’s eggs so their young could devour Homily from the inside out. But as they grow close, she realizes humans don’t think about love that way.

Shesheshen hates keeping her identity secret from Homily, but just as she’s about to confess, Homily reveals why she’s in the area: she’s hunting a shapeshifting monster that supposedly cursed her family. Has Shesheshen seen it anywhere?

Eating her girlfriend isn’t an option. Shesheshen didn’t curse anyone, but to give herself and Homily a chance at happiness, she has to figure out why Homily’s twisted family thinks she did. As the hunt for the monster becomes increasingly deadly, Shesheshen must unearth the truth quickly, or soon both of their lives will be at risk.

And the bigger challenge remains: surviving her toxic in-laws long enough to learn to build a life with, rather than in, the love of her life.

Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Romance, Queer, LGBT, Fiction, Audiobook

310 pages, Hardcover

First published April 2, 2024

Reviews

[Allie N. · Rating 2 out of 5]

This started off so good and yet.... AND YET.... the idea that a bog monster would immediately be able to identify an abusive familial relationship when she has no concept of friendship, let alone family, and is constantly being like 'your abusive mother/brother/sister/etc.' making it sound like a 21st century human talking was so annoying. Therapizing in fiction is probably the worst shit an author can do imo and even worse when your character isn't intended to be human at all!!! If I had known this was cozy fantasy (or cozy horror, which is the dumbest fucking thing I have ever heard) I would have never picked it up.

edit: wait I'm not done I hated that everyone Shesheshen ever ate was a bandit or a bad guy or someone you were meant to hate, and yet is described as a 'predator' like no give me a MONSTER give me a creature who preys on whatever gives her the highest advantage--the weak, the old, the young--and truly have Homily reckon with the fact that the only love she has ever received is from a creature who cannot even comprehend love the same way, who has hurt innocents not because they were innocent but because she was a hungry monster and nothing more. What a fucking cop out to give Shesheshen morals right out the gate like huh?? what you afraid the readers aren't going to connect to the POV MONSTER CHARACTER THAT THEY KNOWINGLY SIGNED UP TO READ

[Veronica Roth · Rating 5 out of 5]

All of it stank wholly of deliberate smoke-- the thing humans called incense. [...] Shesheshen never trusted deliberate smoke. Humans were seldom up to anything good when they burned things on purpose.

This book sits very nicely in the tradition of the "alien observes humanity" POV-- this involves a kind of "other" figure, usually an alien, making unintentionally humorous observations about humanity as they become better acquainted with us. My favorite example of this is the entire sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun, though the others that come to mind are any Animorphs book from Ax's point of view, the Coneheads movie (not sure how that one holds up, it's been awhile since I've seen it), and of course, the spectacular opening to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which includes this paragraph that makes me laugh every time I read it:

This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

- Douglas Adams

lulz.

Shesheshen isn't an alien, she's a monster, but her position in the story is the same. She is an observer, and often a confused one, whose position as an outsider gives her tremendous insights, both humorous and deeply profound, sometimes at the same time. She's also wearier than you usually see with this type of narrator, because she's lived near humanity (and feasted upon it, naturally) for quite some time, and it's always trying to kill her, and she doesn't understand what its DEAL is, and really, isn't that the most goddamn relatable thing you've ever heard.

This book is about her journey toward connectedness-- coming of age, but the exact opposite of the typical coming of age narrative, which involves setting out on your own and forming your identity independently of the systems that raised you to adulthood. This coming of age is about trust, vulnerability, and understanding-- about what we might call 'becoming human' if we believed that becoming human was actually all that great, and I don't think Shesheshen does.

I often talk about science fiction and fantasy exploring things through exaggeration, and depending on who I'm talking to, I get a sort of puzzled look a lot of the time-- but this is exactly what I mean. Fantasy isn't just an escape, though it is often that and truly, thank god for that. But fantasy also makes things bigger and more extreme or dramatic so that you can actually look at them. That's what Shesheshen does with humanity, with love, with family, with the exhausting and horrifying but meaningful task of knowing someone and being known. You can see them all, at last, because she shows them to you in a strange new way.

This book is about her. Her voice, and also her body-- the inventive, sometimes gross, fascinating way that her body operates. This is the second book I've read recently where I felt like someone understood how to write about a being that wasn't a human, and to show the inevitable conflicts and tensions that would arise if we encountered something that Wasn't Us-- a real alien figure, not just some humanoid guy in a rubber mask. (The other was The Stardust Grail, which is also excellent and you should read it.) Like is Shesheshen's POV relatable? Yes. Is she gonna rip out a dead body's esophagus and tell you about it? Also yes. You must simply learn to see through the eyes of the monster.

And like. It's really goddamn funny. But in a sly way where you'll have to stop in the middle of a set of deadlifts to laugh at your audiobook. (Or is that just me?) I'll leave you with two quotes that weirdly happen to come from the same page but delight me nonetheless:

From what she knew of civilization, all children were parasites. You were supposed to grow to like that about them.

and

Self-conscious, Shesheshen picked up her two forks again and tried to capture some of her pasta. Two forks were not enough forks for this. The spaghetti was versatile in its resistance. "Slightly strange. It's like an evasive bread."

I'll never look at pasta the same again.

[Katie Colson]

My in-depth review, full of spoilers ---> WATCH

This is written by a man? A man named John ??? What Twilight Zone have I stepped into? This man not only wrote a lesbian love story better than most female author's I've read, but he also wrote strictly from the POV of feminism and did it with grace.
John Wiswell, I am here to enlist in your army. I know that whatever war you're fighting, I agree, and you're inexplicably correct 🫡

This book has everything. It's a macabre fairytale that's cozy, queer, weird as hell, funny, touching, deep and still has time for moments of gross and graphic horror. I'm sorry, was this written directly FOR me???

My mission statement: Read this book.
It might just go on my favorite's shelf.
The amount of tabs lead me to believe it will surely wind up there...

[Nataliya · Rating 1 out of 5]

“You want to know if I’m mad that the woman, or the monster ... or … or, the person that I like is eating [spoiler]’s remains?” Her words were rushed, like bigger ones were stuck behind it and shoving them out of her mouth. “Have you been eating people behind my back this whole time?”

Sappy and whimsical body gore with squishy slimy bits. Icky and at times revolting body horror interspersed with forced sappy instant romance.

But while the romance was eyeroll-inducing, the body gore quickly went to mundanely boring. And the amount of serious issues just metaphorically swept under the rug due to inner pushover goodness of the love interest (and that do not seem to re-emerge despite that said lover working on trauma recovery and hypothetical backbone) is ickier than any slimy squishy gore. Consequences only exist for the one-dimensional baddies, and only one-dimensional baddies can cause any trauma in the book that thrives on the idea of trauma. Leave your logic at the door as you come in, please.

“All Shesheshen could do for Homily was be patient with her, and make space for her, and eventually, one day behind her back, eat her mother.”

Therapy talk with the monster who’s mostly living by herself (and only eating bad humans) being amazingly well-versed in the details of human interactions with very much current flavoring of it all. A reclusive monster in a quasi-medieval setting must have learned all about humans and their therapy-sneak through digesting them. Other than periodic body horror and wanting to deposit her eggs in her human lover’s body (until suddenly she decides not to, because love) this monster had very much human feelings and deep insights into abuse and trauma.

If you’re going to create a very inhuman monster who doesn’t quite get that her approach of laying eggs inside an unwilling human host, having that host - sorry, “father” - digested from the inside may be a bit revolting to humans, and then immediately have her zero in on every intricacy of human abusive relationships with the aptitude of an eager therapist, then apparently you’re writing what amounts to cozy horror, which would be almost funny if it wasn’t so earnestly serious.

“Shesheshen wanted her to say something and was projecting that onto her while Homily suffocated. This was the same mistake so many humans made: believing someone would leap over trauma when it hurt them badly enough.”

The sheer degree of cheesy wish fulfillment in the end was incredibly saccharine. (Yup, I am mixing my cheese and sugar metaphors, and I blame the indigestion on this book).

The writing was not very good. The pacing was off, with drawn-out conclusion that made me wonder if the author wouldn’t have had more fun just writing a domestic comedy about shapeshifting monster domestic life. The characters, including the love interest, were cardboard cutout caricatures, and the setting barely sketched in with a crayon.

But my opinion seems to be an outlier, so take it with a grain of salt (like the monster should have done when digesting all those humans. Unless it’s watching its salt intake, in which case good luck).

1 star.

——————
Also posted on my blog.

[Rosh ~catching up slowly~ · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a Nutshell: A quirky fantasy-horror-sapphic-romance with a shapeshifting monster as the main character. Not my usual kind of read, but I found the concept interesting, and thankfully, the book mostly lived up to the potential. Recommended to those looking for an eccentric fantasy.

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Plot Preview:

Shesheshen is a shapeshifting monster who had been hibernating in bliss until her sleep was disturbed by hunters intent on killing her. Using her present skills and her past kills to construct a body for herself, she somehow fools the hunters, even eats one of them, and escapes out of her home. Unfortunately, she ends up falling off a cliff, where she is rescued and nursed back to health by Homily, a kind human woman who has no idea about Shesheshen’s true identity. Unfortunately, the cliff isn’t the only thing Shesheshen fell over. She also falls in love with her saviour. But not the way you think. You see, Shesheshen believes that true love means finding the perfect person to lay your eggs in as that is the ultimate sacrifice of love – being a willing co-parent (and tasty food) for your little ones. Homily seems like the perfect “somebody to build her nest in.” But just as Shesheshen is about to confess her love, she discovers something shocking: Homily is in the area to hunt for a shapeshifting monster that has cursed her family. Whoops!
The story comes to us in Shesheshen’s third-“person” perspective.

Let’s be clear: I am no fan of monster horror stories. But seeing the idea of a shapeshifting monster falling in love with a human female only for her to want to make a nest out of the human body – the premise hooked me faster than Shesheshen hooked her “teeth” into humans. I always love novelty in plots, and this book has oodles of it.


Bookish Yays:
🐻 An unconventional narrator in the form of a shapeshifting monster – offers a somewhat eccentric but entertaining feel to the plot. Some of her thoughts are unintentionally funny.

🐻 The description of Shesheshen – doesn’t stop at simply saying ‘shapeshifter’ but actually goes to detail how Shesheshen derives her shape. Loved the conceptualisation.

🐻 Plenty of dark humour in the plot, thanks to Shesheshen’s observations on various topics, her struggle to keep her lust under control, and Homily’s family.

🐻 The character names – hilarious! Whether Homily or Plutocracy or Catharsis, the names add to the fun of the book. Can’t forget the monster’s name – ‘Shesheshen’ is as quaint a nomenclature as the being it belongs to.

🐻 Interesting that a male author can write two such enticing female characters, without ever mentioning their physical appeal. Granted, one of them is a shapeless bog monster, but the other one, and the various other female characters as well, are also not sexualised.

🐻 I expected a mostly straightforward story, but there are some interesting and unexpected surprises along the way. One of them caught me totally unawares!

🐻 When I took this book, the title had a small role to play in my decision. Never realised that it would be applicable so literally! An apt name for this book.

🐻 Blueberry the bear – I wanted so much more about Shesheshen’s furry friend!


Bookish Mixed Bags:
👹 Considering that the narrator is a cannibalistic monster, there are obviously many gory scenes. Though these are not written in a deliberately gross way, they are still *tough to digest*. Of course, the genre of this book merits the use of such content, so this is more of a ME problem than a BOOK problem.

👹 The sapphic “romance” has its appeal. I loved the idea of an almost-parasitic love story with Shesheshen mostly viewing Homily as a potential nest. But I gotta admit, it is a bit too unconvincing and straightforward. The complications of such a relationship aren’t addressed at all.

👹 The pacing is somewhat mixed. The start of the book is fine, but the second half gets bogged down by a few repetitive discussions and needless developments.

👹 Homily’s family is the epitome of a dysfunctional family. While this does bring some serious themes to the book, it is weird to see Shesheshen identifies Homily’s generational trauma and repressed feelings and what not. There is much pseudo-human awareness in her narration that doesn’t make sense considering her background. No way she would have known so much about mental health and therapy.

👹 While there are plenty of entertaining characters in the book, they seem almost caricaturish at times. Hardly anyone is realistic or layered. What you see is what you get. They do their jobs well, but I wish there had been a greater complexity to their portrayal. I wish at least one of Homily’s family members had been more “normal.”


Bookish Nays:
☠️ The ending drags. The epilogue is a bit too cheesy for this genre.

☠️ If you are the kind of reader who likes to see characters get comeuppance for their unethical decisions, you won't be very happy. Shesheshen gets away with quite a lot in this book, not getting even a slap on her shapeshifted wrist.


🎧 The Audiobook Experience:
The audiobook, clocking at 9 hrs 36 min, is narrated by Carmen Rose. She does a fabulous job of expressing every character. As the storyline is linear, the audio would be a great option of trying out this book.


All in all, I mostly had fun reading this unconventional debut novel. It was not at all my kind of book, but the different approach and the freshness of the storyline satisfied me to a great extent. I am not sure if there is a thing such as “cozy horror”, but this came pretty close. It would help if you can suspend disbelief, as you should for most fantasy works.

Recommended, though I am not sure to whom. Maybe to cozy fantasy/romantasy fans who don’t mind macabre body horror and are willing to lay logic aside.

3.5 stars, rounding up for the creativity and humour.


My thanks to Tantor Audio for providing the ALC of “Someone You Can Build a Nest In” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

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[Me, My Shelf, & I · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hi, I loved this and am about to make it part of my whole personality. Please read this book. Edit: I read this less than one week later and loved it just as much a second time.

Edit 8/15/24: This has continued to remain my favourite book so far in 2024 and I don't anticipate m/any major contenders to challenge it in the last third of the year.

Someone You Can Build a Nest In is a delightfully cozy, funny horromantasy about what it means to be human, what it means to truly love someone, and healing from traumatic families. It's told from the POV of a monster that slowly finds itself falling in love. She has a blue bear (creatively named Blueberry), a remarkable ability to re-create perfectly detailed human hands, and devilishly sinister threats like "if you lie I will eat your lips."

#MonsterLife:
Unfortunately, the human she thinks she's falling in love with is part of a family that's out hunting her, so she has to do things like: borrow (aka digest) an olfactory system so she can blend in-- so tedious to maintain, not kill humans who are being rude at any moment she wants to, and even tie deer antlers to sheep and try to convince her beloved that that's the monster they're hunting.

The Writing:
If not already apparent, I was enamored by the humor which consistently dropped little nuggets that perfectly tickled my funny bone. But I also enjoyed the way a non-human monster viewed humanity and blending in with phrases like "romance was awful," or "arguing was the hardest form of talking." And equally they could say the absolutely sweetest things that made me genuinely buy into the romance such as when her gf is injured and "she wanted to... spend the rest of her life protecting that shoulder."

The Ending:
Some of the twists were well-telegraphed and easy to guess, but others were very fun developments that felt organic to the story and further reflected the characters' inner selves and their growth. I like when knowledge of a magic system is expanded on by the end of the book for both the reader and the characters. All of it was very satisfying for me.

Overall:
Don't be surprised if you hear me screaming about this book or re-reading it within a week. I absolutely loved it and if I didn't have other commitments would probably immediately start a re-read.

Does the ~dog die?:
Blueberry is attacked and injured in an attempt to use their relationship as bait, but able to be fully healed and recovered.

Audiobook Notes:
The narrator did an absolutely stunning job. I loved the way she was able to slightly alter her speech so that it was very obvious and differentiated between the voices in a way that felt natural and not at all distracting.
Do note: they have an English accent and speak a little quickly compared to other narrators (I normally listen to audiobooks at 3x speed but initially adjusted this down to 2.5x speed because I was driving and she was just a little too fast with the addition of any single other distraction).

Thank you to Tantor Audio and NetGalley for granting me an audio ARC. All thoughts, opinions, and incessant screaming about this book are my own.

[Ali L · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cozy sapphic ace body horror monster romance wasn’t something I had on my bingo card for 2025 but so far (33 days in) not a lot that’s occurred this year was on my bingo card so sure, why not. Shesheshen is a shape-shifter who minds her own business and hangs out with her friend, a bear named Blueberry (🥹) until monster hunters totally home-invade her and wake her up from a nap. This sets of a series of events that force her to flee and run into Homily, whose family is pretty Disney-villainesque (with amazing names - I unironically want to name my non-existent son Catharsis). Shesheshen becomes smitten with Homily and decides that she’s the perfect person to lay her eggs into so her offspring can slowly eat their way out. It’s not how my relationship works but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Do these crazy kids make it work? Does Homily escape her abusive family? Does Shesheshen just eat everybody? Does Blueberry just eat everybody? How many times can the word “tissues” be used in one book? Better check it out. Beware: if you’re easily icked out by bloody bodily bits being described in graphic, drippy detail, you will be queasy. Yay love!

[K.J. Charles]

Monster romance. Shesheshen is a shapeshifting gelatinous blob that absorbs the bones of its victims along with whatever else eg bear traps and uses them as bones. Homily comes of an aristo family that has made its life work to hunt down and kill the Wyrm, ie Shesheshen. But Shesheshen, masquerading as human, falls for Homily, which means the next step is to kill her and lay eggs in her.

It's a truly fantastic set up and I read the first chunk with massive enjoyment. The book then goes down a different direction, tackling Holiy's abusive family, and...eh. I just didn't believe a monster that grew alone in a swamp and eats people could so easily recognise the complex dynamics of emotional abuse and trauma responses in humans. I felt like the therapy language was a short cut to an understanding that would have been more powerful if we'd seen it grow organically. I also never really connected with Homily, perhaps because Shesheshen's view of her was so often mediated by analysis.

This probably lands very differently for people for whom this is a more habitual way to speak so there we are. I thoroughly enjoyed Shesheshen's terminal approach to interpersonal problems, and all the gelatinous monster fun to be had, and indeed the hilariously squicky henchman.

[Riley · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
this was very fun. i love the idea of cozy horror and Shesheshen was such an interesting character. but i think this would have worked better as a novella. it dragged on a lot

[Tricia Levenseller · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a wild ride! I never knew what would happen next. Dying for more monstrous main characters.

[milo in the woods · Rating 2 out of 5]

i actually think it is a big pussy move to give your eldritch horror a moral compass. i think shesheshen should have been way nastier.

i felt like homily didn’t really have much of a personality, and i also struggled with her family being villainous in such an overwrought manner. this story definitely had potential for me but the execution was not successful.

i wonder if it would have been more to my taste as a novella, because all the action scenes in the last half felt jumbled and unclear and could probably have been condensed to one scene.

[Christine Sandquist · Rating 5 out of 5]

An utter delight from start to finish. I can't recommend this enough! Shesheshen is fabulously alien and monstrous, and she never loses that even as she gains an understanding of love and empathy. The romance is slow and sweet and does a wonderful job of focusing on each of them as full people.

Wiswell, as an author, recognizes the fine line between being caring and supportive and being traumatized and self-sacrificing. He leans in, asking difficult questions: do you love your partner for who they are, or are you in love with their trauma? And what if their trauma is part of what has made them who they are?

[G? · Rating 1 out of 5]

Really enjoyed the grotesque descriptions of monsters and how alien all of it was, but the novel falls a bit flat for me. And I won’t go into actual spoilers, but the plot twist/ending reveal was such a goddamn let down.

Shesheshen is a very interesting character, but the main problem is halfway through the novel, her internal dialogue is Too Human sounding, in my opinion. Her relationship with Homily is neat on paper, but it feels almost one dimensional with how fast it develops at the beginning, and then stagnates for the rest of the novel while the plot moves to be about Homily’s family issues.

Speaking of issues, why does Shesheshen even know the word “allosexual” if she’s a man-eating, eldritch monster that only hangs around humans long enough to eat them? How does this word exist in this setting in the first place? I think it’s neat and interesting that Homily and her are both ace, but in terms of setting and proposed time period of this medieval-type fantasy novel, I find the word ‘allosexual’ to be really jarring to come across, since it’s such a modern word that only been used in the last 10-20 years.

Same thing with the usage of the term “enby”. I actually have more problems with this, since it seems like the author thinks of nonbinary people as just a third gender that you can easily categorize people into, when thats very much not the case. How is it possible for Shesheshen, who’s never even interacted with some of these characters, to be able to pinpoint when someone is nonbinary or not? Nonbinary people do not all look the same, and in fact: nonbinary is literally an umbrella term used for any gender that isn’t necessarily /just/ man or woman. I love the inclusion of trans characters in media, but when used in this way of just having the main character basically look and point and some side character and say “this is a nonbinary character”, it comes off as just trying to add trans characters in a checklist type of way.

I want to clarify that there’s nothing wrong with the inclusion of either of these types of characters, in fact I welcome more representation to be shown! But it’s a bit frustrating as someone who is nonbinary (and aro for that matter!) to feel like proper research or thought wasn’t put into how it would come across. And I know this won’t probably be issues for other people, and it likely comes off as really nit-picky, but these two points bothered me for the rest of my reading experience.

Very sad to say that I didn’t enjoy this book considering it has such an interesting premise, oh well.

[Brok3n · Rating 3 out of 5]

Destination Uncanny Valley

I have mixed feelings about John Wiswell's debut novel Someone You Can Build a Nest In. Intellectually, it's one of the most interesting attempts I've read at a problem Science Fiction authors have always struggled with -- creating aliens that are actually alien. But emotionally, alas, I didn't really connect with it. Sadly, I finished the book with a feeling of relief.

I don't guess Wiswell was aiming at Science Fiction, but rather Horror Fantasy. Fine, I don't care where the bookstore shelves it. It stars an alien monster that a science fiction author would be proud of. What's more, the alien monster, Sheshehen, is the main point of view character. And she is truly biologically alien. She's a blob of flesh and can voluntarily take any shape and incorporate anything she eats. Does she have bones? If she wants to, and if she eats something with bones. Her life-cycle, though inhuman, is more familiar. Wiswell obviously based it on the truly horrifying Parasitoid Wasp -- they lay eggs in the body of a host, the eggs hatch and consume the host, killing it -- thus the title Someone You Can Build a Nest In.

This leads to some fascinatingly awkward etiquette problems, like this one

There was no easy way to ask if Homily wanted her to eat her mother.

Indeed, it's a difficult subject to broach.

Where Shesheshen's alienness slips is in her inner life. She thinks and wants and communicates in a very human way. In fact, she falls in love with a human. How does she have the capacity for a very human-seeming love? Her species reproduces asexually. In real Earth animals eggs are invariably the result of sexual reproduction, but Shesheshen's species seems to be all-female, and Shesheshen produces eggs without any conspecific males or mating with conspecifics. Perhaps she a hermaphrodite or parthenogenic, but it seems more likely that she is simply unlike any Earth animal. Furthermore, like Parasitoid wasps they do not nurture their young. It is difficult to understand how, with this biology, it makes sense for her to experience a very human love.

Well, of course it is not really that difficult to understand. Wiswell is bowing to the exigencies of fiction. He wants a point-of-view character that his readers (most of whom he assuredly expects to be human) can relate to. For me this doesn't quite work. The alien biology combined with the almost human psyche combine to place Shesheshen in the Uncanny Valley. One suspects that Wiswell may be doing this deliberately.

I personally am not a big fan of Romance novels, and while I appreciate the creativity of this one, it landed outside my sweet spot. It would not surprise me to learn that it works better for folks who have broader romance tolerances.

I thank NetGalley and DAW for an advance reader copy of Someone You Can Build a Nest In. This review expresses my honest opinions.

Blog review.

[Greekchoir · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun! I’m having fun!

A carnivorous shapeshifting monster falls for a sweet monster-hunter. This one’s got a voice on it: gross and weird and gory when it could have chosen to be treacly and safe and cozy. I love the use of metaphor here, where language usually associated with sensuality is taken literally, or applied to Shesheshen’s monstrous practicality. To DEVOUR your lover. To CONSUME them. All very good, plus a nice understated discussion of autistic masking where I think other authors would’ve been too obvious.

I see where some people have criticized this book for its blatant terms: Shesheshen does indeed know too much about human sexuality and abusive dynamics for a misanthropic monster. But I think Wiswell’s choice to place labels on these is both specific and intentional.

[Maja · Rating 5 out of 5]

This might be the weirdest book I’ve ever read. I say that with love.

[Melki · Rating 5 out of 5]

What was this physical nonsense? It was her body. She controlled the nerve endings. It shouldn't be allowed to tell her how to feel. A single organ didn't command her.

Shesheshen is a terrifying shape-shifting monster. She uses components of anything she devours, be it inorganic or human, to build a body. Though she does need to occasionally satiate her hunger, on the whole, she just wants to be left alone. Unfortunately, there always seem to be a bunch of pesky villagers with torches and pitchforks rosemary soaked harpoons out looking to slay "The Wyrm", as she's called by the local yokels. It is through one such encounter that she meets Homily, a kindhearted, gentle soul, who sees the good in Shesheshen, and only seeks to help her. ZING go the strings of whatever stuff Shesheshen has inside her at the moment, and now she's feeling all sorts of confusing feels. Could Homily be the proper nest for Shesheshen's eggs . . . someone to hold the eggs within her lungs where they would be bathed in oxygen until they were strong enough to burrow out?

Or does Shesheshen love Homily too much to let her be devoured by their young?

And, then there's Homily's terrible family, devout monster-hunters who would never approve of this newly hatched love . . .

You can probably tell that I enjoyed the heck out of this dark fairy tale. There's plenty of gore (digesting people is a messy business), but there's also a lot of humor, and Shesheshen's struggle to playact the proper human reminded me quite a bit of one of my favorite film characters - Bella Baxter in Poor Things. For poor monsters struggling to fit in, it's a strange new world to navigate, and it's easy to forget the very complicated regulations. Honestly, Shesheshen - there are only two rules you really need to follow: never say "No" to love, and only gobble up people who deserve to be eaten.

Many thanks to NetGalley and DAW for the fun.

[Ella · Rating 1 out of 5]

Look, I simply just don’t think that a shapeshifting blob of slime in a generic medieval stasis world is going to use words like ‘allosexual’ and ‘enby,’ and I certainly don’t think said slimy parasitic decidedly non-human creature is going to immediately be able to recognise abusive family dynamics in humans. Also, egad, the therapy-speak is grating and the ending is pure unprocessed glurge.

[The Captain · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ahoy there me mateys!  There is a lot of awesome in this story of Shesheshen the monster falling in love with a human.  I loved the tale being told from the prospective of the monster.  Shesheshen's viewpoint of humans and their particularities was excellent fun.  I found the beginning of this novel up through the monster meeting the love interest, Homily, to be captivating.  Homily, of course, thinks Shesheshen is a human.  The monster learning about how humans think about love was also wonderful.  The insight into monster ethics was excellent.

Sadly, I did not love Homily as a character, even though she was sympathetic.  She seemed very one dimensional.  As the novel progressed I found the romance subplot and Homily's family began to irk me.  I did not like the plot twist regarding Homily's mother at all.  The logic of the story did not always work for me.

I also wish the novel would not have taken the direction it did once the big bad was dealt with.  Part of the problem was all of the lying that Shesheshen did to Homily seemed to be brushed off with no real consequences.  The reasons for the lies made sense but were not resolved satisfactorily.  It personally never felt like the two became partners.  Plus the epilogue was odd and too long.

I am still extremely glad I read this though because the beginning imagery and plot is going to stick with me for quite sometime.  I could see meself rereading this book just because of how enjoyable it was.  Oh and Blueberry the Bear rocks!  So I do highly recommend it.  I think the problems are more me and not the book.  Arrr!

[Melanie (meltotheany)]

picked this up in flint w/ my family <3

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[Laurie (barksbooks) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has elements of many things I love to read. Monsters! And true monsters who eat some awful people as a survival mechanism! Monsters who may be more human than some of the humans in their orbit and who may even fall in love. All in one book. Fantastic!

Shesheshen was in her lair minding her own business and hibernating, as she does, when a group of idiot monster-hunters and a fancy man in gold armor wake her and invade her space. Of course, now that she’s awake she might be a little hungry and need a little meat. Ooops, too bad for them. Anyhow, she shapeshifts into a humanoid form, using some unique parts, and heads to town for more snacks but finds trouble and a kind human named Homily.

What happens next is a very strange and imaginative romance-tinged adventure as Homily and Shesheshen flee for their lives from the villains in town and their own secrets come around to haunt them both. At times the story is gross and gruesome, but it's also sweet and the author creates a good balance of melancholy and dark humor. The dialogue coming from Shesheshen was often hilarious to me.

“Can we not talk right now?”

“Yes, I love not talking.”

Talking was awful when you weren’t threatening people. ~ Shesheshen who is my favorite monster of all time now, lol.

I loved this story. It’s one of those books you can fall into if you’re into its characters and invested in their story and I was. There are plenty of characters I loved to hate and a few things that surprised me. Some might think it moves a little slow at times and I guess it does but that didn’t bother me for once. I’d pick it up to read a few chapters and end up reading a huge chunk when I should’ve been doing other things.

Definitely recommended to anyone who likes all of these things and doesn't mind the gory bits.

[Denise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Someone You Can Build A Nest In is a marvelously creative novel that is-at times-grisly, poignant and very entertaining. It provides intriguing examinations of the nature of humanity through the eyes of its protagonist Shesheshen: a shapeshifting monster who falls in love with a young woman named Homily who tends to her following a fall from a cliff during a pursuit by monster-hunters.

Although it does have its moments of coziness, Someone You Can Build A Nest In also touches upon familial abuse, trauma, the consequences of low self-esteem and the inevitable damage caused by unintentionally destructive coping mechanisms.

Shesheshen is an immensely unique protagonist and the novel does not shy away from the more disturbing aspects of her behavior. The body horror as she constructs her body time and again is fascinating, as it goes beyond the more traditional shapeshifting that is often depicted. Facets of her personality were also very relatable: the unease with interacting with others, the not always comprehending social customs and the concern of saying the incorrect thing due to ignorance.

Homily is an intriguing character as well. While immensely compassionate, she is also depicted an individual who is accustomed to self-sacrifice for the benefit of others. She also isn’t miraculously “healed” by Shesheshen’s affections, but they both make an effort to try and help one another and do so at their own pace rather than following any particular conventions.

The plot overall is engrossing, the antagonist is quite monstrous and the conclusion really does wrap things up wonderfully.

Thank you to NetGalley, DAW Books and to John Wiswell for providing access to this ebook. All opinions expressed are solely my own.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

ETA: This won the Nebula for Best Novel for 2025, so why not pick it up and give yourself some joy?

This is a ridiculous book that I loved very much. Also, because I have low spoons at the moment and also because I couldn’t do better, here are some key moments from the blurb:

"Shesheshen has made a mistake fatal to all monsters: she’s fallen in love."

"Shesheshen is a shapeshifter, who happily resides as an amorphous lump at the bottom of a ruined manor."

"Homily is kind and nurturing and would make an excellent co-parent: an ideal place to lay Shesheshen’s eggs so their young could devour Homily from the inside out."

"Eating her girlfriend isn’t an option."

"And the bigger challenge remains: surviving her toxic in-laws long enough to learn to build a life with, rather than in, the love of her life."

I think you’ll agree whoever wrote that blurb deserves an award of some sort. And in my opinion, it perfectly represents what you will get in the book: a tongue in cheek, weird little story about a monster who learns to be a person, while gross and funny things are constantly happening to and around her.

Also, I WILL NOTE LOUDLY, both of the love interests in this book, Shesheshen and Homily, are not only homoromantic but ASEXUAL. There is also a tertiary character in here that is called the offspring for most of the book that made me CACKLE every time it was on page. The last time I laughed this hard at a book and tabbed so many memorable, funny, and utterly weird lines was Gideon the Ninth.

I don’t know what to tell you about all the mediocre reviews of this one. They just don’t get it. I thought this book was perfect and exactly what I wanted, and I can’t wait to see what John Wiswell and his weird little mind do next.

Read Harder 2024: Read a book based solely on the title.

r/Fantasy BINGO 2024: Book Club or Readalong Book (Hard Mode)

CBR BINGO: Bananas

[Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

the plot was more about mommy issues than it was about breeding, which surprised me, lol. this book is the epitome of "would you love me if i was a worm?"

[Quill&Queer · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you don't have your own body parts, using your enemy's is a fine alternative. The best thing you can do when recommending this book to anyone is to tell them absolutely nothing about it and make them go in blind because it truly is WILD.

That being said, this is a cosy, found family story of sapphic love, asexuality and parenting, and it's also a gruesome dark story of parental abuse and body horror. The two ideas blend so seamlessly together it's pretty incredible, and I was so satisfied when I closed the final page.

[Elle (ellexamines on TT & Substack) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Someone to Build a Nest In is a quirky and often-delightful romance between Shesheshen, a shapeshifting monster able to consume people for their parts, and Homily, a warm-hearted human whose difficult family happens to be hunting the monster. A match made in heaven, except for the even bigger complexity: Shesheshen desperately wants to lay her eggs in Homily, but those eggs would eat her inside out.

I was expecting this to be a fairly dark gothic romance – it's absolutely not. Really, the best comparison is probably T. Kingfisher's also-excellent Nettle & Bone. It's essentially a humorous cozy fantasy / fairy tale romance with an eye towards finding new forms of futurity outside a typical reproductive cycle, either a typical human or a typical monster's. I couldn't help but think about José Muñoz's seminal Cruising Utopia on finding queer futurities; the focus towards finding a different method of future, outside of reproduction, is extremely strong.

There's a lot to love here. If you enjoy body horror and weirdness, you'll enjoy this quite a bit; the imagery is extremely strong and very visceral. Shesheshen is a really strong character – her complete inability to understand why social cues mean the things they mean creates a great combination between 'believably monstrous' and 'believably undercover'. She's both doing a good job pretending, and doesn't quite get these people! Additionally, the arc of Homily as an abuse survivor is extremely strong; you genuinely believe in her as someone who would fall for a 'monster', and are rooting for her to receive the type of love and care Shesheshen offers. Their romantic arc is heavily defined by Shesheshen's defensiveness of and loyalty towards Homily, and seeing her begin to experience anger and ferocity as an aspect of care – rather than the beginning of violence as she's experienced with her family – is gorgeous.

On a more negative note, though, I really struggled with the pacing. The middle section of the novel is genuinely repetitive to a point of nearing boredom. I almost felt that this could have cut a hundred pages and turned out better. (Nothing wrong with a fairy-tale novella!) Also, as Arie astutely points out, Someone to Build a Nest In occasionally pulls out therapy speak. We are in a medieval fairy tale, and the audience for the f/f cannibalism romance can already identity that the parent figure is toxic without being told so!

I landed on a three for this, but I still enjoyed myself quite a bit, and I'm sure I'll read more by this author if he's still on these themes. Recommended if the blurb sounds like catnip to you (as it was to me); otherwise, fine to skip.

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[Booksblabbering || Cait❣️ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the cleverest, weirdest, driest, funniest books I have had the strange pleasure of reading.

At its basics, a human-eating shapeshifter falls in love with the daughter of a powerful monster hunting family. However, I would hesitate to call this a romance or a horror.

There was no easy way to ask if Homily wanted her to eat her mother.

If you told me I would fall in love with a being that incorporates pieces of the environment or her past victims to lend structure to her gelatinous body, I would have raised my eyebrows. If you told me Shesheshen falls in love with the soft-spoken, kind-hearted woman called Homily who saved her, I’d be sending heart-eyes.

Genre-blending, emotional, healing.
Plus, my favourite declaration of love ever:

Homily professed her love by digging a second crossbow bolt of Shersheshin's body. It was so much clearer a declaration of affection than any of those speeches spun by poets or playwrights. And stuffed into the mouths of actors who pretended to be enamored. One could only pretend to love in language. True love was a woman sinking up to her elbows in her viscera.

What really stood out to me was Shesheshen noting the abuses of the people around her and trying to slowly heal brokenness by confronting compartmentalising and harming thought patterns. She supports and challenges Homily with a pure gentleness, encouraging her to stand up to her family, recognise her own worth, and to prioritise her own desires. 

This is just such a smartly written book with nearly-missed puns, underlying wry wit, and startling observations.

Finally, I have to applaud the unconventional narrative arc. The climax is not the end. There is a lot of time spent afterwards to heal and go through the hard parts. Yes, it is cheesy, but boy did it work for me this time around.

I would recommend the audiobook format because the dry humour is really brought to the forefront and the accents are executed marvellously.

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[Natalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The English version can be found below.
-----------
German version:

Inhalt: Es gibt ein Gestaltwandler-Monster namens Shesheshen in einer Höhle im Wald und Monsterjäger, die das nahegelegene Dorf schickt, um es zu töten und dies zumeist nicht überleben. Gut und Böse stehen hier jedoch in Frage. Außerdem gibt es neben diesem Horror- und Action-Anteil eine etwas komplizierte, teils makabre und zugleich herzerwärmende Liebesgeschichte mit cozy Vibes.🖤🫶🏻 Da das für John Wiswell offensichtlich nicht genug ist, und vermutlich auch um die Kluft zwischen Horror und Cozy Fantasy zu schließen, gibt es darüber hinaus eine sehr eigene Form von Humor. 🫶

Der Humor der Geschichte ist der Part, der mir persönlich am besten gefallen hat. Er ist irgendwie sowohl eine ehrliche und seltsamerweise auch treffende Beschreibung der Menschen in ihrem Sein als solche aus der Sicht eines Monsters und zugleich ist es durch diese detaillierte und gezielte Schilderung so überspitzt formuliert, dass es amüsant ist. Dabei ist ebenfalls eine zynische Note und schwarzer Humor enthalten. Manchmal basiert der Humor aber auch auf Shesheshens Unkenntnis über die Menschen und der allgemein fehlenden Lebenserfahrung, was dann tollpatschig-niedlich und wegen der merkwürdigen Herleitung für ihre Erklärung der Umstände auch witzig ist. Oder all diese Aspekte auf humorvolle Weise kombiniert!😅 🖤 🖤 🖤
Hier ein paar Beispiele zur Verdeutlichung:

- „Schwächen waren eine menschliche Erfindung. Sie nannten es deine Schwäche, wenn sie davon fantasierten, dich damit zu ermorden.“ (von mir übersetzt)

- „Homilys Zimmer war alles, was Shesheshen an Menschen nicht mochte. Ein Bett, das größer war als die Fläche eines Menschen, und die Laken waren so eng, dass man sich unter ihnen durchkämpfen musste. An den Wänden hingen Spiegel, die einem vorgaukeln sollten, man sei in Gesellschaft. Kommoden über Kommoden, um die Leute zu ermutigen, ihre Kleidung häufiger zu wechseln, als es sinnvoll wäre. Schlafzimmer entstehen aus schlechten Gewohnheiten.“ (von mir übersetzt)

- „Mit einer Nase fühlte sich Shesheshen sofort menschlicher, denn sie konnte tun, was Menschen am liebsten tun: sich beschweren. [...] Natürlich gab es auch Menschen mit tauben Nasen, die von dem Ritual verschont blieben, sich über alles zu beschweren, was sie rochen.“ (von mir übersetzt)

Die Handlung ist interessant gestaltet mit viel Abwechslung und Kampfszenen. Gerade im letzten Drittel des Buches gibt es wirklich überraschende Wendungen, die ein ganz neues Licht auf die Handlung werfen. Hier kommen die Horror-Vibes noch einmal richtig zu Geltung. 🖤🫣😅

Das einzige Kriterium ist der Charakter Homily, den ich stellenweise etwas formlos und unauthentisch fand. Auch ihre Reaktion auf den Horror-Twist im letzten Drittel finde ich unpassend. Man hätte sie langsamer zu dieser Einsicht kommen lassen können, nach allem was vorgefallen ist. Bei einem so interessanten Charakter wie Shesheshen hätte ich mir als anderen Hauptprotagonisten etwas mehr erhofft und nicht jemanden, der Shesheshen bei allem bestätigt und einfach toll findet. Auch die Baroness ist ein gut gelungener Charakter. Homilys Schwestern Epigram and Ode sind meines Erachtens eher Randfiguren, die der Charakterbildung Homilys dienen sollen. Laurent sollte man auch erwähnen, da er trotz seiner geringeren Sequenzen, die er in der Geschichte einnimmt, eine tragende Rolle spielt. 🖤 Catharsis ist genau wie seine Schwestern eine Figur, die benutzt wird, um Shesheshen darzustellen und sie dem Leser sympathisch zu präsentieren.

Das Buch ist wirklich brillant - eine ganz eigene Art von Humor, Cozy Fantasy und Horror zugleich und alles gekonnt komponiert. Bis auf das Homily-Kriterium kann ist nichts dagegen einwenden. Absolute Leseempfehlung! 🖤 🙌🏻

Gesamt: 4,6🌟

----------
English version:

Synopsis: There is a shapeshifting monster called Shesheshen in a cave in the forest and monster hunters sent by the nearby village to kill it, most of whom do not survive. However, good and evil are in question here. In addition to this horror element, there is also a somewhat complicated, sometimes macabre and at the same time heart-warming love story with cozy vibes. 🖤🫶🏻 As this is obviously not enough for John Wiswell and presumably also to close the gap between horror and cozy fantasy, there is also a very unique form of humour. 🫶

The humour in the story is the part I personally liked best. It is somehow both an honest and strangely accurate description of people in their being from the point of view of a monster and at the same time it is so exaggerated by this detailed and targeted description that it is amusing. It also contains a cynical note and black humour. But sometimes the humour is also based on Shesheshen's unfamiliarity with people and general lack of life experience, which is then clumsily cute and also funny because of the strange derivation for her explanation of the circumstances. Or everything combined. 😅 🖤 🖤 🖤
Here are a few examples to illustrate this:

“Weaknesses were a human invention. They called it your weakness if they fantasized about murdering you with it.”

„Homiliy’s room was everthing Shesheshen didn’t like about people. A bed larger than any human’s surface area, and the sheets were so tight across it that you would have to wrestle to get under them. Mirrors hung on the walls, to trick you into thinking you were in company. Dressers and bureaus to encourage people to change clothes more frequently than made sense. Bedrooms were made out of bad habits.“

„Having a nose made Shesheshen immediately feel more human, because it let her do what humans like most: complain. […] Of course there were humans with deaf noses, who were spared from the ritual of complaining about wahtever they smelled.“

The plot is interesting with lots of twists and turns and battle scenes. Especially in the last third of the book, there are some really surprising twists that shed a whole new light on the plot. This is where the horror vibes really come into their own once again. 🖤🫣😅

The only issue is the character Homily, who I found a bit formless and inauthentic in places. I also find her reaction to the horror twist in the final third inappropriate. She could have been allowed to come to this realisation more slowly after everything that has happened. With a character as interesting as Shesheshen, I would have hoped for something more as another main protagonist and not someone who confirms Shesheshen in everything and just thinks she's great. The Baroness is also a well-done character. In my opinion, Homily's sisters Epigram and Ode are more like peripheral figures who are supposed to serve Homily's character development. Laurent should also be mentioned, as he plays a supporting role despite the few sequences he has in the story. 🖤 Catharsis, just like his sisters, is a character used to portray Shesheshen and make her likeable to the reader.

The book really is brilliant - its own brand of humour, cosy fantasy and horror at the same time and all skilfully composed. Apart from the Homily-criterion, there is nothing to criticise. An absolute must-read! 🖤 🙌🏻

Total: 4.6🌟

[Hirondelle (not getting notifications) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Completing my Hugo reading (it helped I read some last year, though for obvious reasons that can rankle when books get nominated!), a debut novel from an author of whom I had read short stories. I was not crazy for his short stories, and the novel is in the same tone—and that tone is cute, a bit twee.

The setuphere starts very strongly with the point of view of a monster who reproduces spider-like, eggs hatching on the father's corpse, eating siblings, needing to eat meat frequently and hibernate. But Wiswell's way of writing non human characters with different "monster"-like "reproductive traits is not of the same depth as Tchaikovsky's (oh I thought a lot of Spiderlight while reading this) or Ann Leckie's translators to the Presger, it is like I said above, cutesy, twee. It is not even as deep or well at portraying the viewpoint of somebody from an alien culture as T. Kingfisher's Thornhedge. Shesheshen seems perfectly aware of all human customs and introduces them and moralistically preaches how men are the actual real monsters, all the while maintaining naivete about what her sexual reproduction urges would mean for any "father" she would select for her children. It is tiresome, unrealistic, and, in all, just not very interesting.

I thought this was a monster novel more in the style of what T.J. Klune would write, not speculative fiction for the sake of exploring a truly alien mindset (or burning down unjust societies like Tchaikovsky would) but a kind of cozy metaphor for readers who feel alienated—presumably young queer readers with parents they resent. There is this whole message about evil biological parents and found family and all, that is a "it gets better message" (biological family sucks, but you will find a better one!) but feels not particularly universal to humans, never mind if there were monsters. And it is a cheerleading message, but I actually think books should try to portray something true, even if it is more complex or sadder than what we would wish in an ideal world. Is wish fulfillment stuff still art? Maybe. Good art? Probably not...

Also, and this is on me and my own bias, but I thought Shesheshen's love interest was so incredibly sappily perfect and the whole love story just cloying. Whatever.

But I completed the Hugo reading, and while this is not on the top half of my favorites, there is at least one worse book on the ballot. I will probably not read more of Wiswell's novels, though I might try short stories. Rating 2.5 but rounding up, because debut novel and all that.

[Ruxandra Grrr [in a slump :(((((] · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Every day was a brutal mystery, which we got through together. We learned about each other. The trick was realizing we both wanted the same thing. The thing that was worth going through all this for. That’s what brought us together.”

Well, that was fucking beautiful. That's what I said out loud, after finishing and having a good cry. John Wiswell has very much earned a long-term fan with this lovely lovely (and extremely GORY) jem of a book. I highlighted so much and laughed out loud so many times. It's a hilarious book, class conscious, but at the same time very emotionally REAL.

Shesheshen is a great main character and the close third person voice was super delightful in every way. One of my favorite book monsters for sure! And I love books that have a lot of specificity and details, so I can not love this! I also cared about Homily so much and how the author wrote her: as a beautifully brave and kind woman, fat, unshaven, and with issues that stem from her familial abuse. The dynamic between these two persons who don't like kissing (they're basically ace), but care for each other and comfort each other was romantic as fuck. One of the most romantic reads of the year, for sure, and for extra points, it's also the most romantic read where one of the leads wears the other's brother's skull, too! (And the only one, ergo specificity)

The one teeny-weeny complaint I have was that I felt a bit bored in the middle when the 'monster hunt' was on. But the last third was absolutely gorgeous, and the last few chapters allowed a lot of space after the final confrontation for the characters to deal with their trauma. And that was amazing.

The only disclaimer is that if you don't like anachronisms, you probably shouldn't read this. It's loaded with them (and it's hilarious in that!), terms like 'allosexual' and 'enby' are used. And of course the emotional wisdom of the book belongs almost to our future, considering the state of the world these days.