synapses misfiring I babble. A lot.

That’s how I felt as I finished A Monster Calls last night.

Look, I know I’m an emotional person. Probably one of the first words that would pop out of someone’s mouth if they had to describe me. So it’s far from unusual for me to cry while reading a book. But this. Yeah…wow. 

Patrick Ness is the only author I’ve run across who not only has the ability to make me cry, but the ability to make me cry and cry and cry unceasingly. He’s done it more than once. 

Hell, I found myself crying again this morning thinking about this book in the shower.

But he absolutely doesn’t take the easy way out. There is no sap here. No cheesy sentimentalism. It’s just that he has a way of getting to those unspoken emotions we all feel. And he finds a way to speak them. 

And damn—does he speak them beautifully. 

I said I was ripped to shreds. I was. Yet in that incredible way of his, Ness leaves us with hope.

Unless I really, really know a person, I hesitate to recommend books. But this is one of those exceptions. Seriously, you really ought to read this one people. 

(Of course, it doesn’t come out in the US until September, I think it is—so you’ll have to order it from Book Depository or your own personal source for books from the UK.)