My Favorite Thing Is Monsters

By Emil Ferris,

Book cover of My Favorite Thing Is Monsters

Book description

Set against the tumultuous political backdrop of late ’60s Chicago, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters is the fictional graphic diary of 10-year-old Karen Reyes, filled with B-movie horror and pulp monster magazines iconography. Karen Reyes tries to solve the murder of her enigmatic upstairs neighbor, Anka Silverberg, a holocaust survivor,…

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Why read it?

3 authors picked My Favorite Thing Is Monsters as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I’ve always loved so-called monsters, and Emil Ferris, with her comforting voice and detailed, luminous drawings, elevates “monsters” to a transcendent place. This is a compelling graphic novel, a must-read for anyone who has felt labeled “monstrous” by societal norms or felt at all marginalized.

In reading My Favorite Thing is Monsters, Emil Ferris’s deep empathy for outsiders is felt in every line and drawing. The child’s point-of-view of 10-year-old Karen’s wild imagination felt like the author and protagonist were sharing their private diary with us. All this, and a mystery too, as Karen, who sees herself as a…

My Favorite Thing Is Monsters is described as a graphic novel, but it takes the form of the notebook of a 10-year-old girl who is obsessed with monsters. The art is terrific and the story is haunting and mysterious. I’ve always been a notebook person myself, filling up stacks of sketchbooks through my childhood and teens, so the way the main character processed her life by scribbling on a page really resonated with me. This book is super unique, from the way the character always draws herself as a werewolf, to the mysterious death of her upstairs neighbor, and the…

This book is incredibly well-layered. It is a facsimile of an angsty teen’s diary who thinks she is a werewolf on the one hand, while also telling a haunting tale of her next door neighbour’s history as well. The art also pays homage to old monster comics from the 1950s. All drawn in a miraculous ball-pen technique. An amazing piece of work.

From Erik's list on dark themes.

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