Someone You Can Build a Nest in

John Wiswell Press Reviews

A beautiful monster story with a heart, Wiswell treats his outcasts as heroes. He is an author the world desperately needs - J.R. Dawson, author of The First Bright Thing

Someone You Can Build a Nest In is charming, horrifying, sweet, and funny - everything I could have wanted from John Wiswell's debut novel and more! With the perfect blend of humor and darkness, it's a wholly fresh take on a monster story - A.C. Wise, author of Hooked

Someone You Can Build a Nest In is the future of fantasy: a fairy tale with boundaries, an imaginative world created in the shape of collective values rather than the boring old id, a portal to a place you've really never seen before instead of just a princess in a different outfit. This novel is going to change the entire genre - Meg Elison, Hugo and Locus award-winning author of The Book of the Unnamed Midwife

Horror blends with heart and whimsy in Wiswell's trope-twisting debut. It's monstrously fun! - Beth Cato, author of A Thousand Recipes For Revenge

Quirky, heartfelt, funny, and absolutely brimming with gore, just my sort of book! - Marianne Gordon, author of The Gilded Crown

The coziest, most unexpectedly wholesome love story about a monster who devours humans and wears their bones that I've ever read! - Naomi Kritzer, Hugo Award-winning author of Catfishing on CatNet

'Oozing with - among other things - Wiswell's inimitable charm and tenderness, this is a monstrous love story like nothing I've ever read before' - Premee Mohamed, author of Beneath the Rising

Someone You Can Build a Nest In is sweetly furious, darkly funny, and gruesomely wholesome. It's a love story for the unloved, a happily-ever-after with a higher-than-average body count. I just adored it - Alix E. Harrow, New York Times-bestselling author of Starling House

This novel is for anyone who has ever felt like an outcast-or been bewildered by society's absurdities. I fell in love with Shesheshen's wry voice and dark sense of humor - Ray Nayler, Locus Award-winning author of The Mountain in the Sea

I love the wonder and the darkly enchanting danger of this story. It makes me think of fairy tales, but John Wiswell understands what so many have forgotten: that true fairy tales are gruesome and magical at the same time, and he nails it here - C.L. Polk, World Fantasy Award-winning author of Witchmark and Midnight Bargain

It is perhaps a little weird to say that a book with as much body horror as this has would also be warm, cozy, and sweet, but that's perhaps appropriate: it's a weird book. I mean that in the most positive way possible. Wiswell has crafted a story in which the monsters aren't nearly as terrible as the humans who are both their hunters and their prey, and yet Shesheshen is also unapologetically monstrous. I've never seen anyone pull that off with a fraction of the skill shown here. Besides being a masterful inversion of fantasy monster-slaying tropes, this is a fantastic examination of what it means to be family, and how that trust can be horrifically misused - Jenn Lyons, author of The Ruin of Kings

This book is pure Wiswell. A monstrous, protagonist, lovingly and thoughtfully rendered. Sly, fun and darkly humorous with a bloody, beating heart. And always keenly aware of what is truly monstrous in all of us. - Wole Talabi, Hugo-nominated author of Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon

John Wiswell's remarkable ability to turn expectations upside down and present new, delightful, gruesome, thoughtful viewpoints on narrative is on full display in this debut. Someone You Can Build a Nest in is the best kind of horrifying, beautiful, by turns hilarious and heart-wrenching, and entirely unforgettable: a story about what makes a monster, what makes a person, the scars of trauma, and the transformative (and sometimes traumatic) act of falling in love. - Vivian Shaw, author of Strange Practice

A good book is a predator and this one had no problem dragging me off, kicking and hooting, into the tall grasses to make a meal amidst my ribs before finally taking my heart for its own - Jordan Shiveley, author of Hot Singles in Your Area

Cozy and charming and made my heart grow three sizes which cannot be healthy - Goodreads reviewer on "Open House on Haunted Hill"

As much as I am a cynical, non-hugging beast of a human, I am also a big emotional softie and this almost made me tear up a bit. - Goodreads reviewer on "Open House on Haunted Hill"

To take something normally so frightening and evil and turn it into the most endearing, lovable, cuddle-worthy (if one could cuddle a house) characters is nothing short of miraculous. And yet, it's completely this author's jam. - Goodreads reviewer on "Open House on Haunted Hill"

Like a warm hug. - Goodreads reviewer on "Open House on Haunted Hill"

The coziest, most unexpectedly wholesome love story about a monster who devours humans and wears their bones that I've ever read! - Naomi Kritzer, Hugo Award-winning author of Catfishing on CatNet