 Hello everybody, E here. Welcome back to another book review. Today we are talking about one of our very own Cameron Cheney or book movie guy as most of YouTube knows him as under, as under, whatever. His name is Cameron Cheney. He's a booktuber. He's one of my inspirations for starting my own channel. Long before I even considered starting my own channel, I watched Cameron all the time. I watched Adam Cesar. I watched a couple other people. But those were the two that really inspired me. Todd the librarian. Those guys were the ones who inspired me to start my own channel, especially Cameron because it seemed like any time, even before I subscribed to him, any time I went looking for like reviews or books or, you know, looked for a certain type of book, Cameron's videos were always popping up. So it was only natural that I ended up coming across his novella. There are monsters here, which I do not have a physical copy of. I'm not even sure that there are physical copies, but I'll leave the ebook cover right here. So I'm going to hit and grab the ebook copy. I will link to that down there in the doobly do so you guys can grab your own copy. And I highly suggest that you do. Just like any other review, I'm going to do the non-spoiler stuff at the front. And then I'm going to talk about spoilers, which there aren't too many, but I am going to do a spoiler section at the end for those of you guys who have read it or for those of you guys that don't care about spoilers. First and foremost, you can tell right off the bat as soon as you jump into this that you are dealing with an author who loves to read. There's a certain, not differential, there's a certain use of language, a certain use of verbiage, words, word choice, that kind of thing that can only come from having read so much. And you can tell Cameron is an avid reader based solely on the way he writes. One thing that really struck me that stood out was there was a strong, strong middle grade, almost a, not goosebumps, but almost a fear street quality to the writing that I appreciated. It does end up being a little more gruesome than say something like a fear street, but I feel like the voice was, it wasn't that it was innocent, it was that it was, it was very easy to read, there's a certain flow to it. Once again, I don't want to call it like, you know, simple or anything like that, but once you get in there, it's very, almost like he's talking to you. There's a very down-to-earth quality about the writing that I appreciated, and there's also a more of a scary stories to tell in the dark vibe to it. There's a fear street quality to it. And yes, Cameron does wear his inspirations on his sleeve a little bit, I feel. Another thing is there was a lot of subtext, at least there was subtext as I felt for other things that I'll go into in the spoilers section. So everything that you're reading, I don't feel that that's everything to be said about this book. Yes, there is a story about Chris, the boy who grows up with a family who has their own monsters, each one of them has their own monster. There's also, there's problems with the family itself, problems with alcoholism. There's so many different issues going on. It's a multi-layered story, and I appreciated that. Another thing is this manuscript was insanely clean for an indie small press. I think he released it independently. For an independent book, he did say that he has an editor, so I commend him for that. But it's extremely clean. There was also several passages that I felt the need to highlight for the good. And that's another thing I really do with indie books. Very rare that I stop and go, damn, that's some poignant shit. And that's, I did that at least three times within the first couple of pages. I will say as a criticism, the second half of the story was not as strong as far as the writing was concerned. It was still as clean, but it wasn't as strong there toward the end. It's almost as if he traded off a theme for writing. And what I mean by that is in the second half of the book, he goes deeper into the thematic elements of the story, whereas what his monster is, that kind of thing, it goes a little bit deeper into that. And I think the writing took a backseat. I've spoken to Cameron since, and I even offered to Beta-read any future projects for him. He's taken me up on the offer, so hopefully I can help him create the best possible product because he's going to be releasing a short story collection. And this story, there are monsters here. I always want to say there were monsters. There are monsters here will be included in that, which is going to be awesome. So I'm looking forward to that, getting my hands on that one. He even said himself, and I spoke to him, he feels that the second half of the story has a lot of clunky writing. I wouldn't really call it clunky. I would just say that it's not as polished and refined as some of the earlier stuff. I did find throughout the entire story, I did find two errors. I talked to Cameron about this and he's going to fix it. I did find two errors, but the only reason I bring this up is because it's an independent published story. I only found two errors. There was one awkwardly worded sentence, but I ain't even worried about that. He's going to clean all this stuff up anyways. But those two errors and awkward wording in something that I would guess is about 15,000 words. Maybe it's probably a little bit less than that. Maybe even more. Let me know, Cameron, if you want to message me if you don't want to make it public. But for that many words for it to be this clean and it to be an independent first release debut kind of thing for Cameron, it was amazing. I'm going to give the story, the writing, everything as a whole three stars. And the reason for that is as I see a lot of potential in him. I see him going places with this. But of course, the thing does means a little more work. And he's going to go back and clean up. He's going to work on it some more that kind of thing. I'm really looking forward to what he comes up with next because I only foresee growth coming from this point on for him. And I'm fascinated to see where he goes with that career. It's always a pleasant surprise to come across indie stuff. And I was scared. I was worried. I'm not going to lie. The only reason it took me this long to pick it up is because I was worried that I was going to open it up and it maybe not be up to the quality of Cameron's channel. I should have known better. The dude obviously has a certain level of quality, a level of standards that, you know, a lot of people don't have just based on the content that he puts up on YouTube. So have you guys read? There are monsters here. Sorry. The title messes me up every time. There are monsters here by Cameron Cheney. Let me know down there in the doobly-doo. But until next time, I have been Cheney. You've been you. This has been another book review. I'll talk to you guys later. Bye-bye! Okay, so spoilers for there are monsters here. Maybe it is there were monsters here. Man, now I'm questioning myself. I just looked it up before I did this video. I just finished it yesterday. Man, I am, I'm sorry if I got the title wrong over and over again, Cameron, if you're watching this, which you probably will. But I'm sorry if I got the title wrong. I apologize. My head is not in the proper place right now. So, but some of the, talking about spoilers, there was the bit at the end where there's an illusion to the love in the monster becoming the love interest or the monster being the love interest that I love that part. I love how the great part about short stories or novelettes like this, I wouldn't really call this one a novella because it is so short. I don't know how many pages it was, but on the Kindle Edition, it was only 420 some odd. I don't know how exactly that works, but you know that big number down there? Not the percentage, but like the, I guess it's the line number. How many lines are in it? I don't know. It was only 420. So blaze it. No, I'm just kidding. But the, it's odd to find such a deep experience from this type of story. And I mean that in the best possible way. It's kind of like with Chad Lutzky. I did not expect the quality that I got when I got, when I read Chad Lutzky's stories and books. And with Cameron Cheney, while I did expect a certain level of quality because he is a reader, it was also taken aback by just how good it was. And the subtext, hang on, my leg's itching. The subtext for this story was, was terrific. I was able to, anyway, so I was talking about the length because you can leave things like that open for the reader to figure out on their own, but I still think that that's cemented. It was supposed to be the love interest of the main character, Chris. And I appreciated that it wasn't, my hand wasn't held and he just kind of alluded to who or what the monster had changed into there at the end. Also, that I really appreciated how brutal this was. It was very violent there at the end. And I like that kind of thing. I finished it and I sat back and I could still picture, when I closed my eyes, I could still picture the monster, the horns, the black fur, the gnashing teeth, all that. It's still very vivid in my head. And I really liked that. Also, the dialogue when the mother is fighting, is hollering and all that is going on, I thought that was really well done also. There's just so much to the story that I liked and I can't really fault it for anything. And I'm honestly shocked. I'm kind of flummoxed and speechless because I was not expecting, and it sounds terrible, I know. You come to expect a certain quality out of indie publisher or indie writers and whenever they break, not the rules, but whenever they break that mold, I'm always so excited and I want to give them the utmost credit because there's so many people out there not even trying. That when somebody does try, when somebody hires an editor or someone polishes their work over and over again and you can tell it, I just like to bring that out. And while this book may not be perfect, while Cameron still thinks that it is clunky writing there at the second half, it's an exceptional piece of work for what it is. Now, is it the same quality as like a traditionally published book? No, but he will get there eventually. I have complete and utter faith in him. Also, when I brought up the very small issues that I found, when I brought those up, he was very receptive. It's also nice to, you know, message somebody and say, hey look, I found some errors and then not tell you to go to hell. That's also nice because that has happened many times. So Cameron, thank you for being so receptive. I appreciate that. I also appreciate everything you do. Thank you for being an inspiration for me starting my channel. You know, it's just so so much that wouldn't have happened here had it not been for guys like you and Adam Cesar and Todd the librarian and so many different people. So thank you so much and I hope that I can return that favor by helping you polish and clean up anything you want to send my way. But yeah, that's all I have to say for now. I really enjoyed your book, dude. Thanks. Bye.