Book Talk | A Monster Calls

Title: A Monster Calls

Author: Patrick Ness
Page Count: 216
Genre: YA, Fantasy, Horror
Goodreads Rating: 4.34
My Rating: 3.5
Book Cover Rating: 4
Bad Book Review: Trees are great storytellers. Also if you don't listen to their stories they will kill you. 
Review type: Contains spoilers

Synopsis

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 darkness and the wind and the screaming.

This monster is something different, though. Something ancient, something wild. And it wants the most dangerous this of all from Conor. 

It wants the truth.

 

First of all I want to say that if you loved this book and can't deal with other people not liking it, you should probably not read this review because to me this book was such a disappointment...Also this review will be spoiler free, so if you haven't read the book yet you don't have to worry.

The storyline

I went into this expecting the most amazing story I'd ever read, and maybe it's just my fault for having such high expectations, but I had only heard great things about this. First of all the story was so incredibly confusing to me...Conor has a yew tree monster visiting him at night and he keeps telling himself it's a nightmare but when he wakes up, there are leaves and branches on his floor, which makes you think that the monster is indeed real. But than at some moments Conor sees the monster do things but than it turns out that he did them himself, which would suggest to the monster not being real. I am still confused.

I could always kind of guess what was going to happen, which was a big shame to me. Despite being confused I don't feel like the story was very original...Some people are going to hate me for saying this, but it's just how I feel. 

Illustrations

Let's quickly talk about something I did like about this book. I got the beautiful illustrated edition and the art is simply amazing. It was scary, it was dark. It was everything I wanted from this book but didn't get. As an artist I can stare at artworks for ages and just keep discovering new things and that was really the case here. I loved looking at all the small details, it was simply amazing.

Sad

I was expecting this book to make me cry my eyes out in pain and for it to be the saddest thing I'd ever read, as people were telling me it'd be. I have to be honest and say that I didn't cry once and didn't even feel really sad and that wasn't because I don't have a heart or anything. My grandma died of cancer a few years ago and she was like a mother to me, so I know exactly how Conor feels.

The reason why I didn't feel sad is because we never got a back story or any memories or moments between Conor and his mom at all. (His mom being sick is not a spoiler, it's literally in the synopsis of the book). In order for me to feel sad about someone dying I have to care about that person and when the book doesn't give me any reasons to do so, it's hard for me to feel like crying. Believe me, I wanted it to be sad and yes, having a dying family member IS very sad, but I just didn't feel it...

Conor

Honestly Conor felt like a flat character to me. We never really find out what he looks like, we never read about character traits, what he likes and doesn't. There is a huge lack of history behind him and that was probably a big reason why I didn't like this book. 

A well written and explained character isn't always completely necessary to me when a book has an amazing storyline, but neither were the case in this. I just followed Conor's story for 200 pages and I know absolutely nothing about him except that his mom is sick, his dad is living in America and that he doesn't like his grandma, though I have no idea why he doesn't like his grandma.

Sorry for all the negativity in this review, but I was just so disappointed by this book and that makes me really sad. Am I the only one who feels this way about 'A Monster Calls' or not?