Paige Bradish's Reviews > How to Make Friends and Monsters

I received How To Make Friends and Monsters by Ron Bates from the publisher, and this is my honest review.

How To Make Friends and Monsters was a breath of fresh air compared to the YA and Adult i’ve been reading. In this story we meet Howard who doesn’t really have many friends. So throughout the book we follow him on his journey to somehow making friends, and let me tell you it wasn’t not easy. Howard is a 7th grader and he is what most people would call a nerd I guess and he doesn’t have many friends. His solution to this problem is to use what he knows best (science) and make himself a “friend” many things went wrong but many things went right as well.

I don’t normally read Middle Grade books but lately i’ve been giving them a try lately and so far I’ve been liking what I’m reading. This book was so breezy and fun. I loved it because it brought me back to the days when I was in Middle School which are times I miss dearly so I’m glad the book could take me back like that.

Howard was such a cute and sweet character. I loved how nerdy he was because I’m a nerd myself so I liked reading him try to make his way through middle school being himself. I also loved the way the author made the book fantasy but very believable I’m always impressed when books are believable.

Can we just talk about how much I loved Franklins character! He was supposed to be big and scary looking but he was such a sweetheart even when Howard was being rude he was so innocent. I hated the part in the book where they fought I felt so bad for Franklin, but I’m glad everything worked out.

I also enjoyed Howard’s character because he was a very creative young boy. I mean he had to have had an amazing imagination to create all those monsters!! In the end Howard did the right thing and I just enjoyed how well the book played out with the monsters and everything, this gets a solid 5 out of 5 stars