Eliza And Her Monsters

Author: Francesca Zappia

Publisher: Greenwillow Books

Genre/Themes: Young Adult, Contemporary, Social Issues

Release Date: May 30th 2017

Page Count: 400

Format: ARC

ISBN: 9780062290137

Author Website| Book Depository | Amazon |
Chapters/Indigo | Goodreads | Kobo

*Disclaimer: An ARC of Eliza And Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia was provided to me by Indigo Books & Music Inc. in exchange for an honest review. This does not effect my review in any way.

So, I found a new book to add to my favourites list. Eliza and Her Monsters was everything I hoped it would be and more. I didn’t know I could binge through a book as fast as I did with Eliza and Her Monsters. It was that good.

Synopsis

In the real world, Eliza Mirk is shy, weird, and friendless. Online, Eliza is LadyConstellation, anonymous creator of the wildly popular webcomic Monstrous Sea. Eliza can’t imagine enjoying the real world as much as she loves her digital community, and has no desire to try. Then Wallace Warland, Monstrous Sea’s biggest fanfiction writer, transfers to her school. Wallace thinks Eliza is just another fan, and Eliza begins to wonder if a life offline might be worthwhile. But when Eliza’s secret is accidentally shared with the world, everything she’s built—her story, her relationship with Wallace, and even her sanity—begins to fall apart. With illustrations from Eliza’s webcomic, as well as screenshots from Eliza’s online forums and snippets of Wallace’s fanfiction, this uniquely formatted book will appeal to fans of Noelle Stevenson’s Nimona and Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl.

What I Liked

The characters. The best part about this entire story was the characters, which is exactly what I hope for when reading a contemporary novel. I love a good character driven story and Eliza and Her Monsters was definitely that. I could relate to Eliza on so many levels and I really wasn’t expecting that. She was such an amazing character and she just felt so real. Wallace was just adorable and I kept thinking how nice it would be to meet someone like him in real life. He was the perfect love interest for Eliza and just an all around fantastic character. There were also many secondary characters that I loved, but I think the stand-outs would probably be Eliza’s two younger brothers, especially during a very important scene that I won’t discuss because spoilers.

The realness. As mentioned above, I could really relate to Eliza and I think that was because she felt so real. There was something about this story that felt so realistic to me and I think I just really connected with that. It was heartbreaking and real and I loved reading every single page.

The integration of comics/blurbs. Eliza has a secret identity in which she creates a super popular web comic that millions of people read daily. So naturally, this book contains little snippets and frames from her comics that are thrown in between some chapters. Wallace writes popular fanfiction based on Eliza’s comics and little blurbs from his stories are also thrown in here and there. This aspect reminded me a lot of Fangirl in which we got to see little bits and pieces of Carry On. What I really liked about it though, was that the stories closely resembled what was happening in reality with Eliza and with Wallace.

The writing. My attention span is terrible and I don’t read as fast as some may think. However, when I get really invested in a story and it characters or its writing, I can breeze through a book with ease. I didn’t even realize I was binging Eliza and Her Monsters until I realized five hours had passed and I had read 265 pages without taking a break. Like I said, this is isn’t normal behaviour for me and I think what made it so easy to read so much of it was the writing. It was so well written and excellently paced. I probably would have read the whole thing if I had started reading earlier in the day and if my body wasn’t begging me for sleep.

What I Didn’t Like

A little rushed towards the end. In reality, my real rating is probably closer to like 4.75, that’s how little this small detail affected my final rating. The story just felt a little rushed towards the end. The entire book had such a wonderful pace and the end was just suddenly upon me. I wish we had just a little more dialogue or just slightly more of a “moment” between Wallace and Eliza during one pivotal scene towards the end of the story. However, this books was literally amazing. I teared up multiple times and I don’t cry while reading…like ever.

As you can probably tell, I absolutely loved this book. You can definitely expect to see it in my favourites of 2017 list at the end of this year! It was heartbreaking and relatable and everything that I needed in a contemporary novel.

About The Author

Thank you for reading!