By Amna Salah Houlin
Overall Rating: 4.8
General Information:
The author of the famous “Chaos Walking” trilogy wrote yet another great book on September 27, 2011. With the help of the great illustrator Jim Kay, Patrick Ness produced another successful book which is called “A Monster Calls.” The book won a number of awards including the Carnegie award in 2012 and the Kitschies Red Tentacle award for speculative fiction.
The idea of the book originally belonged to the author Siobhan Dowd. Due to her terminal illness, however, she died before she was able to write the story. Her editor, who she discussed the book with, was working with Ness at that time. He, then, arranged for Ness to write the story and dedicate this book to Siobhan.
The book is a young adult book, and if you are a fan of the books that can be a little bit scary and creepy, then this book is perfect for you. It is a mixture of different genres like horror, contemporary, fiction and fantasy.
Plot Summary:
Conor is a 13-year-old boy who has been having scary nightmares for the past few months. One day at 12:07 a.m., Conor heard someone calling his name from outside his bedroom window. When he went to see who was calling him, he met the monster. The monster was the big yew tree that is visible from the window of his bedroom. However, to his surprise, the monster was not the same monster that he has been seeing in his dreams lately. This monster was not as scary as the one in his dreams.
The monster claimed that Conor summoned him, and that he is here to help him in what he is going through. The monster said to Conor that he will visit him at 12:07 every other night, and he will tell him three stories on three separate nights. When he tells the third and the last story, Conor has to tell him his story, and it has to be the truth; It has to be Conor’s truth, or else he will die.
World building and story flow:
The story was written in a beautiful and a simple way, and it has a natural tone to it, which makes it really appealing to all readers from different ages. The book in general is considered a short book for an avid reader; it is only 215 pages, so this makes the story flow in a moderate pace. You feel that everything is just happening at the right time.
The story travels between the past and the present, but it was done smoothly and in way that is not confusing at all.
Moving to the world building, the story was excellent in this department. The illustrations were really beautiful, and they go very well with the whole mood of the book. They also include places that the author described in the book. Moreover, Patrick is known for always having a unique way of describing places and people and building a unique world in his books that makes you feel like you can see the place even without the illustrations.
Characters:
There are two main characters in the book, and they are Conor and the monster.
Conor is an introverted boy who is going through a lot of hardships in his life due to his mother’s illness. The students in his school are constantly bullying him. He is, however, a resilient character; every time life knocks him down, he comes back. The author here did a really great job in writing the character because you can feel that you are connected to Conor to some extent.
The second main character is the monster. The monster is not what you expect him to be when you read the first few pages of the book. It is complicated in a way because the physical description of the monster conveys that he is your worst nightmare. However, when the story develops, the monster turns out to be not scary at all, but he is still scary in some aspect. I believe that this character is actually really interesting because the monster symbolizes fear. When you understand your fear, you realize that it is not scary at all. You just need to face it.
Creativity:
All I can say about the book that it is really creative. Even if you are not a fan of fantasy, this book will still captivate you. Patrick Ness did a great job in mixing the different elements like loss, hope, acceptance and facing your fears and make them work together in a creative way. On top of that, the illustrations that were made by Jim Kay took the book to a whole new level of creativity because the story by itself is amazing, and the illustrations added a new dimension to it.
Overall, I would recommend this book to everyone because there are a lot of stuff you can learn from the book, and one of them is admitting your fears.
About the Author
Amna Salah Houlin. Converged Media student. Hard Worker. Avid reader. Writer. Sagittarius. Enjoys watching movies and TV Shows. Gamer. http://instagram.com/missmooni93 or @missmooni93 on Instagram.
This story was originally published on Feb. 3, 2015. It was re-uploaded on Dec. 24, 2020.
