I know that I’m falling behind with this awesome 15 Day Book Blogger Challenge of April‘s, but I’m trying to catch up wherever I can! When I saw that I missed day 5’s prompt to recommend a tear-jerker, I knew I had to hop back in and give a shout out to a book that made me ugly cry like crazy:

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

This incredibly powerful story about a young boy, Conor, who is visited by a monster, an animated yew tree from his backyard, and they develop an intense, very important relationship over time. Conor, you see, has got a lot on his little dude plate: his parents are divorced, his father isn’t around very much, he doesn’t have many friends, and his grandma is kind of pushy, but most–and worst–of all, Conor’s mother–his very best bff–is dying. As Conor struggles with his grief, the monster becomes his nighttime companion who guides him through his feelings and gives Conor the support he needs and craves to deal with his mother’s impending death.

As you might be able to tell from my little synopsis, and as you might guess just from the look of the cover, A MONSTER CALLS is not a happy, warm-fuzzy kind of book. It’s dark, sad, and brutally emotional. I CRIED FOR DAYS AND DAYS.

One of the big bonuses of this edition, too, is the illustrations. They’re stunning. Candlewick is releasing a paperback version with a very different, but still pretty, cover. I might have to snatch it up (although the illustrations are absent from the new edition). Like other people I’ve talked to about it, I think the original cover matches the tone SO PERFECTLY that I can’t imagine this story without it. But I like to collect books I love, and I LOVE A MONSTER CALLS. Extreme tear-jerker. EXTREME. It was a no brainer to feature it on the 15 Day Book Blogger Challenge.