Ready for sapphic weird girl romance, shapeshifting, and a gaslighting toxic family on the chopping block? Someone You Can Build a Nest In has all of that wrapped up with a cozy horror bow.
Title: Someone You Can Build a Nest In
Author: John Wiswell
Date of Publication: April 2, 2024
Publisher: DAW Books
Genre: Horror, Sapphic Romance, Fantasy-ish?
Trigger Warnings: Graphic details of death, gore, body horror, familial abuse, emotional abuse, violence, toxic family dynamics
Synopsis:
Shesheshen has made a mistake fatal to all monsters: she’s fallen in love. Shesheshen is a shapeshifter, who happily resides as an amorphous lump at the bottom of a ruined manor. When her rest is interrupted by hunters intent on murdering her, she constructs a body from the remains of past meals: a metal chain for a backbone, borrowed bones for limbs, and a bear trap as an extra mouth. However, the hunters chase Shesheshen out of her home and off a cliff. Badly hurt, she’s found and nursed back to health by Homily, a warm-hearted human, who has mistaken Shesheshen as a fellow human. Homily is kind and nurturing and would make an excellent co-parent: an ideal place to lay Shesheshen’s eggs so their young could devour Homily from the inside out. But as they grow close, she realizes humans don’t think about love that way. Shesheshen hates keeping her identity secret from Homily, but just as she’s about to confess, Homily reveals why she’s in the area: she’s hunting a shapeshifting monster that supposedly cursed her family. Has Shesheshen seen it anywhere? Eating her girlfriend isn’t an option. Shesheshen didn’t curse anyone, but to give herself and Homily a chance at happiness, she has to figure out why Homily’s twisted family thinks she did. As the hunt for the monster becomes increasingly deadly, Shesheshen must unearth the truth quickly, or soon both of their lives will be at risk. And the bigger challenge remains: surviving her toxic in-laws long enough to learn to build a life with, rather than in, the love of her life.
Someone You Can Build a Nest In is an unusual blend of sapphic monster romance and cozy horror that is difficult to describe fully. Now stick with me, I know this is a bit out there, but I promise this book has an audience. If you’re in the market for a sweet romance filled to the brim with care, humanity, and compassion between a shapeshifting monster and a traumatized royal, all while murder, threats of war, and a sprinkle of body horror dance around them, this is for you.
John Wilson has somehow created the perfect balance of cozy horror and monster romance that I had not expected. I don’t feel that the synopsis does this book justice after wading through this story. The tone of the story doesn’t often feel like a romance as much as it feels just a bit horrifying. The way that he describes Shesheshen’s movements and shapeshifting, along with her disguise, really had me imagining a horrifying creature rather than a humanoid monster. Maybe that’s the whole point: to watch as a creature humanizes themselves through care and compassion, both emotionally and physically. But time and time again, I was surprised by the realities of this story in comparison to the expectations. I walked in looking for a weird horror/fantasy, and I walked away with a cozy horror, and that choice was the perfect one for this story.
Speaking of perfect choices, let’s talk about Shesheshen as a whole. She is physically very far away from the ideals of humanity as she takes in pieces of humans, animals, and the world around her to build her form. This process, while disgusting and spine-chilling, somehow only seems to deepen our understanding of her sense of humanity. Throughout her adventure, Shesheshen is always trying to understand humans to connect with Homily, her romantic interest. As she shifts her sense of humanity both mentally and physically, her body starts to become less of her own in a way. There are moments when she feels she’s lost control of the form she knows so well and has to start making active choices on whether or not to revert to the life she knows or embrace the life she’s learning. The thing that I like most about this entire process is that it was never about abandoning her natural state for Homily. It was about building connections and making space for love and dedication in herself that she had not learned from her childhood. Shesheshen has to understand Homily on a deeper level than just the perfect nest, and it is a beautiful progression watching their instant connection evolve into something filled with understanding and humanity despite the trauma and the lack of humanity shown to either of them.
The beginning of their relationship is still an anomaly to me, as I don’t fully understand it. I can understand Shesheshen’s perspective as she is thinking more instinctively after being cared for by a woman and shown kindness for the first time in her life. But Homily’s instant connection feels more like a trauma response than anything else. What makes this connection feel genuine as the story progresses is the self-awareness shown as Shesheshen unpacks Homily’s trauma responses. Their relationship is unconventional, but the emotional chemistry is palpable.
Speaking of trauma responses, let’s discuss the toxic family dynamics present that ultimately make this story possible. Wow, Homily’s family is ROUGH, to say the least. It wasn’t just the parental dynamics that caused her trauma, the sibling dynamics were arguably worse. Homily’s mother was often absent, showing up just to throw verbal abuse and blame her way, while her siblings managed to degrade and abuse her in unfathomable ways, seemingly just for fun. Homily was the definition of a black sheep in the family, desperate for approval and love. Insert Shesheshen into that dynamic, and we’ve got a war zone that just can’t be helped. Shesheshen’s inability to truly play court games made the family dynamics much more interesting and, ultimately, made space for Homily to grow and value herself.
Ultimately, I wouldn’t recommend this book to just anyone, or even most people. But if you are someone who leans towards weird queer romance, prefers wry humor, and kind of awkward but sweet interactions, this might be a good option for you. There are a lot of trigger warnings to be aware of (listed above), but Someone You Can Build a Nest in is a gorgeous and weird love story surrounded by humanity and valuing your partner for who they are, with a good chunk of body horror and murder in between.