There are some beautiful illustrations throughout the whole book. I wouldn’t have minded a whole book of just those stories to be honest, but I loved how these stories fit into the plot of the book overall.

They had a fairytale-like quality to them and I thought the messages and lessons they contained were very interesting. These stories were my favourite aspect of A Monster Calls. The monster that visits Conor tells him three stories. I actually thought that he handled his emotional struggles very well and I admired how strong he was when he needed to be. There were times when he acted like a little bit of a brat, particularly at the beginning of the book, but given the circumstances, I can forgive a young boy for not being a perfect angel. I felt all of his struggles and pain, and I couldn’t help but feel attached to his story. I really felt for Conor and connected with him on an emotional level in this book. And on top of all of that, there’s a monster who visits him in the middle of the night and leaves a terrible mess in his room the next morning.

Conor is being forced to live with his grandmother, who’s not like the other smiley grandmothers in the world. His father has a new family over in America and his new wife pretty much wants him to cut off ties with Conor and his mother. His mother is battling cancer and is incredibly sick from the chemotherapy. I’ll keep this review short and sweet because the book is a short one, and it’s probably also best that you go into it without knowing too much so that you can take from it your own messages.ġ3-year-old Conor is having a rough time. It was a sad but absolutely beautiful story with some equally beautiful illustrations by Jim Kay. And it wants the most dangerous thing of all from Conor.įor a really long time, I was reluctant to pick up this book because I’d heard that it was a heart-wrenching story and that’s exactly what it was. This monster is something different, though. He’s been expecting the one from his nightmare, the one he’s had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments, the one with the darkness and the wind and the screaming… As they do.īut it isn’t the monster Conor’s been expecting.

A monster calls book patrick ness