It's a betrayal Joan can barely even process before a horrific tragedy strikes, dumping her into a monster world she knows almost nothing about. What's worse, her whole family - the strange, funny people she loves - have been doing this all their lives, poaching years from the unsuspecting humans around them.

That summer, though, Joan accidentally discovers what she truly is: half-human, half-monster, a creature with the ability to travel through time by stealing it from humans and shortening the human's lifespan as a result. Joan loves them, but she doesn't exactly fit in: she's half-Chinese, she lives with her dad most of the time, and she's pretty ordinary apart from a more-passionate-than-usual obsession with history. Joan spends every summer wedged into the large London home of her grandmother, cousins, aunts, and uncles, who are known for their eccentric fashion tastes and habit of discussing art heists over breakfast.

( Feb.The life of 16-year-old Joan Chang-Hunt, the protagonist of Vanessa Len's young-adult fantasy 'Only a Monster,' isn't exactly normal, but it's really her family's fault.

Including thoughtful introspection about Joan’s multi-ethnic identity and status as a half-human, half-monster, Len carefully reveals Joan’s new reality and moral struggle through an entertaining and carefully built trilogy opener. After her family is suddenly massacred and a hunt for surviving monsters is mounted, Joan partners with haughty 17-year-old Aaron Oliver, implied white, of a “cruel” monster family, to jump back in time and save their families-if they can. But when Joan inexplicably loses a whole day, Gran tells Joan the whole truth: that the Hunts are monsters, that monsters are able to time travel by stealing hours from a human’s life, and that each monster family has its own power. Len’s deeply imaginative debut follows 16-year-old history buff Joan Chang-Hunt, of Chinese Malaysian and English descent, who has long spent her summers with her deceased mother’s mother in London when Joan was six, her Gran revealed that the Hunts are monsters who “hide in plain sight.” This summer, Joan is looking forward to time with Nick, her presumed-white coworker and crush.

Only a monster vanessa len