Book Review: A Monster Calls

A Monster Calls: written by Patrick Ness, inspired by Siobhan Dowd, and illustrated by Jim Kay

Release date: September 27th, 2011

Publisher: Walker Books

Format of Novel: Hardcover (Library book, thank you college!)

Summary (From good reads): The monster showed up after midnight. As they do.

But it isn't the monster Conor's been expecting. He's been expecting the one from his nightmare, the one he's had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments, the one with the darkness and the wind and the screaming...

This monster is something different, though. Something ancient, something wild. And it wants the most dangerous thing of all from Conor.

It wants the truth

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You never know what a short novel can do to you unless you read it completely. As I write this to you, it would be only two days since I've read this beautiful book and I could NOT sit here and review it personally for you guys. This story, oh this story, it ripped my heart out with feels. The story was short and direct, the protagonist Conor, such a heart breaking kid considering what he was going through during this short novel, and the concept of the monster was simply beautiful to the core!

The story itself was about Conor, who is thirteen and living with his mother who is dying of cancer. During the struggles, he faces bullying, his hidden anger about his mother's illness, and the monster who has the shape of a giant tree who is also a odd story teller. Personally, I think that this was really cool having the monster tell Conor stories to teach him difficult lessons that would had be use in reality and the concept of the story as a whole was really heart-breaking and yet necessary for a coming of age story. Plus as a bonus, this story takes place in Ireland, which was a nice surprise in my opinion because of a lot of the stories I've been reading lately takes place in America or fictional worlds.

What I really liked about the story is the fact you as the reader are able to feel the emotions the monster wanted Conor to feel and to learn how to let go and move on. The story's moral was very deep and emotionally powerful enough to teach readers the stresses of overcoming a love one's death and with Conor, the author did a terrific job of doing that. I highly recommend this story and the pictures so you can capture the emotions of this novel.

Happy Howling.

I really recommend this novel