Disclaimer: My husband lent me this book to read. All opinions are my own. 

 

Book: A Monster Calls 

 

Author: Patrick Ness 

 

Book Series: Standalone 

 

Rating: 5/5 

 

Recommended For...: middle grade readers, magical realism, grief 

 

Publication Date: May 5, 2011 

 

Genre: MG Magical Realism 

 

Age Relevance: 9+ (grief, sickness, cancer, bullying, parental death, blood) 

 

Explanation of Above: The book deals with a parent dying of cancer and exploring how the MC, who is her child, dealing with her sickness and his grief processing. There are scenes of bullying and some blood. There is also parental death shown. 

 

Publisher: Walker Books 

 

Pages: 237 

 

Synopsis: Conor has the same dream every night, ever since his mother first fell ill, ever since she started the treatments that don't quite seem to be working. But tonight is different. Tonight, when he wakes, there's a visitor at his window. It's ancient, elemental, a force of nature. And it wants the most dangerous thing of all from Conor. It wants the truth. Patrick Ness takes the final idea of the late, award-winning writer Siobhan Dowd and weaves an extraordinary and heartbreaking tale of mischief, healing and above all, the courage it takes to survive. 

 

Review: This was so heartbreakingly beautiful. I loved every second of this book and I can’t wait to see the movie. The book was something that I was kind of afraid to read at first, but one I go back to mentally whenever I am dealing with a lot of hard things. Recently, but after I read this book, I lost two pets. One of them was a childhood pet, the other was my husband’s childhood pet. And I felt like because I had read this book that it really helped me process those deaths very well. If you also know me well, you know that my papaw suffered with various forms of cancer for years before his death to liver cancer. That’s one of the main reasons I don’t read a lot of books where there is cancer involved, it’s become a really bad trigger for me. However, this book has started to help me process that and I’m getting better from it mentally. Anyways, about the book now lol The book was absolutely amazing. I loved how the book personified death and grief and there were definite distinct stages through the stories told to the boy. Story 1 was denial and anger, Story 2 was destruction, Story 3 was isolation, and Story 4 was letting go. This perfectly ties into the 5 stages of grief (denial (story 1), anger (story 1), bargaining (story 2), depression (story 3), and acceptance(story 4)). I also loved how the Yew Tree representing healing and grief… because there is grief in healing and healing in grief. They are unfortunately and fortunately tied together. I don’t think I could have thought up a better story and I hope this is one that future generations keep reaching for. 

 

The only small issue I had was that I felt like an epilogue could have been good, but I know why there isn’t one. Because our stories aren’t written after grief, it’s our own to make. 

 

Verdict: Yes. I cried. Highly recommend.