5/5 stars

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

The Most Terrifying Monster of All…

I hate cancer books.

I didn’t know.

I finished it anyway.

I sobbed through the end.

Which is why I hate cancer books.

Patrick Ness is the author of the Chaos Walking Trilogy–the number one best and tragically unknown YA Dystope that exists.  On that merit alone, I picked up A Monster Calls. I was actually looking for something spooky and a little dark…you know, something about a monster that torments a boy.  Of course, that’s exactly what the book is about.  I just didn’t know enough about the monster.  Or how much I would relate to the boy. If I had done my homework, I probably wouldn’t have picked it up.  I’m glad I did.

“The monster showed up just after midnight.  As they do.”

I was hooked from that first line.  Even after I realized what was going on, I couldn’t stop.  There was no way I wasn’t going to finish.

The author’s note explains that A Monster Calls was from the brain of an author called Siobhan Dowd.  “This would have been her fifth book.  She had the characters, a premise, and a beginning.  What she didn’t have, unfortunately, was time.”  She died in 2007 after a 3 year battle with breast cancer.  Let the Ethos influence.

This book should be required reading.  It should also be sold with tissues.