heathermjackson 's review for:

Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia

3.0

---

An extremely well-written novel, and I finished it because I want to read about characters I don't understand. I didn't understand Eliza. I want to. I want to empathize with her. I get that she has anxiety. But damn, she is so awful to her family! And they are probably the best family a teen could have. Her parents are really trying, but Eliza simply refuses to talk to them. And her little brothers are actually two unusually caring and astute pre-teens. Yet Eliza disregards and dismisses them. I have never felt so bad for parental figures in a book. They clearly love her and are worried about her and doing everything they can to connect with her, and she shuts them down again and again and again.

As another reviewer pointed out, Eliza really should have apologized to her parents by the end of the book. But

Spoiler

she never does. She's the "victim" until the very end, and her parents just apologize to her, even though what they did wasn't wrong. Eliza's parents aren't mind readers; they couldn't know that she wanted to remain anonymous. Eliza needed to tell them that, but she didn't. Eliza should have taken responsibility for that, but again, that didn't happen.

I love the other characters, though. Wallace has a great story. And Eliza's online friends Emmy and Max are great too. But Eliza... I'm torn because it's a good story, but I couldn't stand the main character.