“Eliza and Her Monsters” by Francesca Zappia • Book Review

Published: 30 May 2017 ​by Greenwillow Books
Format:​ Hardcover, 385 pages, English

“You found me in a constellation.”

★★★★ (4.5 / 5) I'm usually the type of person who says she devours books. But this book devoured me. To me, this was a whole new contemporary novel. Basic plot structure felt familiar but everything about the characters and the experiences they went through felt entirely fresh. Here's a breakdown of how this novel made me feel…

!! WARNING !! There are spoilers ahead!

our digital world.

There was something really special about including the art and references to Eliza's webcomic Monstrous Sea, but there was also something really special about all of those pieces not connecting right away. There were clear revelations that came later in the novel that were so lightly foreshadowed throughout that I felt genuine surprise and excitement when they crept up.

For those of you who've read it, I'm talking about the references to the kind of surprise Eliza feels when her alarm wakes up, the correlations with Children of Hypnos and the series' author, and the origins of the two most popular phrases from Monstrous Sea.

Also, the online chatting literally made me LOL numerous times, which was the icing on the cake. I loved the misfit friendship between Eliza and her two online buds Emma and Max, who were essentially her guardians and wonderful pals in the digital world they lived in. After feeling some disappointment in the online messaging included in Alex, Approximately, the chats and conversations here really added delight and value.

struggles of a teenage introvert.

This story, and its characters, covered so much when it came to having online friends instead of school friends, how to parent a teen who spends so much time online, dealing with social anxieties (that's so intense, you literally don't speak), handling an onslaught of fame, pressure, and the loss of those around you. All of these elements were worked in fluidly, and that's what makes this novel so important for young adult readers in today's world.

Rather than being ignorant of the way kids feel about these things or making it a vessel for preaching against our ever-increasing reliance on technology, Zappia gives teenagers and adults alike an honest look at the inner workings of social media and school pressures for today's high schoolers.