【Book Review】A Monster Calls

A Monster Calls

Overall Rating: ★★★★.5

Characters: ★★★★★

Plot: ★★★★★

Writing：★★★★★

 Before reading this book, I have heard so many great things from many people who I trust when it comes to the taste in books. I picked this book up with high expectation, and fortunately, it doesn’t let me down. You may feel very strange with the fact that even though I gave each sub-category five stars, I still gave the overall rating 4.5 stars. I will explain that in the following passage.

    Conor O'Malley always have this nightmare in which a monster comes visit him almost every night at 12:07. Initially, Conor believes his encounter with the yew-tree monster is merely a dream; however, he later finds out that this is not actually the case. The dream is so vivid and real that it starts to influence Conor’s life. Meanwhile, the illness of Conor’s mother is something else that he struggles to deal with….

    A monster calls is a very short book with only 215 pages. I can fly through this in about half a day. Since I am extremely busy with school work recently, I didn’t make that happen. Labeled as middle-grade books, A monster calls is very different from the ordinary children’s books. It possesses this mysterious and even a little horror atmosphere throughout the plot. I was so amazed by some of the illustrations. I know Jim Kay, who is the illustrator of this book; he also does the artwork for the Harry Potter-a recently released edition with breathtaking illustrations. His illustrations are so gorgeous that they just improve my entire reading experience of this book to another level.

Now I want to explain why I didn’t give this book a five out of five stars rating. I don’t know why, but this book somehow lacks something which prevents me from giving it five solid stars instead of 4.5 stars. I like the characters. Conor, as a protagonist, has his own flaws in terms of his way of dealing with his troubles. Sometimes, he reveals his immature side and does something that he instantly regret after doing it. Actually, my favorite character of this book is the yew tree monster. I love all of his tales though I find myself having difficulties in relating the tale to the plot. Apparently, the author doesn’t write these three tales for nothing. Maybe they are some kind of metaphors which I really feel stupid for not being able to understand their implied meanings. However, I still enjoy all of these tales, especially the first two. They are so different from the stereotypical tales in the ways that they reach a deeper topic and have such an interesting little plot twist. As for the writing of Patrick Ness, I think it is beautiful and accessible for young readers.

    Generally, I really recommend this book to not only its original target audiences who are teenagers and children, but also to adults who seek for a heart-wrenching tale with beautiful writings.