Dweller by Jeff Strand

Dweller is a thoroughly enjoyable book about a boy and his monster. The tale starts with Toby seeing a monster in the woods. He runs away terrified. The next time they meet, Toby is a nerdy teen who is bullied at school and doesn’t have any friends. He runs across the monster again, but this time he comes back with the intent of discovering this monster. Except that he and the monster, who he names Owen, become friends in an odd sort of way. Toby brings Owen food, and Owen helps him out of a jam by eating the remains of the bullies after Toby kills them. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship. Their relationship evolves over the years as Toby graduates high school and grows into an adult. Toby has very few meaningful relationships except for Owen, and those relationships tended to end very badly. The novel chronicles their relationship and all of its twists and turns until Toby is an old man.

I really liked the light tone that Strand uses in his narrative. Even when deep, dark things were happening, he still had a way of keeping it light. This book is very fast paced, the kind that you can devour in a few sittings. Probably the best part of the novel is the characterization. Both Toby and Owen are well fleshed out character. Reading about their relationship was enjoyable. My only criticisms were that Strand employed scenes that often consisted of a few sentences with little context that made it hard to follow and jumped a bit too much. I would have also liked a little more of a happy ending even though I knew all along that a relationship with a monster couldn’t possibly end well. All together, a fun novel that I highly recommend.