Manmade Monsters: A Review

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Manmade Monsters by Andrea L. Rogers was published in October of 2022 by Levine Querido.

It’s a collection of short stories following a Cherokee family through history, from the 1830s to the 2030s, that chronicles their various otherworldly experiences.

This book was an incredible read. It took me a year to take off the shelf and read, and I’m sorry I waited so long. Vampires, werewolves, zombies, aliens, folktale creatures and urban legends, this book is packed with stories that skirt the edge of what might be and what is, delivering stories of injustice, prejudice, isolation, and victimization in the face of both myth and reality.

The supernatural elements are told in a way that might have happened or could happen, as all folktales and urban legends are. There’s just enough truth and emotion to seem like almost-credible tales a friend or relative would tell you, not just to scare you, but to warn you.

The scariest thing, to me, about this book is its truth in showing the normal lives each character lives outside the supernatural encounter. Who they love, how they’re treated, what kind of community they have. It’s heartbreaking and heartwarming in turn.

I mentioned that this book is about a Cherokee family through the generations. It’s a prominent characteristic of the book, showing the reality of what their nation has experienced from an individual’s point of view.

It’s common knowledge in the storytelling world that to make something the most relatable or impactful, you have to make it personal.

That’s what Rogers does with Manmade Monsters.

Not only do you hear individual voices, but you learn early on to look for names or references you might recognize from previous stories. She builds a community that you recognize and empathize with, bringing you into their stories and personal horrors. Again, both mythical and real.

There’s a helpful family tree in the beginning of the book that I frequently referenced to know who the next character was and what their connection to the previous character was. And, if other names were mentioned in the story, I would double-check if their names were in the tree. Sometimes this informed how the new character viewed certain things, or the new story told me what happened after the story before. Often, happy endings were merely hopes and not reality.

This book doesn’t really have a main character, as you can imagine, marching steadily forward through time and spanning two centuries, but the most prominent character is Ama. She’s the character from the first story, and while she’s not in all the stories, she’s referenced in many of them and featured in a few, a constant watcher and guardian.

I give this book 5 stars. For the breadth of topic, for the stark characterization, for the expert handling of the various themes, for the visceral emotions the simple, honest prose evoke.

The book possesses a rather extensive list of trigger warnings. As horror, its trigger warnings include graphic violence, death, extensive gore, cannibalism, murder, body horror, bloodletting, and animal cruelty. As a commentary on a Native American family and their various experiences facing a world of people who want them gone, the trigger warnings include generational trauma, displacement, colonialism, racism, grief, war violence, domestic abuse, medical trauma, emotional abuse, police brutality, body shaming, classism, misogyny, homophobia, torture, forced institutionalism, abandonment, genocide, sexual assault, stalking, neglect, alcoholism, drug abuse, abortion, bullying, child abuse, school shootings, gun violence, slavery, kidnapping, death of a parent, death of a child, and car accidents.

If you read the book and notice anything not included in the above list, please comment below for others.

As I said, an extensive list, but 5 stars for breadth of topic and the expert handling of the various themes, most prominently racial prejudice and injustice, isolation, and victimization. However, to counteract these themes, Rogers weaves stories about finding community, hope, and courage in the midst of everything else, and that, I think, is the most powerful thing about this book. It sounds trite, but those themes are so powerful and important because of how relatable they are; everyone wants to belong and to look to the future with hope for what could be and personal resolve to face what is.

Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think, and if you’ve read or decide to read the book, let me know! This is definitely a book I will be rereading.