A Monster Calls
No romance or no physical intimacy at all.
Closed door. No anatomical or crude language.
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Blurb
NOW A #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! An unflinching, darkly funny, and deeply moving story of a boy, his seriously ill mother, and an unexpected monstrous visitor. At seven minutes past midnight, thirteen-year-old Conor wakes to find a monster outside his bedroom window. But it isn’t the monster Conor’s been expecting-- he’s been expecting the one from his nightmare, the nightmare he’s had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments. The monster in his backyard is different. It’s ancient. And wild. And it wants something from Conor. Something terrible and dangerous. It wants the truth. From the final idea of award-winning author Siobhan Dowd-- whose premature death from cancer prevented her from writing it herself-- Patrick Ness has spun a haunting and darkly funny novel of mischief, loss, and monsters both real and imagined.
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Night Music
Another story of a family gutted by a death and a parent barely holding on, but adult, romantic, and warmer in tone.
A Monster Calls. Patrick Ness, Siobhan Dowd
The rest of us just live here
Silver Bay
Shares the wounded single-parent household and slow processing of loss, though it's a gentle seaside romance rather than a dark fable.
It's Not Summer Without You
Also YA grief after a mother's cancer, with the same raw teenage anger, but grounded in summer romance instead of monsters.
Finale
Keeps the YA fantasy register and a monstrous bargain-making figure, but trades quiet grief for lush spectacle and a romance payoff.