Reviews with content warning for Bullying - Eliza and Her Monsters

Beautiful book about anxiety, depression, and grief. While it was a bit young for me personally, it definitely would have resonated with me deeply if I had read it when I was in high school. Eliza was a bit hard to like for me personally because she complained about all her privileges and was a bit selfish. A lot like I was back in the day… all of the feelings she expressed though were ones I’d definitely felt and feel regularly.

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hapalyn's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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dancingkouign's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Content Warnings

inkyinsanity's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

ALL THE STARS

ALL OF THEM

AND TISSUES

Ok

Words.

So.

This was beyond amazing. I cried through the last third of it. This is not a light book, and while I found the ending happy and really enjoyed reading it and laughed and marked lines, it’s also not a lighthearted book.

Eliza has severe social anxiety and, although the book names only the anxiety, she’s also very depressed.

I have never read such good representation of anxiety and depression. I mean, I probably have because I read so much I do forget a lot of it most of the time, but this was amazing in the way it voiced things I’ve thought almost word for word. The way it creeped into my mind and everything *clicked.*

I…

I think this might have genuinely helped me when I was a teenager. Maybe not, but. But. I waited so long to get treatment for myself when I knew I needed it and pretended so hard that I was making it all up that I actually started believing my own lies until things started going too far for what I could believe. And this. Is. Everything. This is IT.

I’m not making sense and I’m on too much of a book high to even care.

I’m looking at the cover of the book right now, at the little word bubble saying “her story is a phenomenon, her life is a disaster” and like.

Disaster?

That could have been me.

Not Eliza’s life, but her feelings. Her single focus, the one thing and maybe another thing on a good day that made it possible to do everything else, and still not be able to do enough to be like a person. To be anything other than vaguely functional. Go to school. Eat. Shut down your family when they try to talk you because you can’t let them know how bad it is inside you, and or because you already have to live through it and you’re sure as hell not going to talk about it and have to live through it *again* but you NEED them to see you and talk to you because you're dying and you're trapped and you don't know what to do.

You Find something (in her case, someone) you genuinely like, convince yourself you can be like a real person, you can have fun, you can fall in love, you can talk to people. Only to have everything crashing down by something that you can’t help, but what if you did things differently? Could you have stopped it? It doesn’t matter you were barely able to live, because that’s in the past and you’re in the now.

Because you don’t choose to be so stressed you can’t breathe, or so sad you feel sick. But it’s so, so hard to believe that and this book. Got. It.

Um, warnings of depression, anxiety, panic attacks, mentioned harassment, and suicidal thoughts.

On the bright side, the fandom rep was PERFECT and the bits of Eliza’s web comic that are shown are really cool!

Content Warnings