A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“Your mind will believe comforting lies while also knowing the painful truths that make those lies necessary. And your mind will punish you for believing both.”- A Monster Calls, Patrick Ness 

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.

This is the second Patrick Ness novel I've read, and if he wrote like this all the time I might be more inclined to pick his work up. The first, if you were curious, was The Rest of Us Just Live Here, which I liked, but didn't love. And if I'm being honest, I'd tell you that the only reason I picked this one up was because one of my book challenges this year was to read a book that has a movie adaptation coming out, and I heard good things about this book. 

I'm so happy I picked it up though. The first thing that I loved were the illustrations. Of course, that isn't really unusual for me, since I love art. I do draw a bit, but I prefer looking at art and taking it in and learning about art history rather than actually creating it myself. So the illustrations just blew me away. Makes me wish more YA novels had pictures in them! The book also felt nice in my hands, like a grown-up picture book. 

The story took me a bit to get into, and I didn't immediately love the monster. It reminded me of Grief Is the Thing With Feathers, albeit a bit more toned down. Also, the stories that he told weren't my favorite, and it wasn't until the second half of the book that the story actually hit me emotionally. I mean, sure, I did laugh at some parts, and I thought Conor was cute (he did feel much younger than 13, though- I would have guess 9 or 10), and the writing was good, but it wasn't what I expected given the great reviews of this book. Honestly, the first part of this book reminded me so much of The Graveyard Book, another highly praised story that I didn't love as much as I thought I would. Even the writing and story styles were similar. Also, Conor's father and grandmother were starting to annoy me with how non-straightforward they were being regarding the mother's immediate death.

But where this book picks up and packs an emotional punch is towards the end. Conor's grief is real and raw and effective. I wanted to cry reading this book (but I didn't. This is the third book where I almost cried but I didn't. Yes, I am keeping track). I think Patrick Ness' strength lies in his ability to hit human emotions- he knows how to write tragic family situations and real human feelings very well, and those were the parts I loved about The Rest of Us Just Live Here as well. Perhaps he should start writing contemporaries. I could also deeply relate to Conor's "horrible" truth. This book also ended absolutely perfectly too. It's clear what happened, but the book spares us the actual event. It's really what boosted up the rating for me.

8.5 out of 10