By Lyndsey Holder
Martinez, A. Lee. Monster. Orbit: 2009. $15.59 USD. ISBN 978-0316041263.
A. Lee Martinez’s sixth novel, Monster, features the titular Monster, a cryptobiological pest control agent (think Billy the Exterminator with less leather and Yeti and Trolls instead of snakes and gators). Monster isn’t exactly any more ordinary than the mythological beasts he captures: his body changes colours at random, granting him different powers (although some seem to be more useful than others), and his girlfriend is literally from Hell.
Judy, conversely, is pretty much everyone’s definition of ‘normal’. Working nights at the local Food Plus Mart, her life is the life of zombie movie protagonists – dreary, repetitive and full of rampant consumerism. Of course, this wouldn’t be a story if something didn’t happen (at least, it wouldn’t be a story I would want to read), so enter a Yeti devouring ice cream in the frozen food section, thus putting her life on a collision course with Monster’s and beginning her initiation into the bizarre-and-often-silly world of supernatural pest control.
Monster is a light read. It’s a good book to take to the beach with you, or to take into the bath. It’s not going to change your opinions on anything and it probably won’t make you see the world in a different way, but that’s not a bad thing. People who read nothing but heavy, clever books tend to be rather stiff and boring, anyway.
Monster is comedic in a way that I want to call “cute”. Its jokes are more the kind that you can appreciate the humour of in a dispassionate sort of way, rather than the kind that induce riotous belly laughter. Even on a cloudy day, you can see the punch line coming from a mile away, but that’s part of Monster‘s charm. It’s comfortable and familiar, like an old pair of shoes.
I’m not trying to cut this book down in a clever, sarcastic sort of way. I’m neither clever nor sarcastic enough for that. I honestly enjoyed it – the ending was tidy, the story decent, its humour adequately smart. It’s a good book and while it may not be the kind of book that you give out to your friends because it is so fantastic and world-changing that everyone needs to have read it yesterday, it is also not the kind of book that you find yourself trying to pawn off on your friends because, not only can you not bear to read another page, you can’t even stand to have it on your bookshelf. Monster is neither fantastic nor awful, but it is good, and worth a read.
Monster is available from Amazon.com