A Monster Calls: Patrick Ness

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I hate to classify books for some specific age, since I think that books shouldn't have any age or genre. By the time I reached the end, hot tears were dripping onto the last two pages, and continued to fall as I immediately read those pages again, and as I read them yet again. At thirteen, Conor is haunted by a dream in which his terminally ill mother's hands slip from his grasp. The monster awakens from the yew tree to destroy the parson's house and raze it to the ground as punishment.

I'm not saying that the change for me will be immediate, but this amazing novel by Patrick Ness showed me that it really is okay. At first, in the beginning of the book, when he started declaring about his "many names" and how awesome, powerful, and ageless he was, I thought, oh, here we go again, another mightier-than-thou, idiotic deity, but Ness's monster talks the talk, and walks the walk superbly and graciously. At school the next day, Harry tells Conor that he knows the worst thing he can do to Conor is to no longer see him. This story will provoke you many moods and states, you will smile at some moment, you will hate at other, you will cry in yet another.I have not read another book that felt this empathetic – it doesn’t just acknowledge your pain, it is a shared experience. Conor stays with his grandmother when his mother has to go into hospital and the monster helps him to understand that she isn't a bad person.

The monster says it destroyed the parson's home and Conor is confused, believing the apothecary was the bad guy. I was in eighth grade in my English class, sitting under my desk in the back of the room reading A Walk to Remember. Conor has a hostile relationship to his grandmother and denies that they need any extra help at the house. A greedy, ill-tempered apothecary who follows the old traditions and beliefs constantly pesters a parson to allow him to cut down the yew tree in the churchyard and use it for medicinal ingredients. The monster says that neither was particularly good, but the apothecary was at least a healer, while the parson was a person without substance.

Conor is angry with Lily at the start of the book because she told a few people about his mother’s illness. That night the monster visits again and tells Conor it will tell three tales, after which Conor must tell his own tale, which will be "the truth. If you haven't read the Chaos Walking trilogy then please put everything in your life on hold and go find a copy of The Knife of Never Letting Go. If I have to make any request to anyone from reading this review, it's to, please, never regret a single moment, and make every single one precious. I doubt this book will be everyone's cup of tea but, whatever it has, it really worked it's magic on me.