A Monster Calls is a novel written by Patrick Ness. He writes of a boy named Conor who always has nightmares. They always happen to be about his ill mother, until one day he sees the yew tree in his backyard missing and a monster in its place. It’s not the kind of monster that would make him scream, rather one that wants to tell him the truth.
The monster promises to tell him three stories that he witnessed as an ancient tree. Conor thinks that by listening to these tales with happy endings, that he can have his own. But he’s shocked to learn that none of these stories had the satisfying ending he was hoping for. There is no way of differentiating good characters from bad ones. They’re just people with motives and flaws. Characters with good intentions can have bad things happen to them. Through listening, Conor realizes that he can’t control everything that happens in his life, no matter how much it frustrates him.
Ness was inspired to write this universe based on an author that he inspired. Siobhan Dowd was a fellow novelist in the UK who worked on five books. She was a human rights activist for organizations like PEN (Poets, Essayists, and Novelists). She began writing and published A Swift Pure Cry in 2006 and The London Eye Mystery in 2007. Dowd published four books in her career and a Monster Calls was an idea for her fifth. Unfortunately, she got diagnosed with breast cancer and died at the age of 47. In her honor, the Siobhan Dowd Trust was founded; an organization that gives children without access to books their own stories to read.
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