I have been avoiding reviewing this book, almost as much as I avoided reading it in the first place. You see, I was afraid of this novel, scared even. Not because of the monster, surely no. Monsters aren’t really that scary. No, I, like the boy in the book (Conor) was afraid of something worse. This novel is about a boy and a monster and about the boy’s mother who is in the end stages of cancer. He’s 13.

I was 16 when my own mother died after a battle with a virus that attacked her brain. It’s a rare disease that I’ve never encountered before or since. I was afraid this novel would usher in feelings best kept hidden, safely out of reach. Basically, I was afraid, like Conor, to face the truth. The 15th anniversary of my mom’s death is just around the corner. Although 15 years is a long time. I was still afraid that this book would open old wounds. It makes me wonder why I picked up this novel at all, am I a masochist?

But this book has such good reviews on Goodreads. Piles of readers speaking about parent’s who died of cancer, all of them read this book and loved it. Surely, I could read it too. So after it sat amid the library books I’d picked up for a couple of weeks, I finally decided it was time. But then it was Christmas, and I didn’t want to ruin Christmas. I picked it up again on Boxing Day. And so it went. I’d read some, then put it down and not touch it again for a day, then I’d find myself picking it back up. Until I couldn’t put it down any longer. Until finally we get to the part where Conor faces his truth and Ness writes,

“And he knew it was here. He knew there really was no going back. That it was going to happen, whatever he wanted, whatever he felt.

And he knew he was going to get through it.

It would be terrible. It would be beyond terrible.

But he’d survive.” (p.204)

This book was moving and terrifying and beautiful. I would recommend that you read it. I don’t really care who you are. Who hasn’t experienced loss? Who doesn’t know someone affected by cancer? This book, it made me remember, not the most pleasant experience of my life, but I can look back at that terrible, horrible, awful event and know that I got through it, I get through it every day and I am thankful that I am still alive to honour her memory.