{"id":3893,"date":"2023-12-31T15:55:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-31T20:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/?p=3893"},"modified":"2023-12-31T15:55:00","modified_gmt":"2023-12-31T20:55:00","slug":"someone-you-can-build-a-nest-in-by-john-wiswell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/?p=3893","title":{"rendered":"Someone You Can Build a Nest In, by John Wiswell"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Review copy provided by the publisher. Also the author is a dear friend and I read an earlier draft of this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I am so excited that the rest of you are going to get to read this in only a few months, because John and I have been making jokes based on the protagonist for the entire time since he wrote it, and soon you can too. Shesheshen is a shapeshifting slime monster! She is a blob! She is my favorite blob ever! She is grumpy and eats people! And this is endearing as only John can do it. She has a pet bear named Blueberry, and rosemary is poison to her, and humans are a lot of trouble but sometimes good for parts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And sometimes interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So that&#8217;s a surprise, really, because who would have thought that humans would be <em>interesting<\/em>. But don&#8217;t worry, it&#8217;s definitely not all of them. Some of them are interested almost exclusively in hunting monsters, which in addition to being single-minded and unpleasant, is bad for Shesheshen and Blueberry. But maybe&#8230;just maybe&#8230;there&#8217;s a human out there who&#8217;s different. A human who&#8217;s worth more than the use Shesheshen can make of her bones and pancreas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Worth more than bones and a pancreas? Seems like you&#8217;re gonna have suspension of disbelief issues with that one, huh? Seriously, John gives us monster perspective with all the warmth and humor he&#8217;s always brought to short stories, but this time he&#8217;s got room to really get comfortable in the voice and let Shesheshen&#8217;s revelations develop and her choices ramify. You&#8217;ll be rooting for this monster all the way through. I know I was. This book hooks you like a pair of borrowed steel jaws and pulls you in like a persistent tentacle. You won&#8217;t be sorry you formed eyeballs to read this one&#8211;or ears to listen to someone read it to you if that&#8217;s your thing. Highly recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Review copy provided by the publisher. Also the author is a dear friend and I read an earlier draft of this. I am so excited that the rest of you are going to get to read this in only a few months, because John and I have been making jokes based on the protagonist for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-3893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bookses-precious"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3893"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3896,"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3893\/revisions\/3896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}