Broken Monsters: Booktrack Edition

Written by Lauren Beukes

Narrated by J. D. Jackson, Christine Lakin, Terra Deva and 2 more

A Detroit detective, her geeky daughter, a journalist, and a homeless man struggle with broken dreams, terrifying threats, and long-buried secrets in this thriller of inner and outer worlds that are tearing at the seams.

Broken Monsters: Booktrack Edition adds an immersive musical soundtrack to your audiobook listening experience!*

Detective Gabriella Versado has seen a lot of bodies. But this one is unique even by Detroit's standards: half boy, half deer, somehow fused together. As stranger and more disturbing bodies are discovered, how can the city hold on to a reality that is already tearing at its seams?

If you're Detective Versado's geeky teenage daughter, Layla, you commence a dangerous flirtation with a potential predator online. If you're desperate freelance journalist Jonno, you do whatever it takes to get the exclusive on a horrific story. If you're Thomas Keen, known on the street as TK, you'll do what you can to keep your homeless family safe—and find the monster who is possessed by the dream of violently remaking the world.

If Lauren Beukes's internationally bestselling The Shining Girls was a time-jumping thrill ride through the past, her Broken Monsters is a genre-redefining thriller about broken cities, broken dreams, and broken people trying to put themselves back together again.

*Booktrack is an immersive format that pairs traditional audiobook narration to complementary music. The tempo and rhythm of the score are in perfect harmony with the action and characters throughout the audiobook. Gently playing in the background, the music never overpowers or distracts from the narration, so listeners can enjoy every minute. When you purchase this Booktrack edition, you receive the exact narration as the traditional audiobook available, with the addition of music throughout.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hachette Audio
• Release date: Jun 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9781549128189

Lauren Beukes

Lauren Beukes is a writer, TV scriptwriter and journalist. She has an MA in Creative Writing, but she got her real education in ten years of freelance journalism, learning really useful skills like how to pole-dance and make traditional sorghum beer. For the sake of a story, she's jumped out of planes and into shark-infested waters and got to hang out with teen vampires, township vigilantes, AIDS activists and homeless sex workers among other interesting folk.

Reviews for Broken Monsters

[kalliegrace · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I liked this more than the Shining Girls, the gruesome serial murders, the teenagers doing teenager things, the mother/daughter relationship, the whisper of the supernatural, it all worked really well.

[whitewavedarling · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I had a hard time with this book early on, and the element that made me take a break for a while is still the element that bothered me the most--that although we have a ton of very distinct characters, they all mostly speak/think with the same style/voice. So although we're in close third POV for the whole book, it feels as if all of the characters are thinking/talking in the same style and with the same distinct mannerisms/voice, which was a constant distraction for me early on. The other character issue that led me to put the book down and take a long break was the fact that the character who I found most engaging early on, and was most interested in, got so little page time. That's always a danger with multi-POV books that don't give each character equal time, and in this particular case, I was one of those readers put off by it and left less interested as a result.

That said, the middle of the book read fast for me once I came back to it and worked to ignore the similarity of the characters' voices. The problem is, most of my reading inertia came simply because it was easy to keep reading, and when it came to finishing the book, I was finishing to finish.

The simple truth is, this book is incredibly cluttered. There are tons of interesting moments and threads and ideas and characters, but Beukes packed so much into this book, and split the narrative focus in so many directions, that the book didn't pack as much power as some of the ideas certainly warranted. The gore of the bodies was fantastic, as was some of Beukes writing, but so many threads were left unconnected (some of them important), with certain turns coming out of the blue and some of the plot threads (that took up a lot of time) being fairly unimportant in the end... well, I'm afraid I'm not inclined either to recommend the book or to try another work by Beukes.

This was interesting, but ultimately too cluttered to feel finished or fully worth the time.

[burritapal · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is exceptionally entertaining reading, but I had so many questions in the end. It takes place in Detroit, and empty factories are some of the settings. I loved the block art party. This author has some fertile imagination! But...How did that "monster" guy get everybody to mass hallucinate around him? For example when he went to that pottery place, how did he get the owner to see all these flowers sprouting all over the place? In the end, how did he get the DJ girlfriend to hallucinate that her chest was opening? How did he get the chairs to obey him?
IN this book there are chair gods, mobile phone gods... kind of reminds me of American Gods, by Neil Gaiman.
I'm reading Dan Simmons book "the terror" right now, and it's strange that there's two corpses made into one in that book, and in this one too.
I like the addressing of teenage boys bullying and sexually harassing girls. What I didn't like was the parts that were epistolary-like, showing reviews of the you-tube boy's videos, and the comments from posted videos of when the detective's daughter Layla beat one her best-friend's sexual predators.

[caanderson-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Creepy, disturbing, thriller. Great characters, story moves a good pace.

[jessicareadsthings · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Oh my. Oh goodness. First, I'm terrified by this book. I'm terrified by the actual story and by the ideas left behind by the story. Also, my mind is just sort of blown by the bonkers ending. The whole book is bonkers really. Really amazing bonkers.

[crtsjffrsn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Detective Gabriella Versado knows this is going to be no ordinary case when the first body is found. Someone took half of a young boy and half of a deer and fused them together. And things only seem to get stranger from there. But Gabriella isn't hunting down this bizarre killer in a vacuum. There's a journalist, Jonno, hot on the story, hungry for redemption and hoping to break this story. And somewhere along the way, the killer may be getting help from other people, whether they understand what's happening or not. On top of this, Gabriella still needs to keep an eye on her daughter, Layla, who may just be wandering into some dangerous territory of her own. As they all everything comes together and the truth is revealed, everyone is about to learn that sometimes the truth really is stranger than fiction.

This case plays out to be truly bizarre. The story is constructed in a masterful way, with all of the layers that come in as readers spend a little time with each character. There's definitely a steady build to the climax, and it's one of those books that keeps you on the edge of your seat, not entirely sure what might happen next. Although this is dubbed a horror by many, I would point out that it's not really gruesome or anything like that. Although there are some mutilated corpses (though not described in graphic detail), it felt more like a paranormal thriller to me. And I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys that type of story.

[joweirqt · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It was a bit scattered with many different characters all over the place. It all came together in the end. Quite odd with a bit of super-natural input and very modern with fairly current news references.

Still, I read it in under 24 hours which means it was gripping. And I will still look out for her other two I've not yet read.

[jreynolds1959 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Gabi Versado is a Detroit detective and has come across a murder scene that is hard to fathom. A young boy is found near a bridge. He is half boy and half deer. Her partner, new to the force, is eager to explore more.
Layla, detective Gabi's daughter, is playing a dangerous flirtation with an online pedophile, along with her friend Cas. They are trying to catch one of them and take things to an extreme level.
TK is an individual who works at the local church, trying to keep the homeless safe and fed.
Jonno Haim is a writer trying to make his way in a new city after failing to make a name for himself in New York.
All of these characters become involved in a dire predicament involving the artist Clayton Bloom. Clayton has some very weird thoughts about what the creation of art is all about.

Turn off your cellphone.

[deltaqueen50 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Creative, shocking and unsettling, Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes is a mash-up of a horror and police story. Set in Detroit, Michigan, this is also a rather depressing look at modern day urban decay. Opening with a bizarre murder where a young boy’s upper body is grafted onto a deer, the story gets progressively weirder as it goes on.

We follow a number a characters who get caught up in these murders. A Detroit detective, her teenage daughter, a would-be internet journalist, and a homeless man. All have their own story-lines and there is a lot going on with each character. Eventually these characters’ stories join together in the final pages of the novel, and this over-the-top conclusion is where I have some difficulty with the book.

Beaukes delivered realistic yet flawed characters and her wonderful writing totally drew me into the story, but the ending felt rushed, abrupt and left me scratching my head as I wonder whether these paranormal monsters are real or imagined. I think if you have read this author before and liked her work, this book would appeal to you, but I would not choose this one for a first read of this author.

[stephanie_m-868484 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Too weird for me to continue, after getting maybe halfway through.

[melrailey-412132 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

100 pages from the end of this book I noticed that I was very tense and chewing my nails. That's a testament to how well written Broken Monsters is and just how scary the book is. Terrific serial killer story.

[pdcread · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Set in a modern Detroit, this is a murder mystery with a darker, more sinister side. In her career as a cop, Detective Gabriella Versado has seen it all until today. This body is half boy, half deer, fused together in someway. The corpse naturally collects the nickname 'Bambi' as the hunt for the killer starts.

Versado's daughter is digging herself into all sorts of trouble, flirting with a predatory man online and really pushing her boundaries. There is Jonno, a journalist who clocks that this may be the scoop of the century whilst more strange and disturbing bodies begin to be discovered. As the tension mounts, the hunt for the killer suddenly become more complicated and very personal.

Beaks has managed to write a thriller that weaves together a psychological thriller, sinister murders, social networks and modern society, with elements of the paranormal. Whilst I didn't find it scary, it was at times downright creepy, and the ending was incredibly fast paced and tense. She seems to have mastery of these off the wall thrillers that really don't fit the standard genres.

[amobogio · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Very suspenseful story of a serial killer who is more than human.

[bunnyhero-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

an epic masterpiece of ultramodern dark urban fantasy

[michaeladams1979 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I very much enjoyed this book. A mix of police procedural in a serial killer investigation; a killer who turns his victims into works of twisted art. Then there is another element, without spoiling it I will say it gets weird, even Lovecraftian, by the books climax. Ultimately a story about dilapidated old Chicago, and about the tragedies we can and can't walk away from. Highly recommended to weird fiction and horror readers, and even crime fiction readers who wouldn't be bothered by a supernatural twist.

[narshkite · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is my first Lauren Beukes, but consider me a fan. I saw another comment which called this a police procedural, and I do not know what book she read, but clearly not this one. Calling this a police procedural is like calling To Kill a Mockingbird a legal thriller. It is silly, and misses the entire point. This is a good old-fashioned horror novel, and a really great piece of social satire.

I love that Beukes set this in my hometown. Detroit's little rise from the ashes is a great metaphor for this moment in human history, where people flock not to see beauty or industry, but to celebrate ruin porn, to revel in the almost total annihilation of this bit of civilization. We are all id, responding for the sake of responding, acting so we can feel, without worrying about if the feelings we are eliciting are good. Falling "in love" because someone is a warm body, and taking no time to determine if you share anything other then kingdom, phylum, genus and species. There is no interest in analysis or in finding good. The world is one long Reddit thread. This is horror for that world.

Great horror is not primarily about blood and guts, its about being creeped out, and Beukes does a great job with that. Child killers, rapists, online pedophiles, conspiracy theorists, good men defined by mistakes made at 14, pseudo-centaurs, aging hipsters, and the death of empathy! Beaukes throws open the doors of the 21st century anxiety closet.

This book is sad, and sweet, and funny, and terrifying, and really gorgeously researched and written. There were moments I felt like I was in a screenplay, where things were too well drawn and there was no room for me, the reader, to use my imagination. Other than that though, I just enjoyed the hell out of this a 4.5.

[adonisguilfoyle · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I raved about Lauren Beukes' debut novel The Shining Girls and so couldn't wait to read what I presumed would be an equally impressive follow up - but Broken Monsters didn't quite have the same effect. When I say this story is 'Stephen King lite', I am not damning with faint praise, believe me. Two many characters are introduced without giving the reader a chance to get to know any of them, and the commentary on Detroit and art is too heavy handed for my taste. I struggled to care, and even kept falling asleep while reading! Not exactly the sign of a fast-paced thriller or terrifying horror story, whatever this was trying to be.

[quondame · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Seriously weird. Too many viewpoint characters for me. Interesting range of characters. Pacing seemed impeded, possibly because it was accomplished by viewpoint changes.

[iira_24 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Yes! I knew this would be good like the Shining Girls. The Zoo was a miss for me, but this was again a dark and twisted delight of a cross genre. The teens were a subplot I could have lived without, but not too annoying either. Good storyline and characters, easy and fast read and a nightmarish ending. What more do you need?

[nngrey-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I am giving this book three stars, even though I didn't care for it. The writing is solid and it is fast-paced. Excellent beach reading if you are into horror stories. I am not. Apparently, Lauren Beukes is known for her science fiction writing, and for this reason, several reviewers described this book as a science fiction book. It makes me wonder if they read it. It is not science fiction, not even a little. The book starts off as a detective novel and midway through transitions into a gothic novel. Not sure if this was an experimental decision or the author could not decide which direction to go. The transition did not work for me, and I did not care for the gothic elements, but you will probably enjoy this book if you are a Stephen King / Dean Koontz fan.

[iambookish-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Horror, detective fiction, not something I normally gravitate to, but for some reason I really enjoyed this book! Sometimes the graphic imagery was a bit too much for me, but I tried to concentrate on the overall story and not dwell on it too much and that helped a bit.
Great writing though, terrific story with strong characters. I will definitely be looking forward to reading something else by this author soon.

[heather_brock-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Meh. I guess this just wasn't my cup of tea. I didn't care for the supernatural aspects of it, at all. That kind of ruined it for me actually. I understand the author's message-but I feel like she could have driven the same points home with different execution. 2.5 stars On the other hand, I almost forgot what it was like to read a book with "normal" length.

[randymetcalfe · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

It’s often recommended to writers that, when in doubt, write the book you would most want to read. By the evidence of this book, Lauren Beukes would like to read a book with two put-upon female heroines, one mother and one daughter, who face down countless instances of sexism, misogyny, assault, and vilification. Just another walk in the park of realism then? Nope. Individual and systemic misogyny just doesn’t warrant that kind of scrutiny anymore. It’s not that men are pigs and society is mostly about raising pigs. There’s got to be something else that explains things. Really? I guess that might explain why this novel takes the turns it does. It doesn’t work for me, but then I’m probably just not the target reader for such a book.

[carol_w-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I might describe this book as a mystery-thriller with supernatural elements. It’s a complex story with a number of interwoven themes and a lot of extremely good writing that ultimately didn’t quite gel for me. In addition to the mystery of a set of grizzly serial murders, it also contains a powerful story of a mother-daughter relationship, and a lesser theme of sexual assault, all set in an exquisitely detailed depiction of the decaying city of Detroit, its struggling denizens, and its bizarre and slightly depraved art scene.

What worked for me best were the characters, especially the mother-daughter pair. They were so well-drawn that I quickly came to care acutely what became of them, and that was what kept me reading. The problem that I have with the structure of this book is that I felt the importance of the character-centered arc outweighed that of the supernatural evil that should have made the core of the conflict. (Why write a fantasy-horror tale if the fantasy-horror isn’t front and center?) I think the problem was partly that it took so long to sure that the killer wasn’t simply deranged – together with the fact that the detailed focus on the moribund condition of Detroit almost overpowered everything else for much of the first half of the story. I craved a resolution of the mother-daughter conflict, and I got one – sort of. Part of me also craved a resolution to the plight of the poor city, and that, of course, I didn’t get. Instead, the city simply ceased to matter. What I was given mainly was a resolution of the murders and their supernatural driving force, which paradoxically was what I cared the least about.

I should note that I’m not a fan of horror stories, which may have affected how I responded to this work. I read for characters, and Beukes’ characters are well worth a read. The dialog is extremely gritty, but it feels as if it needs to be because it sounds uncompromisingly true. My only complaint about it, other than the fact that I wasn’t raised to talk like that, is that the dialog tags were sometimes inadequate, making it difficult to tell who was speaking (or texting). The characters emotions come through very powerfully throughout, and Beukes’ descriptions are amazing, even if they are mostly depressing or horrifying. I’m sure many people would enjoy this book, even though I can’t very wholeheartedly recommend it.

[renbedell · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A suspenseful crime thriller about a serial killer murdering people in a grotesque way. The book's story is like one you would see as a cop show's series finale. It is told from many different points of view that make the story fresh and equipped with many layers. It's not just a thriller as it covers other themes, like mental illness, sexual abuse, and journalism, and has a fantasy element loosely weaved around the contemporary setting. The audiobook has a different narrator for each POV, which makes the story and characters really come alive. I really enjoyed this book for the interesting characters in a well-written and modern story.

[sturlington_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In Detroit, a young boy is murdered and the top half of his body attached to the legs of a fawn, kicking off a hunt for a serial killer-avantgarde artist who is definitely operating outside of the mainstream.

It took me a while to immerse myself in Broken Monsters. The story is told from several points of view, and Beukes takes her time introducing all the characters. Connections between them don't become clear until the end. This is not just a police procedural about an investigation into a string of bizarre murders; it's also an examination of urban decay and, I think, literal decay between the edges of our reality and other places. Appropriately set in the infamously apocalyptic city of Detroit, Broken Monsters is the written equivalent of all those haunting photographs of the abandoned city, which are mentioned frequently in the story.

[shellys_70 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Lauren Beukes continues to fascinate me with her books as each one is better than the one before. Broken Monsters starts as a conventional suspense/mystery, with a murder and a detective, Gabi Versado, in charge of the investigation. The story is told from alternating povs, including that of Gabi's daughter, Layla, as well as the killer, himself. The killer seems to be a typical haunted psychopath who quickly escalates into serial killer-hood. But is the dream that compels him just that, or something more?

The title takes on many meanings in this book that skates the line between reality and fantasy, defying an easy label, which is how I prefer it. My favorite books often blend elements of multiple genres. Mystery? Fantasy? Horror? Thriller? This book covers all those and adds in a decent amount of social commentary about how the internet, especially social media has come to impact and even control our lives, becoming a place where people derive meaning, validation, confirmation. The supporting cast are characters who all matter, coming from varied walks of life, to all play a role as the killer's obsession grows. That obsession crosses into the art world and the need for an audience. Even more than with her other novels, Broken Monsters has a lot to say beyond telling a compelling story. And I can't wait for her next book.

[isabelx_21 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

He hesitates and then steps forward, picking his way between the figures occupying every space in the yard. Twisted bodies made from cement or coils of wire or welded combinations of wood and metal and clay. An army of the beautiful deformed, from miniatures to monsters in every medium imaginable.

A murder mystery with a touch of horror and a lot of art. Much more to my taste than "The Shining Girls".

[altheaann · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

NetGalley sent me an 'invitation' to read this book from an author I'd never heard of. The blurb didn't necessarily make the book sound like it was my kind of thing... but I decided to give it a try. I LOVED IT.

If you're someone who's missed Kathe Koja's early writing (Strange Angels, Skin, Bad Brains, etc.) you HAVE GOT to get yourself a copy of 'Broken Monsters' ASAP. It's not that similar in actual writing style, but the content and themes are very similar: Beukes explores the fuzzy line between art and insanity. Her characters are realistic, believable people who tend to live on the fringes of society. The horror and suspense lie both in what people will do, and do to themselves - as well as in straight-up eerie supernatural bleedover into our world.

Weirdly, although Beukes lives in South Africa, 'Broken Monsters' is set in modern-day Detroit - where Koja has moved to, and is now heavily involved in the local arts scene.

At the outset, the book seems like it will be a fairly standard police procedural, maybe a serial killer tale. A young boy is found killed, and the crime scene is both grotesque and bizarre. We are introduced to several different viewpoint characters - the detective who's on the case, her teenage daughter, a homeless scavenger, an itinerant artist, a journalist recently arrived in town and looking to make a fresh start... Gradually, as the book progresses, the viewpoints converge, and as more clues are revealed, the situation gets weirder and more disturbing...

Great suspense, some truly creepy elements, a deft touch with the use of horror...

I'm going to have to go find more of Beukes' writing.

[beetlebub2000_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Eh.....
Started out slow. A bunch of characters and plot lines. Speed ball ending, but the manner of ending and how the storylines threaded together was a hot mess.

Still, this is an author to watch. I didn't love the book, but she took a risk and went fearlessly beyond where more standard novels tread. She's got a unique perspective for sure and that means sometimes a novel works and other times...not so much.