Eliza and her Monsters by Francesca Zappia Book Review

Spoiler Free Review: 

Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia
My rating: ❤❤❤❤❤

Readers should expect a fresh perspective on life in the comical and heart wrenching wonder that is Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia. Eliza Mirk is a nobody in person; no friends, weird, never talks. Eliza Mirk is a legend online, or at least her web comic, Monstrous Sea, written under the name LadyConstellation is. No one knows except online and Eliza likes it that way, that is until Wallace Warland transfers in to her school. Wallace Warland is Monstrous Sea's most popular fanfiction writer, and now the most important person in Eliza's life, just one problem, she has no intention of telling him who she is. This book took me completely by surprise. I was expecting a typical YA novel with a little romance thrown in to it. What I got was a beautiful story about excepting your identity and preparing for your future. Francesca Zappia created extremely interesting round characters that grow throughout the whole book. The emotions of these characters just blew me away and felt so real and at one point even made me cry. I would highly, highly recommend this book to anyone, but especially young adults as this book will really resonate with them.
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Recommended Mindset For Reading

 This book is something you need to read when you have a large chunk of time on your hands. You will not want to put it down so make sure you have enough time to do this. I actually read it in a four hour stretch where I just did not get up from the couch and sat back and read my book. This is not a light read, it is of medium length and there is a lot of feeling packed into it so prepare yourself for an emotional roller coaster. If you like cool artwork this book is chockfull of it so if you are in an artsy kind of mood then pick up this book. Lastly, if you are an owlcrate subscriber like me and you got this book in your May 2017 box, how cool is the exclusive cover and artwork that was included! Now get off your beautiful buts and read this fantastic book!

Full Review:

Initial Reaction

The second I started this book I could not put it down. As I stated in my spoiler free review above, I was not expecting something so beautiful and deep to come from this book. I was able to relate to the main character, Eliza, on so many levels, even though I am nothing like her. Honestly, this book might be one of my new favorite books of the year. So my initial reaction is, mind blown!

"If you had to choose, which would it be-dying in a year, or living forever?"

Character Analysis 

Eliza was such an interesting character in this book. Her development as a person, while initially did not feel very big, was (forgive the bad pun) monstrous. As someone who is pretty talkative and has very set goals in mind for their future, it would seem as though I would have nothing in common with Eliza, but I completely understood her struggle to just be herself and branch out in her life. I know that a lot of young adults find it hard to share what their true passions are. Adults are always pressuring us to pick a life that leads to money and their ideas of happiness. Perusing things like the arts tend to be discouraged as they are viewed as "hobbies" instead of a profession. Many of you would not know this, but one of my true passions is cooking. Unlike Eliza, my parents are extremely supportive of this and would love for me to peruse this, as their only goals for me is happiness. Now I obviously have more than one passion, seeing as that I am writing this blog (booknerd for life yo), but I was able to deeply relate to Eliza's struggle to accept her passion. One of my favorite parts of the book was when Eliza's parents say how she is the author of Monstrous Sea in the paper, because it spurs such amazing character development for Eliza.
The one place where I feel this book fell flat was with the character development for Wallace. I feel that the author could have done more throughout the book with growth, in regards to Wallace. Because all of his emotional growth is crammed together at the end, it did not feel as sincere as Eliza's growth. This is just my opinion though, and I am sure the author chose to do it this way for a reason.

"Haven't you heard? There are monsters in the sea."

Story Within a Story 

I absolutely loved how we got a story within a story in this book. In some ways it reminded me of Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, in which you get the story of Carry On within Cath's story. Of course I wish we could actually read Monstrous Sea, because the story sounds so fascinating, but I am content with what we got from the book for now. I thought it was very interesting how the author chose to pair the character development of the webcomic with Eliza's development. The one thing that was a little hard for me to grasp was how so many of Eliza's friends read Monstrous Sea. Even with something that becomes extremely popular like The Hunger Games, not everyone is going to have read it, especially with a webcomic. This is not to say that a webcomic can not be famous, but in our society right now it is hard to imagine that a webcomic is that popular. Now as someone who just got into reading some webcomics I would love for this to happen because there are a lot of really, really good ones! Also if you have any webcomics you like then please tell me about them! I would love to read them! Also shoutout to Francesca Zappia for the amazing artwork in this book! I really enjoyed having it in there.

"You found me in a constellation"    

Romance

The romance in this book was of course disappointing to me because I always want more! Just kidding, the romance level was perfect for this book! I love how adorable Wallace and Eliza are. One of my favorite things was when at the beginning of the book Eliza gets all flustered because Rainmaker is flirting with her and I just knew it was going to be Wallace and I couldn't keep myself from giggling! I love all the tension that gets built up before their first kiss and I thought it was adorable how Eliza ended up initiating it. Basically, Eliza and Wallace are super cute!

"Wallace." He looks up. "I want to be happy," I say. "Me too"

Mental Health/Depression 

There was definitely a large underlying theme of mental health issues and depression in this novel. Wallace is unable to speak in large groups of people after his fathers suicide. Eliza then debates whether to take her own life. Eliza's inability to share Monstrous Sea with other people and then after her breakdown her inability to continue writing was very important to the story. I think that the author was trying to make a statement about how your own mental state and happiness is more important than anything else and I agree with this. I have many friends who have battled depression or have panic attacks and it is really hard and I think this book shines a good light on how to deal with this and still have a full happy life.   

"Rainmaker: The characters! The Action! The questionable Morals!"  

Conclusion/Final Thoughts 

I loved how this book ended and it definitely left me feeling really satisfied. This is one of the few books where I don't have a desire for a sequel because it wraps up so well. This book just left me feeling so understood and raw, but in a fantastic way. Also, it inspired me to go read some webcomics to that was a bonus! I hope you enjoyed this review and as always, happy reading!-Becca