Monday 29 October 2012

A Monster Calls


Last weekend I bought six books and I only finished one, that’s the one I will be reviewing today. I have to say after reading a book that was five hundred and seventy two pages long, it was a good to read one only two hundred and fifthteen pages. It was a good break. I think my eyes deserve a little break. You know the way people say you can go square eyed by watching a television? Would you get rectangular -because books are the shape- eyes from reading to much? If so.. Ooh man… AHH!! … OH! Phew… my eyes are okay. Phew, anyway now that that’s over and done with let get reviewing.

At seven minutes past midnight, thirteen-year-old Conor wakes to find a monster outside his bedroom window. But it isn't the monster Conor’s been expecting- he’s been expecting the one from his nightmare, the nightmare he’s had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments. The monster in his backyard is different. It’s ancient. And wild. And it wants something from Conor. Something terrible and dangerous. It wants the truth.

Ooh by the way. The book is called A Monster Calls, but I guess you guessed that yourself. It's an amazing book written by Patrick Ness. The illustrations are astonishing really, done by Jim Kay, spooky yet scary. I have to say it was a great book.

It is actually a little spooky. Not scary. Spooky. I found it hard to read before I went to sleep because I thought the monster would come to my window or I would have nightmares. Still I really enjoyed it. It’s one of those books with a meaning in it. I usually don’t like them but in this case I really did.

You do not write life with words, the monster said. You write it with actions. What you think is not important. It is only important what you do.”

“I wish I had a hundred years, she said, very quietly. A hundred years I could give to you.”

“Conor was no longer invisible. They all saw him now. But he was further away than ever.”

From 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.

I would recommend this book to twelves and up. I have to say it is a really heart warming book. And to tell the truth, I cried twice while reading this book. So good luck with trying not to cry.

An unflinching, darkly funny, and deeply moving story of a boy, his seriously ill mother, and an unexpected monstrous visitor.

                                               
           

Me after finishing the last sentence, on the last page.