Prize-winning Patrick Ness displays brilliant new skills of sensitivity in this hauntingly touching story of how a boy deals with the looming threat of his mother’s death from cancer. Haunted by a monster in his dreams, denied much information by his family and treated as a weirdo by his class mates and a ‘special case’ by his teachers, Conor struggles to get to grips with the devastating emotions which threaten to overwhelm him.
How he finds the courage and strength to face the end when it happens is both utterly shattering and deeply satisfying. Costa Award winner Patrick Ness spins a tale from the final idea of much-loved Carnegie Medal winner Siobhan Dowd, whose premature death from cancer prevented her from writing it herself.
Conor is dealing with more than an ordinary teenager should have to: his mum is seriously ill, his dad lives far away with a new family, he has terrifying nightmares every night - and now he's being visited by a monster.
An ancient, elemental creature, born from nature, who has forced its way into his world. But through his encounters with the monster, and the stories the creature tells him, Conor slowly learns to come to terms with what is happening around him.
'exceptional.. this is storytelling as it should be - harrowing, lyrical and transcendent.' Meg Rosoff
"[It] has the thrills and ambition you would expect from the author of the Chaos Walking trilogy. It's also easy to trace Dowd's influence ... an extraordinarily beautiful book" Frank Cottrell Boyce, The Guardian
"Ness, like Dowd, is a brilliant and acclaimed creator of books for older children and young adults, but the two novelists' voices, their concerns, their styles, are quite different. Many people – myself included – thought this a peculiar piece of casting. Well, shows how much I know ... Brave and beautiful, full of compassion, A Monster Calls fuses the painful and insightful, the simple and profound. The result trembles with life." Daniel Hahn, The Independent
"Stunningly illustrated, this haunting and demanding book shines with compassion, insight and flashes of humour and is a collaboration that highlights the exceptional talents of Ness, Dowd and Kay. A worthy tribute." Sally Morris, Daily Mail
Author
About Patrick Ness
Patrick Ness was born on an army base called Fort Belvoir, near Alexandria, Virginia, in the United States. His father was a drill sergeant in the US Army. He lived in Hawaii until he was almost six, spent the ten years after that in suburban Washington state, and then on to Los Angeles, where he studied English Literature at the University of Southern California.
His main job after graduating was as corporate writer at a cable company, writing manuals, form letters and speeches and once even an advertisement for the Gilroy, California Garlic Festival (this is true). If you're American and hated your cable company, he probably wrote you a letter of apology.
He got his first story published in Genre magazine in 1997 and was working on his first novel when he moved to London in 1999. He's lived here ever since. Sometimes he teaches creative writing but mostly he tries to write 1,000 words a day, 'come hell or high water'.
In May 2008, he published The Knife of Never Letting Go, his first book for young adults. It won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize and the Booktrust Teenage Prize and he hasn't looked back since.
Here is an interview with Patrick Ness where he talks about his new book The Rest of Us Just Live Here.
10 Things You Didn't Know About Patrick Ness
1. He has a tattoo of a rhinoceros. 2. He has run two marathons. 3. He is a certified scuba diver. 4. He wrote a radio comedy about vampires. 5. He has never been to New York City but... 6. He has been to Sydney, Auckland and Tokyo. 7. He got accepted into film school but turned it down to study writing. 8. He was a goth as a teenager (well, as much of a goth as you could be in Tacoma, Washington and still have to go to church every Sunday). 9. He is no longer a goth. 10. Under no circumstances will he eat onions.
