Monsters of Ohio by John Scalzi

Blurb:

Monsters of Ohio is a heartfelt exploration of a tentacular solution to the struggles of the modern world from the New York Times bestselling author of Starter Villain

Welcome to Richland, Ohio. Things aren't great.

The town’s biggest employer is closing shop, and Richland's on the brink. It's where Mike Boyd, with his own set of problems, finds himself returning to after decades away.

He's not planning to stay.

But Richland has other plans for Mike, his old friend Dave, and a newcomer Andi. They're caught in a swirl of local troubles, private equity, executive theft… and something extremely weird involving Jeremy Keller’s prize cow.

Welcome to Richland. Leave your expectations behind. Bring a tarp.

Review:

I’ll start by saying that this was my first John Scalzi book. I did encounter his stories in Netflix’s Love, Death & Robots series, and they almost always ended up being among my favorites. Having read several praises for Scalzi’s writing, I was intrigued to see what a full-length novel by him would be like. I don’t know if Monsters of Ohio would be considered one of his best or not, but it certainly was a damn good read. 

SPOILERS AHEAD!

What I liked:

The description for Monsters of Ohio reads almost like a cozy fantasy story clashing with a small-town horror tale. Except, the real horror isn’t the Monsters, but capitalistic greed (among other real-life evils). In many ways, Monsters of Ohio reminded me of Rhinoceros by Eugène Ionesco. I won’t go into details of what that play is about, but it also features people ‘randomly transforming’ and was supposed to be a metaphor for something that’s uber-relevant to the socio-political situation the writer found himself in. 

The prologue is from the perspective of a wild rabbit, so beautifully narrated in second person that you almost want the rest of the book to follow the same treatment. I’m glad it didn’t, because it could have gotten old quickly. The prologue ends with a strange occurrence that you can only imagine or guess. From there, we switch to our protagonist and slowly get introduced to the rest of the cast.

Mike is a former government employee who worked in PR and communications. After being laid off, he’s come back to his small hometown of Richland, Ohio. He meets his former friend, Dave, who’s now the sole police officer of Richland. As the town’s biggest employer prepares to transfer ownership to a massive Financial Corporation, there is a looming threat of unemployment, something that the Corporation tries to pacify in the best possible way—by funding the local Harvest Festival called the ‘Monster Mash’. As time passes, mysterious things begin occurring around Richland, including the sudden ‘massacre’ of a cow and eventually disappearances of citizens, followed by sightings of ‘Monsters’. 

Monsters of Ohio is one of the most empathetic looks at the inhumane life that most of us common folk are dumped into. From miserable aging old folks to losers who have fallen down the racism rabbit hole, to even helpless patients unable to afford healthcare, Monsters of Ohio doesn’t flinch from presenting its readers with a heartbreakingly realistic portrait of what life can be like in today’s day and age. While the Financial Corporation’s manager is busy embezzling funds—funds that were originally promised for the Monster Mash—the regular folks are barely subsisting off food stamps, poor business opportunities and uncertainty for the future. 

The Monsterization process is something I found incredibly intriguing. Everyone who transforms does so in a moment of heightened emotional tension. Those emotions are always either negative or are a summation of negativity coupled with epiphanic realization. After each of them explodes—emotionally as well as literally—the emotional weight of their existence suddenly seems to have lifted away. SPOILERS: Mike’s father and stepmother stop bickering with each other and end up falling in love with each other all over again, all the while confessing their insecurities and coming to terms with what they lacked and what they needed from themselves as well as each other. Another racist character who’s in debt from gambling and who is estranged from his family ends up making amends with his family and even genuinely tries to undo the damage stemming from his racist behavior. A cancer patient actually loses her cancer. 

In a twisted sense, you can say that when they were human, they behaved inhumanly. Yet, when they stopped being human is when their inherent humanity reached its peak, empathy and kindness replacing their cruel and toxic survival instincts. The more you reflect on it, the more you realize that their inhuman behavior was all a product of their individual situations, be it circumstantial or consequential to their choices. And in both of those cases, the responsibility lies with them to make amends. Of course, the blame can also be traced to the unfair systems that have made it impossible to live normal lives without walking over our own peers. Algorithm-driven hatred, systemic failure, economic inequality—all of these continue to plague our societies, and the only way to survive is to submit to their cruel demands. Cruelty became the new normal. And so, in this ‘new normal’, where Monsters in human guise pretend to be humans, the humans that transformed into Monsters truly become the highest form of humanity, shedding away their emotional inhibitions and embracing empathy.

If I’m being honest, the ending felt a little too good to be true. The villain gets his due punishment, but not before he too is monsterized. The heroes get a believable happily-ever-after, including the seemingly bad folks who are now making amends and trying to be better. If you think about it, the ending was quite fitting given the otherwise cozy vibes of this book. Besides, the brilliance of the book’s story and what it implies has stayed with me to this day. That, in my books, is a major win.  

What I didn’t like:

I have one and only one complaint with Monsters of Ohio, and that is the first third of the book. It’s not a bad book by any stretch of the definition. In fact, it’s quite an engaging read, with everything I said in the last section holding without a doubt. However, it does take its own sweet time to get to the meat of the matter (pun intended). 

The first 30-40% of the book is mainly set up. There are several characters in this small town, and we spend a lot of time getting to know almost every single one of them. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it does drag down the pace of the book quite a lot. If you’re in for the characters, you’ll be able to look past it. However, if the Monsters are your primary reason for picking this one up, your patience will be tested. 

Apart from that, the book really does a fantastic job of exploring the problems of the common folk.

Conclusion:

Absurdly morbid yet comfortingly heart-warming, Monsters of Ohio is a charming yet thought-provoking read. Reminded me of Rhinoceros by Eugène Ionesco.

TL;DR:

WHAT I LIKED: Almost everything

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE: The first 30-40% can feel like a drag