A Monster Calls

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

Title: A Monster Calls 

Author: Patrick Ness

Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy, Middle Grade

Published: September 27 2011, Walker Books

Pages: 215

Blurb: The monster showed up after midnight. As they do.But it isn't the monster Conor's been expecting. 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...This monster is something different, though. Something ancient, something wild. And it wants the most dangerous thing of all from Conor.It wants the truth.

“So go. Run with it. Make trouble.”

A young boy had trouble healing from the bitter truth that haunted him and so the monster came calling…..

A Monster Calls follows the story of Conner, a young teenage boy who’s dealing with his mother having cancer. Not only has he got to look after himself he also has to deal with bullies and everybody ignoring him and every night he is thrown into a nightmare which haunts him. A nightmare which makes him feel like he should be punished.

A Yew Tree that has always been in Connor’s back garden reveals itself as a Monster or nature’s wildness. He visits Connor one day to tell him that he will be told three stories and on the last day Conner will tell him a story.

Have you ever read a fairytale and thought; something tragic happens, a beautiful love story, the bad person’s been dealt with and now everybody can live happily ever after. But what if that’s not what really happened.

What if we’ve always only seen one person’s view on a story, have we been judging the wrong characters.   

 Have you ever read a story were the bitter person is forsaken and everybody follows the preacher blindly because they preach joy and happiness. But what if they were wrong on their views?

What if the bitter person actually did good but hid it whilst the other did bad and hid it beneath good.

 Being invisible is better than other things  

How being seen can make you even more lonely

Connor has been haunted by his nightmares and so the Monster comes to save him, not his mother. The only way to move on is to let go. For the Yew Tree can only save those who can be saved.

We may think horrible things but that doesn`t make us bad until we act on them.