There were some wonderfully light and unexpectedly humorous instances which really added to the book.

It’s haunting and beautiful, and the illustrations are dark and eerie, and they add to the atmosphere of the book as well. Although nominally about monsters, it’s also about Conor’s struggle with his mother and her diagnosis, and how life has changed in response to this. I had to stop shortly before the end because I could see what was coming, and I was in public, so I paused until I could get to the privacy of my home. It’s quite a short book – only two hundred and something pages, and I read it in less than a day. I’m not entirely sure how to describe A Monster Calls. And it wants the most dangerous thing of all from Conor.įrom the final idea of award-winning author Siobhan Dowd– whose premature death from cancer prevented her from writing it herself– Patrick Ness has spun a haunting and darkly funny novel of mischief, loss, and monsters both real and imagined.Ī Monster Calls is also out in cinemas this month – it came out on New Year’s Day, so it’s been floating around my radar for a while. This monster is something different, though. 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… As they do.īut it isn’t the monster Conor’s been expecting. Opened this book I won in a comp from and realised it's signed by author and illustrator.

Books like a monster calls