A Monster Calls

🏥🍂❤️‍🩹🫣

by Patrick Ness

★★★★

Things I loved:

❤️‍🩹The honesty of grief 

✍🏼The realistic narration 

💡The lessons learnt 

♥️How it made me grateful for my loved ones 

💔To combination of horror and heartache 

💭That I haven’t stopped thinking about Conor since finishing this book! 

Review

What I loved most was how this book blends fantasy with real, heart-wrenching emotion. The monster is a creature of shadows and nightmares, but also of wisdom and honesty. 

Conor is a brilliant protagonist; a brave, caring young boy who is also angry at the world and fearful of what life will be without his mum. His mum is heartbreakingly fragile, honest and understanding, and offers advice that every reader should read when dealing with their own grief. 

The plot is gripping in a very different way from traditional adventure stories. Instead of battles and monsters to defeat, it explores the battles that come from grief, change, loss and guilt. I absolutely adored the balance between horror and heartbreak which is told in a gentle and beautiful way. 

I finished it in one sitting and felt completely wrung out (with a few tear drops on the last page) — but will remember this story for a long time. 

I would recommend A Monster Calls to readers who love stories that mix the eerie and unsettling with something deep and emotional. If you want a book that lingers long after the last page, this is it!

Dive Deeper

At a glance

✍🏼 Author: Patrick Ness

📅Release Date: 7th May 2015

📚Book type: Chapter, 240 pages

🌟Reader level: Confident, 10+

Overview

Conor O’Malley is visited every night at 12:07 by a monster that rises from the yew tree outside his window. But this isn’t the nightmare he was expecting, and the monster doesn’t want to eat him. It wants something far scarier: the truth. As Conor’s mother’s illness worsens and his world starts to collapse, the monster’s stories force him to face the things he fears the most.

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