Mr. Monster by Dan Wells

John Wayne Cleaver wants very much not to kill you.  He wants it so much, in fact, that he’s made up a host of rules to keep his inner monster from taking over.  The way he complimented your shirt, for example–he said that to counteract the delicious thought of you tied to a wall, screaming in terror while he skins you alive.

It’s nothing personal.  He doesn’t hate you.  He just has a need–or rather, his inner monster has a need–to take your life.

You see, John Cleaver is a sociopath with all of the psychological tendencies of a serial killer.  Now that he’s killed once (albeit to save his community from an ancient demon), it’s getting very difficult for him to tell who he really is.  Is he his addiction?  Or is that a separate persona–one that he can control, suppress, and eventually overcome?

He’d better find out quick, because a new killer has arrived in town–a demon, just like the first–except this one is in touch with the Brotherhood.

This was a good book.  I enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed the first, perhaps a little more so.  The ending was awesome–excellent lead-in to the last book in the trilogy.  Too bad we have to wait a year to read it. <shakes fist at the universe>

Dan Wells is very good at writing strong, well-developed characters, especially with his main character, John Cleaver.  This might sound bad, but as a Mormon I can relate with John’s personal rules to keep his stray thoughts under control.  Not that I have a secret desire to murder people, but I’d be lying if I said that it’s easy to live a celibate, porn-free lifestyle as a twenty-something young man.  But I digress.

The best part of this book was the way the romantic tension compounded the basic conflict of John vs. his need to kill.  It’s not easy to date a girl when you have passionate dreams every other night of killing her.  That tends to make things a little awkward (just a little).  In spite of how sick that might sound, John and Brooke’s relationship is quite compelling, and I found myself instantly drawn to them because of it.  Again, it makes it easy to relate–not that I, uh–yeah.  Whatever.

Overall, the book is great.  However, I do have one criticism, which may be more personal, but I’m sure it applies to others as well.  When John confronted the killer, things got a little too disturbing for me–not the tense, wide-eyed, “oooh, what happens next?” kind of disturbing, but the “this is just wrong–why am I reading this?” kind of disturbing.  It didn’t make me put the book down, and the resolution was quite satisfying, but I did step back and ask that question at one point.

The ending, though, is pure awesome.  The last page–man, I’m looking forward to see what happens next!  And if there are only three books in this series, John Cleaver has to come to terms somehow with his inner monster–he can’t continue in this way all his life.  He just can’t. He’s got to find some kind of equilibrium.  And him and Brooke–well, let’s just say I’m very eager to see how the series wraps up.

Mr. Monster comes out in the US at the end of September (I borrowed the UK edition from my sister).  Like I said, it’s probably not for everyone, but if you can stomach a particularly gruesome episode of Law and Order: SVU, you shouldn’t have a problem with this book.  Or should you?  Guilt!  Guilt!