A Monster Calls: Reading Response

The book “A Monster Calls” by Patrick Ness Is about a young boy who meets a monster in his backyard and becomes friends with it. The monster comes to tell tales about his past, and tries to help the boy apply them to his own life. Conor, the boy, has a mother who has cancer, no friends or acknowledgment of his existence at school, and a dad who left him for his new wife and child in America. Overall these stories help conor become a better person and let go of his dying mother.

One lesson conor learned that sometimes being seen is worse than being invisible. throughout the book, conor is trying to find ways to be seen. In some parts he even enjoys being bullied because someone is noticing him. But when the bullies realize his weakness, they just start ignoring him. This is the most painful thing for conor. The monster tells him stories with the constant theme of characters not always seeming obvious or having straight forward intentions at first glance. Looking further into these characters and their motivations shows that each character is both good and bad, evil and innocent, and has many different layers in their personalities. This shows conor that he doesn’t have to be completely ignored or completely acknowledged but can find a middle ground.

Another lesson that the monster told conor was that sometimes people’s actions are not always clear and may have good reason behind them. The monster tells the parson tale to show that although the parson cared so much about his daughters, he would disregard religion the second they were in danger. This shows that although the alchemist may not have had good intentions, the parson deserved punishment for being disloyal to his own beliefs. This applies to the dream conor has of his mother where he lets go of her while she is dangling off of the cliff. He is in denial of what he was thinking, but his actions were clear and show what he really was showing be letting go of his mother. He wanted her to die because he couldn’t deal with the constant false hope that she always gave him saying that “this new medication would work.”

The last lesson that the monster shows conor is that the monster represents destruction itself. It arrives just as his mothers medications start to fail, his school life crumbles, and is father isn’t loyal to his real family. He assists Conor in destroying his grandmothers house and beating up the bully until he “notices him.” the monster, while creating chaos in conors life, shows him that destruction isn’t always bad, and can even help you start from scratch. Conor makes resolution with his grandma and mother at the end of the book, both saying that destruction and anger was okay and are all apart of grief and acceptance. This helps him accept that he called upon the monster and realises why he needed to learn this valuable lesson.

Overall, by telling conor stories the monster helps to not only teach conor but to fix him and put him on the right track for the future. The monster almost acts like the parent that he doesn’t have, with his dead mother and abandoned father. The monster helps him transition through major parts of his life when nobody else would.