Reviews tagging 'Car accident'

Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia

30 reviews

frogwithafrog's review against another edition

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emotional reflective tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0


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epeolatrist'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? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This is one of the most incredible young-adult contemporary novels that I have ever read. The story is so fluid and everything in it fits together so perfectly. Zappia has written some truly amazing characters that are deep and full of life--the characters that make you feel like you're sitting next to them. It's been a while since I've gotten that feeling about a book, but I missed the feeling. Throughout the novel, I was never left confused or that it was lacking in some way. It's well written and truly complex, but not too hard to understand. I'm impressed by the fluidity and the character development presented by Zappia. Sometimes when reading young-adult fiction, I become bored with dull characters that don't develop or change, but Zappia's characters are exceptional. I felt so many emotions when reading through Eliza and Her Monsters. I felt butterflies in my stomach, frustration, sadness, and happiness. Although sadness and frustration seem to be negative emotions, it's easy to see that Zappia knew exactly what she was writing and how to make her audience feel that way. I think that this book is so fun and relatable for anyone who maybe struggled a bit through high school. It gives people hope that you can cope with anything if you use your creativity, motivation, and heart to find the things that make you happy. My favorite aspect of Eliza was her confidence. I found it easy to relate to her feelings of loneliness, isolation, and being misunderstood by people who just didn't get her art. However, these feelings of being alone are completely shattered and Eliza finds something new in herself. Something that she loves and can be proud of. It's a feeling that many people strive for and because Eliza feels like such a real character, Zappia makes this confidence feel possible.
This book did a lot of things for me. After being unable to write for many months, I finally found it in me to add more to the stories that I've been working on for so long. Eliza inspired me to do that. Her devotion to Monstrous Sea made me realize how much I miss being passionate about my own creations. Francesca Zappia is an inspiring author--someone that I now look up to. If I could thank her for this book, I would a thousand times. This reminded me of how much I love books. That feeling keeps me going on my worst days.

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jenminicricket's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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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simobae's review against another edition

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emotional funny reflective sad tense fast-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

4.75

I will split my review up into different main points:

Eliza and Wallace
Eliza and Wallace's relationship was simple and sweet. A good display of first love and how to figure out flirting for the first time. I loved, how they both made mistakes and even with the fact that both of them struggled a lot with communication, they both tried to talk with each other about their feelings and respect each other's boundaries.
   
I may be one of the odd ones out but I was happy with their "break up" after the reveal of her identity and Wallace's reaction, even though I agree with many that he was selfish about it. I do believe that they need to work out some of their individual monsters a bit on their own.
 

Eliza and her family:
At this point, I did have some problems with Eliza which is the only reason this was not a 5-star read. Eliza spends a lot of time complaining about her family and how they don't understand her, yet she also doesn't try to understand them. She sees her family as weirdos because they're into sports and she isn't, she sees her brothers as twins because they're a year apart and have similar interests. 
   Even though she spends so much time feeling like her family doesn't understand, she also doesn't try to let her parents understand, she just closes up every time her parents try to let her explain her online life.
   
I loved how her brothers gave her parents a real wake-up call about what they had done when they wrote about Monstrous Sea in the paper and how they did their best at trying to be there for her and showed her how much they loved her.


Ending:
The character development at the end was well-executed and how it showed that it doesn't just happen from one day to the next but that it is work, that we as humans need to keep fighting against our monsters every day, but that we have to remember that we aren't fighting the fight alone. 

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averyconfusedhomosapiensbooks's review

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challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This made me feel some things. It's arguably just a good book, but what is literature if not a place for us to explore our feelings? The way I feel about this book will not possibly also be the way you feel about this book, but that's also kind of the point. My past experiences shape my present ones. I would not be able to tell anyone if they would like this or dislike it. It tackled tough issues, and Zappia both chose avenues I would and would not choose. Quite honestly, the thing this book did the greatest job at, was inspire me to create. Anything. Something people can see, or not. Doesn't matter, as long as its what want to do.

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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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mezzoanddolce's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75


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chickenlady's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring fast-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

4.0


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willowshelter'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
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5


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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! 

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