Synopsis:
In the real world, Eliza Mirk is shy, weird, and friendless. Online, she’s LadyConstellation, the anonymous creator of the wildly popular webcomic Monstrous Sea. Eliza can’t imagine enjoying the real world as much as she loves the online one, and she has no desire to try.
Then Wallace Warland, Monstrous Sea’s biggest fanfiction writer, transfers to her school. Wallace thinks Eliza is just another fan, and as he draws her out of her shell, she 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.
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
I'm surprised by how much I loved this. I absolutely despised Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl, and with the similarities between that novel and this one, my expectations for Eliza and Her Monsters were low. But I enjoyed this book so thoroughly that I read it in one sitting, all 400 pages of it.
Francesca Zappia really nailed the experience of being in a fandom and having online friends. While I wasn't nearly so shy during high school as Eliza, I didn't have many meaningful friendships irl. My online friends were my people. They understood my love for writing, for books, for adoptable pet sites I probably should've stopped playing when I was ten. Fangirl failed to capture this online identity and experience, but Zappia represents with it with near-perfection. The blog posts, profiles, and online chats especially were the highlight of the book for me due to their realism.
Surprisingly, I liked Eliza. I think she could be too cringey at times - more cringey than I ever was, despite being similarly shy and awkward in high school - but I'm willing to forgive it because of how clearly her mental illness was expressed and how she desired to change. I liked Wallace and his relationship with Eliza, even if was frustrating as hell towards the end.
The worst part of the book was definitely Eliza's family. Her family's lack of understanding and sympathy for Eliza felt so over-the-top that they became a caricature, a stereotype we see in early 2000s teen movies and YA novels. It was just Bad, which is so disappointing when Zappia does a great job with her realism otherwise.
Also, even though I loved this book, damn did it stress me out lmao.
Francesca Zappia really nailed the experience of being in a fandom and having online friends. While I wasn't nearly so shy during high school as Eliza, I didn't have many meaningful friendships irl. My online friends were my people. They understood my love for writing, for books, for adoptable pet sites I probably should've stopped playing when I was ten. Fangirl failed to capture this online identity and experience, but Zappia represents with it with near-perfection. The blog posts, profiles, and online chats especially were the highlight of the book for me due to their realism.
Surprisingly, I liked Eliza. I think she could be too cringey at times - more cringey than I ever was, despite being similarly shy and awkward in high school - but I'm willing to forgive it because of how clearly her mental illness was expressed and how she desired to change. I liked Wallace and his relationship with Eliza, even if was frustrating as hell towards the end.
The worst part of the book was definitely Eliza's family. Her family's lack of understanding and sympathy for Eliza felt so over-the-top that they became a caricature, a stereotype we see in early 2000s teen movies and YA novels. It was just Bad, which is so disappointing when Zappia does a great job with her realism otherwise.
Also, even though I loved this book, damn did it stress me out lmao.
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