Today's Topic: Book Footprints - What Was the last Book You Read That Left It's Mark?
There's one book that comes to mind when I read this prompt. It truly left it's mark on me and made me think about our own mortality and how the human mind deals with loss. That book is:
An unflinching, darkly funny, and deeply moving story of a boy, his seriously ill mother, and an unexpected monstrous visitor.
At seven minutes past midnight, thirteen-year-old Conor wakes to find a monster outside his bedroom window. But it isn't the monster Conor's been expecting-- he's been expecting the one from his nightmare, the nightmare he's had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments. The monster in his backyard is different. It's ancient. And wild. And it wants something from Conor. Something terrible and dangerous. It wants the truth. From the final idea of award-winning author Siobhan Dowd-- whose premature death from cancer prevented her from writing it herself-- Patrick Ness has spun a haunting and darkly funny novel of mischief, loss, and monsters both real and imagined.
This book wasn't an easy one to read and there were definitely tears shed. However, it has such a profound meaning that kept me thinking days after I finished it. It talks about how everything, including the concepts of good and evil, is entirely subjective based on perspective, experience, and our own psyche. This boy Conor's mother is about to die from cancer. All he wants to be is visible to people. All he wants is the pain to go away. Not his mother's pain, but his own and he's ashamed for it. There is a tree in his backyard that turns into a monster and tells him stories that, looking shallowly don't relate at all, but looking deeply, matter the most. It's the kind of book that makes you think about your own existence as well as your mind and everyone else's mind's around you.
I truly loved this book and am thinking of rereading it soon.
Are there any books that have left their mark on you?
