22 July 2017

Review: Eliza & Her Monsters


Eliza & Her Monsters | Francesca Zappia
Published by: Greenwillow Books, May 30th 2017
Genre: YA, Contemporary, Comics
Pages: 400
Format: Ebook
Source: Greenwillow, via Edelweiss

Eighteen-year-old Eliza Mirk is the anonymous creator of Monstrous Sea, a wildly popular webcomic, but when a new boy at school tempts her to live a life offline, everything she’s worked for begins to crumble.

In the real world, Eliza Mirk is shy, weird, smart, and friendless. Online, Eliza is LadyConstellation, the anonymous creator of a popular webcomic called Monstrous Sea. With millions of followers and fans throughout the world, Eliza’s persona is popular. Eliza can’t imagine enjoying the real world as much as she loves her digital community. Then Wallace Warland transfers to her school, and Eliza begins to wonder if a life offline might be worthwhile. But when Eliza’s secret is accidentally shared with the world, everything she’s built—her story, her relationship with Wallace, and even her sanity—begins to fall apart. With pages from Eliza’s webcomic, as well as screenshots from Eliza’s online forums, this uniquely formatted book will appeal to fans of Noelle Stevenson’s Nimona and Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl.

My favourite contemporary ever. And to think I never used to like the genre. This dumb book stole my heart.

I can't even begin to explain how hard I connected with this, with the characters and the story, as both a member of many fandoms and  as a creator. Everything, from the characterisation, to the online friendships, to the fandoms, to the romance, to the family life just meant SO MUCH. And the art was PERFECT, I badly want to read Monstrous Sea. I have nothing but emotions for this book - no comments or issues or whatever I usually say in reviews. I just honestly loved this so much, and it HURT me so much, but I love it more for it. That ending was unfair for a long while and, not gonna lie, I cried for the whole last 30% non-stop, at first because it broke my heart and then because it mended it. I want to read this all over again.

Characters ★★★★
Setting/world ★★★☆
Writing ★★★★

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