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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More Than This
Same author's bruising interiority and boy confronting death and truth, but stranger, more speculative and bleaker in its questions.
The ones we trust
Another story about guilt and family grief after a death, but adult suspense with conspiracy plotting and a romance thread instead of fable-like fantasy.
Second Chance At The Sugar Shack
Also about a child confronting a dead mother, here literally as a ghost, but lighter, funnier, and sexy small-town romance rather than devastating.
Truly sweet
Shares the single-parent focus and a wounded man's slow thaw, but warm romance with a happy ending instead of a boy's grief.
Dead of winter
Keeps YA with monstrous threats and stark violence, though it trades intimate emotional reckoning for dystopian action and a love triangle.
Release
Same author blending one brutal day of teen pain with a supernatural presence; more queer romance and less about a dying parent.