Never a Hero by Vanessa Len
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Never a Hero is the 2nd-book in Vanessa Len’s Monsters series, a high-stakes YA SFF series featuring time travel.
I really enjoyed the first book, Only a Monster, when I read it last year and have been looking forward to this sequel ever since. I’m so happy to report that it was just as exciting as I expected it to be.
In this installment, we continue to follow Joan, our incredibly strong teenage protagonist. Since the first book, Joan is starting to see the repercussions of her earlier actions. She’s reset the timeline, but that doesn’t ensure peace and happiness. Not by a long shot.
Only Joan remembers what happened, meaning those closest to her, such as Aaron and Nick, do not remember how close she was to them both. It crushes Joan’s heart many times over interacting with them now.
After a deadly attack, Joan finds herself back in the monster world as a fugitive. It’s clear someone is after her. She’s on the run, but she’s not alone, Nick is with her and Aaron is closing in.
First, let’s be clear, I am Team Nick, so the two of them being on the run together, even if he didn’t remember their previous relationship, made my heart happy. I know they were in serious danger, like really serious, so perhaps I shouldn’t have been so happy about it, but I was.
We do get a lot more world-development in this one. This isn’t to say the world wasn’t built out incredibly in the first book, because trust me, it was. That was one of the things that drew me in actually, but we just find out so much more about Joan, her family and the history of the monsters.
If you aren’t aware, this series does involve time travel. In fact, that’s the coolest thing the monsters can do. They travel in time by stealing time from humans in a bit of a vampiric way.
One thing I did feel in this one that I either didn’t notice with the first book, or maybe it didn’t happen in the first book, is this was giving me serious Infernal Devices vibes. I’m not even sure quite what it was, maybe some of the time jumps felt very period piece, or maybe it was the antagonist, but I wasn’t mad about it.
By this comment, I do not mean to say this is copy-catting in anyway, because it’s not. This is 100% it’s own unique story, it is just more of a vibe. A vibe that I’m addicted to.
It read so fast and some of the reveals had me gagging. I can’t wait to get to the 3rd-book. I think this is set to be a trilogy and I can’t even imagine how it’s going to wrap up.
I definitely recommend this series to Readers who enjoy fast-paced, intriguing SFF. This story is filled with secrets, dangers and angsty love interests. Bonus points for well-plotted time travel.
The third book cannot release fast enough! Bring it on!!