Monster is a story told through a combination of testimonies and journal entries. The premise of this novel took place in both a court room and a jail cell. The main character, Steve Harmon, is on trial for being an alliance in a murder. It [the murder] took place on the 22 of December, while the trial is happening in the present.
This book was short and ok. It didn't do a whole lot to wow me. The way it was written got annoying after a while. Many of the characters in this book were cliché and predictable. I felt as though each person could have been elaborated on more, because what was presented was limited and obnoxious. This made it difficult for me to connect with the story. And when I put it down I didn't find myself dying to pick it up again. It is interesting, but I don't think I'll read it again.

As a reader, I don't take kindly to strange writing styles, and this is one of the strangest ones I've seen. Written like a movie shot layout, it has a lot of chunks of text that tell a film maker how to make (and film) the movie. In my opinion, those bits of text clog up the story and make it more difficult to read. Another thing I don't exactly like about this book is the topic. It may be that I'm not predisposed to Realistic Fiction, and that this is required reading for my school, but I think making a transcript of a trial with the lawyers talking the language you learn in law school and shouting "Objection" for no apparent reason and appealing to the judge for things that sound like they're in an alien language are not entirely easy or satisfying to follow. The only reason I gave it two stars is that I somewhat liked the journal entries that interspersed the text. They give you something to think about, and the one at the end is well constructed. All told, I wouldn't tell you to read this book for fun, as I don't say the story makes for leisure reading. But if you think otherwise, I won't stop you from giving it a try.