A MONSTER CALLS by PATRICK NESS

thebbg
Nov 7, 2014
Branje traja 2 min

A MONSTER CALLS by PATRICK NESS (original idea by SIOBHAN DOWD)

SUMMARY:

Conor’s mother is dying. His classmates bully him. And his grandmother and father come to visit. The two people who hate him or just don’t want him around. And one day at seven minutes past midnight Conor suddenly wakes up. A monster comes to his window. But it’s not really the monster he’s been expecting. This monster is here to tell him three stories. And then, it’s Conor’s turn. He’s going to have to tell the truth. But the truth is killing him inside and if he says it out loud it might become real. He keeps having nightmares about letting go of his mother’s hands. SPOILER ALLERT!!! The monster finally makes Conor tell the truth. He could’ve held on to the hands in his nightmare but he let them go. He wants everything to just end even if that means that his mother dies. He doesn’t want her to go but he also hates the situation that her illness has caused. He hates being alone and invisible to others and he hates the way everybody looks at him now. And that’s tearing him apart. At the end of the book he finally stops blaming himself for the fact that his mother is dying and that’s when the monster goes away, too.

CHARACTERS:

The main characters are Conor and his best friend Lilly, Conor’s mother, his grandmother and his father who lives in America. Conor gets bullied a lot and Lily tries to help him but only makes things worse. His grandmother is very eccentric and doesn’t like Conor very much. His father lives with his new family and really isn’t around much. He and his new wife have another baby and that is the reason they don’t want Conor to live with them after his mother dies. And his mother loves him very much but she’s running out of time and energy to help him.

OPPINION:

I like the story, but it talks about a deadly illness that isn’t named but we can assume it’s cancer. So if you tend to dwell on books too much it would probably be better not to read it. Anyway, it’s still absolutely worth reading.