Menagerie
5 out of 5 Cryptid Stars
"Welcome to the menagerie, where beauty and grace shine from every cage and peek from every shadow. You've never seen anything like the exotic wonders within, so keep your eyes open, ladies and gentlemen, because in our world of spectacle and illusion, what you see isn't always what you get."
Another amazing read by the talented Rachel Vincent, Menagerie is everything I could have hoped for and more. This novel will really make you think, as what Vincent deals with throughout the story can easily be applied to the modern world, although without all the mystic creatures, called Cryptids. Vincent raises some really good questions about how people deal with the things that they fear, and the ramifications that occur when people group together in their fear of something larger than themselves, beating it down in order to make themselves feel secure. Sound familiar?
"Most people have something horrible hidden inside. A beast. A secret. A sin. What makes you and the other exhibits different is that your inner monster can't be explained by the laws of physics and biology as we know them. What people don't understand, they fear. What they fear, they lock up, so they can come see whatever scares them behind steel bars or glass walls and call themselves brave. But that only tells you who they are, not who you are."
Menagerie is a book about humanity, about how far someone will go in order to fight for their natural born rights and the rights of others, givens in life that should never have been denied them in the first place.
Deliliah Marlow has lived her whole life of 25 years as a human, but it's after a visit to Metzger's Menagerie and seeing firsthand how inhumanely the cryptids are treated that Deliliah discovers her own hidden beast within her. She's captured and declared property of the state of Oklahoma, then sold to the Menagerie, being forced to perform for other's entertainment while being denied basic privileges herself.
While in captivity, Delilah is forced to live in a cage wearing chains and given scraps of food for meals, seeing her other fellow captives suffering the same punishment that she is, simply because they are different from humans. However, Delilah is stronger than even she knows, and she's not going down without a fight. She'll do whatever it takes to obtain her freedom once more.
"This can't be real. What was I, if I had no name, no friends, no family, no job, no home, no belongings, and no authority over my own body? What could I be?"
I love Delilah's character. She's the person you want fighting on your side, because she never gives up. No matter how many times she's knocked down, beaten and dragged through the mud, she gets back up and fights for what she believes in. The mystery of what she is is quite intriguing, and I'm very happy with the results. It's different than what anyone will expect, and works perfectly for her character and the novel as a whole.
I hate seeing what Delilah's forced to go through, and reading about how the Menagerie handlers treat their captives is heartbreaking. It's even worse when you realize that situations like this, minus the mystical creatures, still happens today. It's depressing how twisted people can be, how cruel they can become when faced with something stronger than themselves. They'd rather beat down what they fear and keep it contained than try to understand their fear instead.
Vincent handles this idea magnificently, and her style of writing has you looking at things from an unexpected angle. She takes a simple visual and gives you the harsh details that normally linger and hide in the background. It's a different way of thinking, and Vincent doesn't hold back. She can reveal the true nature of the handlers and the cryptids in just one sentence.
"The only true different between the hybrids and most of their handlers was that the handlers hid their beasts on the inside. A wolf will growl to warn that it's angry and a bull will paw at the ground before charging. Rattlesnakes rattle, cats moan and hiss, and hyenas grunt and cackle. But a man will smile right in your face as he drives a knife into your heart."
The set-up and pacing of Menagerie is spot-on. The novel is broken up into three parts, and the title of each part accurately describes what that sections are going to be about. Vincent navigates multiple points-of-view magnificently. We have our first-person POV with Delilah, and her chapters definitely outweigh the rest, but I love the chapters told from the other's POV.
We get to read from handler's POVs and other cryptids POVs in third person, and this adds more depth to the overall story. We get to experience everything that is happening from so many different angles, and while most authors would fail in this task, Vincent does not. She goes above and beyond what you would expect with her writing style, and it's amazing. Some people may think the ending is rushed, but I think it's just more of a quick crescendo to the finale, and it results in a solid ending.
"I couldn't make sense of this violent new existence, where terms like justice had no meaning, bondage was a state of existence, and hell was the forecast for the rest of my life. One word began to play over and over in my head. It was the most powerful word I'd ever known, yet the most worthless syllable to be uttered by someone wearing more chains than actual clothing. No. No. No. No. No..."
Vincent really surprises me with some of her characters in the story, but in a very good way, in a I-wasn't-expecting-that-but-I-really-like-it way. The only thing I would have liked more of is information on the surrogates. They are the cause of the Reaping, which changed the way humans deal with cryptids, and I want all the gory details of how everything happened. The snippets from old articles is a very interesting idea and handled extremely well, not interrupting the pacing at all and helping the reader to better understand the Reaping, but I just want a bit more of that.
I would be fine with this novel being a standalone, as I know the general direction the sequel is heading, but I don't know if it's necessary. Rachel Vincent must have something really good in mind, some crazy twist that her readers aren't going to expect, since this series is supposed to be a trilogy. I am so happy with the ending of Menagerie, and can't wait to get my hands on Spectacle in the fall. What curveball is Vincent going to deliver? Whatever it is, it's going to be awesome.
"If monsters could look like humans, and humans could look like monsters, how could anyone ever really be sure that the right people stood on the outside of all those cages?"
