“Angels aren’t pretty pictures in old holy books just like monsters aren’t ugly pictures. It’s all just people, doing hard things or bad things but it’s all just people.”

Reading this through a metaphorical lens or with real life context really maximizes the meaning of the whole book and is how I would recommend reading it. It was incredibly relatable that I feel only makes more sense when you've already seen how unfair this world can be.

If you like stories like "A Monster Calls" but make it more modern and more representative, this is for you. What a timely novel, no matter where you are in the world.

It was also way more representative and diverse that I thought it would be. The main character is black, trans, and is also selectively mute, communicating mostly through sign language. And I love how it played into the story in the sense that ti was normalized and not really seen as a hindrance to anything. In other words, I liked that the representation was not the main source of the conflict.

Although this book doesn't necessarily give answers to injustices or anything of the sort, it so successfully emphasizes how we need to open our eyes to these injustices in the first place to be able to do anything about them. That the first step to solving them is to acknowledge that they may be in places we didn't expect them to be. At the same time, I like the message it sends that we don't need to start somewhere big, we can simple... like with the 'friends' around us.

The solution to the conflict in the plot was a little bit predictable for me but I feel like that wasn't the point of the story anyhow as much as how it got there. There are some messages that are best delivered through simple stories that metaphorically hold deeper messages, I feel. It's timely and holds one of my ever growing favorite dynamics: family dynamics (especially father-daughter ones).

"Monsters don't look like anything, doux-doux. That's the whole point. That's the whole problem."

↣ Highly recommended and I wish more people are able to read this story. It's a solid reality check while at the same time not being too heavy or dragging on it's themes. Monster themes hit me a little too hard. ↢

— 4.25 —
⇢ content warnings// Blood, Eye mutilation, Child abuse (physical/sexual, past, implied), Pedophilia (past, implied), Sexual assault (past, implied), Violence