The Monsters at the End of the World

The author of this debut novel is already a good writer. Her sentences snap into place, freshly minted and straight to the point, and she draws on a richly-stocked imagination. Perhaps a little too rich this time though, with an unwieldy plot where young Sunny can only communicate with the so-called monster she teams up with through thought processes alone. This inevitably slows down the action while waiting for the next silent transaction to take place. But the stakes are so high readers will still want to know what is going to happen next. 

Sunny lives in a beleaguered coastal town following two centuries of social disaster. The monsters, which look like large dogs with peculiar ears and tails, are in the sea. They are thought responsible for the way the ground is poisoned and getting worse, but Sunny discovers that this is a complete misreading of the current situation. The monsters are as afraid of the humans too, each blaming the other for what is going wrong. 

Sunny has the task of bringing these two warring factions into peaceful co-existence, taking on long-held ancient prejudices in the process. Her mother and her best friends offer no support, and her new employer makes things worse.

The savior factor is the realisation that the ‘goo’, the author’s own word, produced by the monsters as an abundant skin bi-product also holds the key to putting everything environmentally right. Not the most pleasing of images, but there is still plenty of excitement as near civil war is averted and Sunny recognised as a courageous peacemaker. 

Rebecca Orwin in her turn is a writer to look out for, so too is Oriol Vidal for her striking black and white illustrations.