Ok so I’ve lowkey been putting off writing this review because I didn’t know what to say… but here it goes.

I feel very neutral about this book. I don’t dislike it, and I really enjoyed parts of it (like Rose and the Doctor bluffing their way back together by pretending Rose was an astrophysicist or something like that; the Slitheen being sort of anti-heroes rather than outright baddies; the Doctor’s interactions with the other aliens at the prison). But I found myself a bit bored for a lot of it, especially the bits that were like a prison documentary.

I think the idea of the Justicia system is super interesting, as well as the critiques it was setting out… but then there were villains that were Slitheen-lite pretty much running the place so that sort of took a back burner. Of course, some might say Doctor Who needs a monster, but I think a novel is a perfect place to explore societal issues through a sci-fi lens… which is what sci-fi really is. I think Doctor Who does it a lot, and with the extended length (this definitely felt like a Classic serial just like The Clockwise Man) it was definitely feasible. All of the elements were already there. It just felt like the book was playing a little bit of a tug-of-war with itself, straddling between monster/capitalism story and critique of the prison system. The Blathereen are also just Slitheen reskinned (pun not intended) and I’d encountered them in the SJA episode they were in, so I was rather surprised to see them here, and so different. Obviously a retcon happened.

I liked having the Slitheen here, I was very surprised to see them, and then remembered the title was The Monsters Inside and said ah. So. I liked that it was sort of a fakeout with them, and they ended up not being the bad guys. Of course, they effectively were under another name, which is part of why this one falls flat.

The Doctor and Rose being separated was interesting for a bit, but it limited their interactions and broke the story in two, which made it feel even less cohesive. One of the strengths of Series One, in my opinion, is the Doctor and Rose’s friendship, and I sorely missed that in this story.

Overall just an okay story, mostly because some things didn’t take a turn I was expecting, or thought would’ve worked better a different way. 3/5 stars.