Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Fragile Monsters cover art

Fragile Monsters

By: Catherine Menon
Narrated by: Indira Varma
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Girl in the Garden cover art
Incomparable World cover art
When the Ground Is Hard cover art
The Things We Thought We Knew cover art
The Separation cover art
The Long Gaze Back cover art
East of the Sun cover art

Summary

Brought to you by Penguin. 

A spellbinding debut novel set between WW2 and contemporary Malaysia.

Mary is a difficult grandmother for Durga to love. She is sharp-tongued and ferocious, with more demons than there are lines on her palms. When Durga visits her in rural Malaysia, she only wants to endure Mary and the dark memories home brings for as long as it takes to escape.

But a reckoning is coming. Stuck together in the rising heat, both women must untangle the truth from the myth of their family's past. What happened to Durga's mother after she gave birth? Why did so many of their family members disappear during the war? And who is to blame for the childhood tragedy that haunts her to this day?

In her stunning debut novel Catherine Menon traces one family's story from 1920 to the present, unravelling a thrilling tale of love, betrayal and redemption against the backdrop of natural disasters and fallen empires. Written in vivid technicolour, with an electric daughter-grandmother relationship at its heart, Fragile Monsters explores what happens when secrets fester through the generations.

As they will learn, in a place ravaged by floods, it is only a matter of time before the bones of the past emerge.

©2021 Catherine Menon (P)2021 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"A brilliant novel about homecoming and the layered, unstable past that haunts and hurts...I admire it enormously." (Colm Tóibín)

"Supple, artful, skilful storytelling - it takes an immediate grip on the reader's imagination and doesn't let go." (Hilary Mantel)

More from the same

What listeners say about Fragile Monsters

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    4
  • 4 Stars
    9
  • 3 Stars
    4
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    12
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    4
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    4
  • 4 Stars
    9
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Would Recommend

I really enjoyed this book. I willingly immersed myself in its world. The characters brought alive perfectly by the narrator. The writer has some wonderful turns of phase which enhanced the flow of the story. Although the characters weren’t exactly sympathetic, the story kept me hooked enough to want to find out their secrets. It has an ambiguous ending but provides enough answers to satisfy the reader. I would definitely recommend this book.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!