🌑 “There is not always a good guy. Nor is there always a bad one. Most people are somewhere in between.” ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (4/5 — absolutely shattered me.)

This isn’t a story about a boy and a monster. It’s a story about grief—the kind you don’t want to name, the kind you try to outrun, the kind that keeps finding you anyway. Connor isn’t fighting some creature in the night; he’s fighting the truth. And the monster isn’t there to scare him. It’s there to make him say the one thing he’s terrified to admit.

That’s what destroyed me. Not the fantasy. Not the plot. The honesty.

Connor is losing his mum, and everyone pretends they’re being “strong,” but really they’re just being silent. And that silence eats him alive. It’s the kind of pain no kid should ever have to hold, and yet he’s carrying all of it—fear, guilt, anger, hope—like it’s his job to keep the world together. 💔

And the monster? It doesn’t comfort him. It doesn’t soften anything. It forces him to face the truth he’s buried: that sometimes we cling to hope not because we believe in it, but because the truth feels too cruel to say out loud.

This book shows how grief makes you feel wrong even when you’re human. How you can love someone so much it hurts, and still resent them for leaving. How you can be terrified of losing them, and still wish the waiting would end. That contradiction—that’s the real monster. And Patrick Ness captures it so painfully well it feels like a bruise.

What broke me wasn’t the ending. It was watching Connor beg for anything—guidance, anger, punishment—just so he wouldn’t be alone in it. It’s that reminder that sometimes the thing we fear saying is the thing we needed to say all along.

👁️‍🗨️ Some lines that hit hard:

“Your mind will believe comforting lies while also knowing the painful truths that make those lies necessary.” This line punches you right in the throat. Because yes—sometimes the lie feels safer than the truth. Especially when the truth comes with loss.

“I want it to be over.” This is the moment that gutted me. When he finally says the thing he’s terrified of admitting—not because he wants his mum gone, but because he can’t handle the waiting, the fear, the helplessness anymore. Kids aren’t supposed to feel that. But they do. And the monster doesn’t judge him. It just listens.

“You were merely wishing for the end of pain… the most human wish of all.” This one feels like someone quietly forgiving you for every moment you thought made you a bad person.

“How do you fight it?” “By speaking the truth.” It’s simple. It’s devastating. And it’s exactly what Connor needed — someone to tell him that the only way out is through.

A Monster Calls isn’t a book you finish and walk away from. It sits with you in the dark parts of yourself. It makes you think about all the truths you’ve swallowed just to survive. It makes you remember what it feels like to love someone so much it scares you.

And in the end, Connor isn’t really fighting a monster. He’s learning how to tell the truth— even the kind that hurts, even the kind that changes everything.

🌙🖤 A quiet, devastating reminder that grief isn’t something you conquer. It’s something you learn to carry.