From the Bookshelf of Nothing But Reading Challenges…

A Monster Calls

Patrick Ness,

Jim Kay (Illustrator)

Start date: February 22, 2017

Finish date: February 28, 2017

Discussion: Books of the Month

Why we're reading this: February 2017 YA BOM
Join our discussion HERE …more
[close] February 2017 YA BOM
Join our discussion HERE

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 163 topics — 23,362 comments total

Books of the Month

* The Names by Florence Knapp - Sep 25 Adult / Non-Fiction BOM (starts 16 Sep)
By Moderators of… , Challenger-in-Chief · 11 posts · 68 views

last updated Sep 05, 2025 04:38PM

* The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese - Sep 25 Theme BOM - South and South East Asia (Starts 5 September)
By Moderators of… , Challenger-in-Chief · 30 posts · 65 views

last updated 19 hours, 43 min ago

showing 10 of 130 topics view all »

What Members Thought

Mar 24, 2016 Heather - hturningpages rated it it was amazing

Shelves: loved-it

How to review this book...haha. I've been putting it off, telling myself I'm mulling, but the bottom line is this book really nagged me to look inside myself to figure out how I feel about it. On the page, it's a beautiful story about a boy and the lies he tells himself to get through the isolation of grief. The appearance of the "Monster", his role in the MC's realizations and development was very intriguing and had me "turning pages" (I read the ebook ;) ) until the wee hours. Although I thoug How to review this book...haha. I've been putting it off, telling myself I'm mulling, but the bottom line is this book really nagged me to look inside myself to figure out how I feel about it. On the page, it's a beautiful story about a boy and the lies he tells himself to get through the isolation of grief. The appearance of the "Monster", his role in the MC's realizations and development was very intriguing and had me "turning pages" (I read the ebook ;) ) until the wee hours. Although I thought of all sorts of interesting twists and turns that the Monster might trigger or represent in the story, ultimately I think my imagination was to wild for this particular book haha. The Monster turned out to represent something much more straightforward, which may have been a tiny bit disappointing (I think reading sandman recently has put my fantasy expectations into overdrive lol) but it was still very nicely revealed in a heartbreaking way.

(Spoiler's ahead!)
I've always thought that everyone has an internal reserve of perseverance and strength that helps them get through horrible things if they know how to tap into it and trust in themselves. This story touches on that, but I have to say, a small part of me was strangely jealous of the MC because for him, his Monster is so real, so tangible. It's a hand on his shoulder, a fist to his enemies. I think what stirred up the most emotionally for me in this book wasn't necessarily how I can relate to the feelings of loss, of feeling singled out, alone and tip-toed around and hating it, it was some residual anger that I had to do all of it alone, without an imaginary friend or Monster to guide me. I get that the author was using the Monster has a metaphor obviously, but the child in me just wanted to slap the kid and tell him how lucky he is that he has a friend through all this, even if that friend is just inside his head.

Definitely a 5* book just for the fact that it made me reflect so much about my life and myself haha and I think anyone who reads it will do the same. So do yourself a favor and read it ;) ...more

4 likes · Like · see review