Rayleigh Mann in the Company of Monsters by Ciannon Smart
My Rating: Three out of Five Stars
My Review on Goodreads
I’m embarrassed that I got an ARC of this in ebook format on Netgalley back in 2023, and I unfortunately did not get a chance to read it until this summer. Fortunately, my library had the audiobook on Libby, so I was able to listen to this. I am sad to say that I didn’t enjoy this as much as I would have liked. I don’t know what it was. I never got truly sucked into the book. I liked it, but I didn’t love it. I will say that I felt a little disconnected from it. I don’t know if it was the narrator, because I did like his voice. I’m a sucker for Black British actors and narrators, and he did a very good job with all the accents, be it posh English, Caribbean, working class Londoner, Irish, you name it. But despite that, the book just felt dry.
I did like the concept of Rayleigh’s father being the actual Bogey Man, and his heritage as a “monster”. Yes, it does have some aspects that bring to mind Harry Potter, and Percy Jackson but with a different spin. And I loved the ethnic diversity. Rayleigh is a young black boy Londoner whose paternal family hails from Jamaica. I loved the notes about family and heritage, but I feel like for the book being about Rayleigh’s relationship to his father, he doesn’t play a very large part. And Rayleigh’s mother is hardly in the book at all. What I did like was the strong bond between Rayleigh and his uncle. I love how his uncle calls him “Nephew Mine.” I also enjoy some of the side characters, such as Bloody Mary (and I like what the author did with her). There are some trolls, one of which likes to cook. The big bad character had a nice sinister, almost spooky edge. And there were a couple of interesting twists in the story.
But I was just underwhelmed. I just wanted something deep and to be more drawn into the story. It was a bit of a slog to listen to, and the end, when it comes, sort of arrived out of nowhere, with a pretty big cliffhanger. I really liked the pieces of this book, it just came together in a way that was disappointing. That said, I will definitely continue to read this series because I do like the characters and the concept.
I did like the concept of Rayleigh’s father being the actual Bogey Man, and his heritage as a “monster”. Yes, it does have some aspects that bring to mind Harry Potter, and Percy Jackson but with a different spin. And I loved the ethnic diversity. Rayleigh is a young black boy Londoner whose paternal family hails from Jamaica. I loved the notes about family and heritage, but I feel like for the book being about Rayleigh’s relationship to his father, he doesn’t play a very large part. And Rayleigh’s mother is hardly in the book at all. What I did like was the strong bond between Rayleigh and his uncle. I love how his uncle calls him “Nephew Mine.” I also enjoy some of the side characters, such as Bloody Mary (and I like what the author did with her). There are some trolls, one of which likes to cook. The big bad character had a nice sinister, almost spooky edge. And there were a couple of interesting twists in the story.
But I was just underwhelmed. I just wanted something deep and to be more drawn into the story. It was a bit of a slog to listen to, and the end, when it comes, sort of arrived out of nowhere, with a pretty big cliffhanger. I really liked the pieces of this book, it just came together in a way that was disappointing. That said, I will definitely continue to read this series because I do like the characters and the concept.
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