"Sometimes people need to lie to themselves most of all." 
 Reading A Monster Calls was a very new experience. This book surprised me in all the best ways. Based on its eerie beginning and aptly named title, I was almost certain this would be a fantasy book. But it was not. A Monster Calls turned out to be a poignant, mature contemporary novel interwoven with threads of fantasy that never failed to tug at my heartstrings. 
 The monster showed up just after midnight. As they do. 
 Conor O'Malley has been having the same dream every night, ever since his mother first fell ill, ever since she started the treatments that don't quite seem to be working. But tonight is different. Tonight, when he wakes, there's a visitor at his window. It's ancient, elemental, a force of nature. And it wants the most dangerous thing of all from Conor. It wants the truth. 
 What's so special about this book is that it's not quite a full contemporary, but isn't rooted in the fantasy world either. At times the line between reality and fantasy is blurred. The result is a tale that's packed with reality and very real emotions, but yet retains the surreal aspect of something unreal. It is a heady combination, one that is difficult to forget. 
 I adore the simple yet riveting language in this book. The story flows very smoothly and sucks you in right from the start. It's full of twists and turns and unexpected plotholes you never see coming. I loved reading the stories told by the monster. I never expected any of those endings and it was very interesting to see a different perspective that resulted in a different, but in no way less satisfying, ending. 
 "Stories are wild creatures," the monster said. "When you let them loose, who knows what havoc they might wreak?" 
 And at the end of the story, I still harbored an impossible hope for a happy ending. But alas, it was not to be. 
 "Stories don't always have happy endings." 
 This stopped him. Because they didn't, did they? That's one thing the monster had definitely taught him. Stories were wild, wild animals and went off in directions you couldn't expect. 
 This book may look like a breeze, but in reality has much more depth and touches on deeper themes. It is intrinsically and wholly human. Conor's truth was a little anticlimactic to me and that's why I'm deducting the one star, but it is definitely powerful and moving. 
 "You were merely wishing for the end of pain," the monster said. "Your own pain. An end to how it isolated you. It is the most human wish of all."