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A review by coolcatalycat
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
5.0
i don't even know where to start with this book.
i stumbled upon jubilee's new middle-ground video. it was about cancer patients and cancer survivors. it's rare that i watch their videos so i was surprised to find myself watching the whole hour and 15 minutes. i was just really interested in hearing about how they approached their situations. i couldn't help feeling a little emotional after finishing it and decided that i needed a cathartic cry (lol of course). i found someone online talking about this movie (a monster calls) and remembered i had the book in my tbr. i saw it was pretty short so i just decided to binge it all in one go. what a fucking intense 2 hours.
i can't believe this is a middle-grade book. thinking about how many kids this book probably helped literally makes me want to cry all over again. the way grief and guilt was portrayed in this book? phenomenal. grief is tricky, death is tricky, humans are tricky. we are bound to feel and think things that we don't want to carry. but they are out of control. the only thing in our control is the reaction to these thoughts and feelings and what we do with the situations that we are faced with.
i had high expectations for this book and it completely surpassed them. i seriously cannot get over how well the meaning was portrayed, through not only the story but also through the form (like wow that's my favourite thing ever). i really appreciated how it touched upon some of the hardest aspects of dealing with death. i've read and watched a lot of media now about death and grief and i've never seen these feelings being portrayed. this is so so important and again i want to cry thinking about how many kids (or adults. like me lol) this probably helped. it was such a beautiful story, so well thought out and all together impactful.
i'd like to think that if i hadn't experienced deep grief that i would've liked the book a little less. but honestly, i can't and never will know, because i can never go back to a time where i didn't experience it all. it would be impossible. our experiences shape how media impacts us, and that is something i never realized until death slapped me in the face. i'm glad this book found me when it did because i may have not held the same appreciation for it as i do now.
life throws us truths that are hard to accept, but it is only once we accept them that we can begin to heal. without acceptance of our feelings, our judgements, our fears, we become stagnant.
here is probably my favourite quote of the entire book: "the answer is that it does not matter what you think, the monster said, because your mind will contradict itself a hundred times each day...your mind will believe comforting lies while also knowing the painful truths that make those lies necessary. and your mind will punish you for believing both." wow.
...anyways. another entry from a girl that feels too much. i will return after i watch the movie. (i'm still trying to recover from crying so much lol)
i stumbled upon jubilee's new middle-ground video. it was about cancer patients and cancer survivors. it's rare that i watch their videos so i was surprised to find myself watching the whole hour and 15 minutes. i was just really interested in hearing about how they approached their situations. i couldn't help feeling a little emotional after finishing it and decided that i needed a cathartic cry (lol of course). i found someone online talking about this movie (a monster calls) and remembered i had the book in my tbr. i saw it was pretty short so i just decided to binge it all in one go. what a fucking intense 2 hours.
i can't believe this is a middle-grade book. thinking about how many kids this book probably helped literally makes me want to cry all over again. the way grief and guilt was portrayed in this book? phenomenal. grief is tricky, death is tricky, humans are tricky. we are bound to feel and think things that we don't want to carry. but they are out of control. the only thing in our control is the reaction to these thoughts and feelings and what we do with the situations that we are faced with.
i had high expectations for this book and it completely surpassed them. i seriously cannot get over how well the meaning was portrayed, through not only the story but also through the form (like wow that's my favourite thing ever). i really appreciated how it touched upon some of the hardest aspects of dealing with death. i've read and watched a lot of media now about death and grief and i've never seen these feelings being portrayed. this is so so important and again i want to cry thinking about how many kids (or adults. like me lol) this probably helped. it was such a beautiful story, so well thought out and all together impactful.
i'd like to think that if i hadn't experienced deep grief that i would've liked the book a little less. but honestly, i can't and never will know, because i can never go back to a time where i didn't experience it all. it would be impossible. our experiences shape how media impacts us, and that is something i never realized until death slapped me in the face. i'm glad this book found me when it did because i may have not held the same appreciation for it as i do now.
life throws us truths that are hard to accept, but it is only once we accept them that we can begin to heal. without acceptance of our feelings, our judgements, our fears, we become stagnant.
here is probably my favourite quote of the entire book: "the answer is that it does not matter what you think, the monster said, because your mind will contradict itself a hundred times each day...your mind will believe comforting lies while also knowing the painful truths that make those lies necessary. and your mind will punish you for believing both." wow.
...anyways. another entry from a girl that feels too much. i will return after i watch the movie. (i'm still trying to recover from crying so much lol)