Little Monsters

Little Monsters

Adrienne Brodeur

Enjoyment: Quality: Characters: Plot:

“Juicy…simmers with tension as secrets explode out into the open.” — The Washington Post • “So alluring…I raced happily through the pages.” — The New York Times Book Review • “Compulsively readable.” — Vogue • “An absolutely captivating read.” —Elin Hilderbrand From the author of the bestselling memoir Wild Game comes a riveting novel about Cape Cod, complicated families, and long-buried secrets. Ken and Abby Gardner lost their mother when they were small and they have been haunted by her absence ever since. Their father, Adam, a brilliant oceanographer, raised them mostly on his own in his remote home on Cape Cod, where the attachment between Ken and Abby deepened into something complicated—and as adults their relationship is strained. Now, years later, the siblings’ lives are still deeply entwined. Ken is a successful businessman with political ambitions and a picture-perfect family and Abby is a talented visual artist who depends on her brother’s goodwill, in part because he owns the studio where she lives and works. As the novel opens, Adam is approaching his seventieth birthday, staring down his mortality and fading relevance. He has always managed his bipolar disorder with medication, but he’s determined to make one last scientific breakthrough and so he has secretly stopped taking his pills, which he knows will infuriate his children. Meanwhile, Abby and Ken are both harboring secrets of their own, and there is a new person on the periphery of the family—Steph, who doesn’t make her connection known. As Adam grows more attuned to the frequencies of the deep sea and less so to the people around him, Ken and Abby each plan the elaborate gifts they will present to their father on his birthday, jostling for primacy in this small family unit. Set in the fraught summer of 2016, Little Monsters is a “smart, page-flipping novel…[with] shades of Succession ” (The Boston Globe) from a writer who knows Cape Cod inside and out—its Edenic lushness and its snakes.


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  • MoodReader
    Mar 09, 2025
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  • swiftie8789
    Mar 27, 2025
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  • bookgang
    Mar 30, 2025
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    I received an advanced copy of this book from Simon & Schuster. This novel will publish on July 11th and be included in the Summer Reading Guide.

    This gripping novel, by the bestselling memoirist of Wild Game, stunned me with its lyrical prose, artistic lens, and smartly layered book finish. 

    Little Monsters is a slow-burn dysfunctional family story reminiscent of her memoir, set in idyllic Cape Cod, following a father and his children's lives on the cusp of his seventieth birthday celebration. 

    While the book draws parallels from the biblical tale of Cain and Abel, setting the story in 2016 adds a unique layer of complexity. The author skillfully foreshadows the unlikely election of the last U.S. President and captures the complex emotions surrounding that period, particularly as they all are sensing quite a different outcome.

    Adam, the father, is a brilliant oceanographer that openly embraces the toxic white male routine, feeling recently threatened by women's rise to power. Yet, as Adam nears his seventieth birthday, we realize this is rooted in his struggles with mortality and relevance. 

    More than anything, he wants to make a final scientific breakthrough to help him not seem obsolete in his older years. To achieve this, he stops treating his bipolar depression, allowing mania to seep in so he can unlock his inner genius. In these passages, Brodeur writes these chaotic and manic scenes brilliantly.

    Meanwhile, his children, Abby and Ken, could not be more different from each other. Ken is a successful businessman with political ambitions but projects his insecurities onto the people around him. 

    Ken's sister, Abby, is a gifted visual artist who struggles with commitment and relies on her brother's begrudging generosity, as he owns the place she works. 
    Jenny, another vital side character, must balance the complexity of being both Abby's best friend and Ken's wife. 

    We discover that Adam is not the only one keeping a secret. Abby, Ken, and Jenny are each harboring secrets of their own. To add to the family secrets, a mysterious person named Steph appears on the periphery of the family story to shed light on one more long-held family mystery. 

    One issue that may detract from your experience is this book's number of characters. While each is beautifully detailed and distinct, it offers ambitious side stories that build into a climactic finish with a rather astounding reveal that was ultimately well-plotted and worth the journey.  

    This is not a beach read but a book to be savored. Fans of The Paper Palace will swoon over this one.

     

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