As the title says, Valentina Salazar is NOT a monster hunter.
Her father broke away from his monster hunter family to become a monster protector.
Val and her father, mother, and three older siblings traveled around the country searching for magical beings to save.
When Val’s father is killed during a rescue mission, her mother decides it’s time to retire from their life on the road. She moves the family to a boring town in upstate New York and enrolls Val and her siblings in real school for the first time.
But Val is a protector at heart and won’t give up her calling. So, when the egg of the same type of monster who killed their father turns up in a viral video, Val convinces her reluctant siblings to help her find the egg before it hatches and wreaks havoc. But she has some competition: the dreaded monster hunters who’ll stop at nothing to destroy the creature and the Salazar family.
I debated whether or not to read this book for the longest time, and I regret not reading it sooner. It was so much more exciting and elaborate than I thought it would be. There are so many twists and turns and secrets revealed.
Valentina Salazar is a remarkable character. In many middle-grade novels, the protagonist whines and complains about wanting to be ‘normal.’ Val is not one of those characters. She has no interest in being a ‘normal’ kid. She is proudly herself.
The family dynamic is what makes this story stand out. So many middle-grade fantasy novels involve kids hiding the existence of magical or paranormal activity from the adults in their lives. It’s refreshing to find a fantasy tale that includes the whole family. Val’s family is a tight-knit group, but the death of her father causes them to fall apart. They all pull away from each other, dealing with their grief in their own way. But Valentina is determined to keep protecting monsters and to bring her family back together.
Overall, this was an action-filled fantasy adventure with a strong family dynamic and unique magical creatures. I highly recommend this to fans of The Owl House and the ‘Unicorn Rescue Society’ series by Adam Gidwitz.