Looking For a Good Book

John Scalzi has developed a knack for taking an utterly absurd premise, treating it with complete sincerity, and somehow creating a story that is both laugh-out-loud funny and surprisingly heartfelt. Monsters of Ohio continues that tradition.

Richland, Ohio, is a small farming community that has seen better days. The town’s largest employer is preparing to shut down, private equity has its sights set on what remains, and longtime residents are wondering what comes next. Mike Boyd returns home expecting only to help his family through difficult times, but instead finds himself caught in events that become stranger by the day. It starts with odd happenings involving local livestock before escalating into something that no one—not the townspeople, the authorities, or the readers—could have anticipated. Scalzi embraces the weirdness with enthusiasm, but beneath the bizarre surface lies a story about community, belonging, and deciding what kind of people we choose to be.

One of Scalzi’s greatest strengths has always been dialogue, and it shines here. The conversations feel natural, witty, and often genuinely funny without becoming forced. Even secondary characters quickly become memorable because each has a distinct personality and voice. Like nearly all of Scalzi’s books, the pacing is very much on point. We get the initial set-up (at one point I even noted in my Kindle that Scalzi is showing he can master horror) and we see an ordinary world going sideways. Once the strange events begin, the novel moves quickly and rarely slows down, making it an easy book to finish in just a few sittings.

What surprised me most, however, was the amount of heart hidden beneath all the tentacles and mayhem. While the novel certainly delivers plenty of strange creatures and outrageous situations, it also explores economic uncertainty, the effects of corporate greed on small towns, and the importance of neighbors looking after one another. Scalzi never allows these themes to overwhelm the story, but they provide enough substance to keep the novel from becoming simply another goofy monster tale.

What doesn’t surprise me is the commentary or allegory of our modern politics oozing throughout.  It doesn’t surprise me because has been pretty outspoken about his political leanings in his social media. I see this book almost as a modern day Animal Farm or 1984.

The reason this falls just short of a five-star read is that some of the conflict resolves a bit too neatly. Readers looking for hard science fiction or deeper explanations behind the novel’s bizarre events may also find themselves wishing for a little more complexity. This is fairly common in Scalzi’s stand-alone novels – the emphasis is on entertaining storytelling rather than in-depth character development.

Still, that’s hardly a complaint. Monsters of Ohio knows exactly what kind of book it wants to be. It’s fast, funny, quirky, occasionally touching, and filled with the sort of offbeat charm that has become Scalzi’s trademark. If you’ve enjoyed books like Starter Villain or The Kaiju Preservation Society, you’ll probably enjoy this as well. While it may not rank among the very best novels of Scalzi’s oeuvre, it is a thoroughly enjoyable adventure from one of science fiction’s most consistently entertaining authors.

Looking for a good book? Monsters of Ohio by John Scalzi takes on modern society with a biting, satirical, horrific turn, with Scalzi’s usual sense of sassy humor. Definitely worth reading.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

4 stars

* * * * * *

Monsters of Ohio

author: John Scalzi

publisher: Tor Books

ISBN: 9780765389039

hardcover, 272 pages