Book Review: A Monster Calls

It was a normal, unremarkable night before work and I was busy doing my usual of browsing through Facebook to kill some time when I came across a post of books that would soon be released as movies.  I didn't open the post, but the book that was featured in the photo caught my eye and looked interesting. Yes, I sometimes do judge a book by its cover.  I don't usually review books, because I don't feel well adapted at translating into plain words how a book affected me or what emotions I felt afterwards.  This book, however, demanded it of me.

The cover was actually so intense and captivating that I decided to pick up the book and read it.  The book was A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness.  I read between 80 to 95 books a year, typically, and yet this book was a first for me. This was probably the most intense and skillfully written book I have read in years!  (If you read the e-book, you miss out on the spooky yet gorgeous artwork that accompanies the story)

It is not a true fairy tale, a modern one perhaps, but not in the sense you are expecting by the cover. Please do not let that stop you from reading it. Here is what I have to say on my experience with doing so:

No words.  I have no words for what this book did to me on so many levels. The strange thing about it?  It was that it was such outstanding writing...though it was very well written. And it wasn't that it was a book that would change my life and perspective, such as The Alchemist or The Giver.

But one truth I can honestly lay out here... of the thousands of books I have read, I can honestly say this is the first time that a book has ever made me feel so disturbed and unsettled that I felt actual physical nausea from the raw emotions and truth it pulled out of me. This book reached in found every hidden pain and fear I have ever experienced and ripped them screaming from my soul and left me a fragile, sobbing shell of the person I was just hours beforehand.

I simply laid the book down and, still breathless and sobbing, stared at it for a solid 10 minutes before I could form a single rational thought in my own head.

I did not read any review or summary of this book before I picked it up and that was the key, that was a huge part of the magic that enabled this tale to blow me away.  And, as I encourage you to do the same, I will try my best not to provide any spoilers here.

All I will say that this book can show how that, though good and evil do tend to be black and white, we as humans are often color blind and fail to see the purity of truth. Remember, Fairy tales were not always filled with princesses and white knights, but rather, they were once used to teach us a truth that we all needed to learn and to show us a way and a reason to face those truths.

I feel secure in saying that this book will be unlike any you have read lately and, though I do not think I have the willpower and inner strength to read it again, I cannot imagine having scrolled on past that post and having not had the privilege and honor of reading it the first time.

I will leave you with this one last thing, a quote that is a particular favorite of mine that puts me in mind of this book: "Fairy Tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten."