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    Eliza and Her Monsters
    Eliza and Her Monsters
    Eliza and Her Monsters
    Audiobook8 hours

    Eliza and Her Monsters

    Written by Francesca Zappia

    Narrated by Caitlin Kelly and Kate Rudd

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    “A love letter to fandom, friendship, and the stories that shape us, Eliza and Her Monsters is absolutely magical.”—Marieke Nijkamp, New York Times–bestselling author of This Is Where It Ends

    Eighteen-year-old Eliza Mirk is the anonymous creator of the wildly popular webcomic Monstrous Sea, but when a new boy at school tempts her to live a life offline, everything she’s worked for begins to crumble.

    Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl meets Noelle Stevenson’s Nimona in this acclaimed novel about art, fandom, and finding the courage to be yourself. “A must-have.”—School Library Journal

    In the real world, Eliza Mirk is shy, weird, and friendless. Online, Eliza is LadyConstellation, anonymous creator of a popular webcomic called Monstrous Sea. With millions of followers and fans throughout the world, Eliza’s persona is popular. Eliza can’t imagine enjoying the real world as much as she loves her digital community.

    Then Wallace Warland transfers to her school and Eliza 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.

    Will appeal to fans of Noelle Stevenson’s Nimona and Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl.

    Young Adult Library Services Association Best Book

    Best Fiction for Young Adults Top Ten

    Kirkus Best Book

    Texas Tayshas Pick

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateMay 7, 2019
    ISBN9780062911438
    Author

    Francesca Zappia

    Francesca Zappia lives in central Indiana. When she is not writing, she’s drawing her characters, reading, or playing video games. She is also the author of Made You Up and Eliza Mirk’s favorite, The Children of Hypnos, a biweekly serial novel posted on Tumblr and Wattpad. She also blogs about writing at francescazappia.com

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    Reviews for Eliza and Her Monsters

    4.5/5

    808 ratings49 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      Me gustó. Para una fan de la literatura y de los webcomics, fue muy refrescante leer esta historia.

      Solo que en esta ocasión, no pude conectar con los personajes como hubiera querido. Me desesperé en muchos capítulos con cada uno de estos personajes, lo que a la vez los hace más reales. Ojalá lo hubiera leído antes, porque mi yo de hace algunos años lo hubiera necesitado más.

      Aun así, creo que es un libro maravilloso y que está dirigido a muchas personas que como Eliza, viven en más de un mundo a la vez.
    • 4/5
      Church and Sully- awesome, funny, sweet, likeable, lovable. Breath of fresh air in the story.
    • 3/5
      I'd like, very lovely book
      The teen drama is so real
    • 5/5
      It’s hard to put down once you pick it up. I was teary eyed at some parts.

      “There are monsters out in the world, but usually the worst monsters live inside us. I like stories like that because they’re not so obvious. There’s more to like about them than what they have to teach you.”
    • 5/5
      I love this. This book is everything. Well written. It touched my soul.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this one! It gave me such fuzzy feelings and it was so adorable! There were moments that I would have preferred maybe to read this book instead of listening to it, but it was a pleasant Audio book and I devoured it ??
    • 5/5
      I’m just trash right now. This book totally wrecked me and I think it might be my favourite book of ALL the books! And I have to add that the narration was frickin brilliant!
    • 5/5
      I've only recently got back into "reading" but I loved this book. It's a thrilling book about a young high schooler named Eliza who has her own web series. She's unknown to others but has an alias as lady constellation. It's an interesting read. It covers the topics of mental health and anxiety both caused by high school and the different situations having an online presence could easily have on someone. Overall I'd recommend it to anyone.
    • 5/5
      Wow. Just freakin wow. I haven’t listened to a book I loved this much … ever. Very relatable. To see the ups and downs of a person with anxiety and who’s trying to follow their dream. This is me.
      Wow. I will definitely listen to this again. The story never got boring. I never lost interest. I couldn’t wait to hop in my car and listen. Very well written and thought out. Each character felt real like they were sitting next to me.
      I love Wallace.
    • 3/5
      Story is good, but the narrator is hard to listen to. The narrator sounds like a computer bot reading text mixed with someone with severe anxiety giving a class presentation. I couldn't get through it.
    • 5/5
      This book was so incredible. It sucked me in right away and kept me up all night reading. Eliza was relatable and funny, and it was so nice to see social anxiety and depression portrayed in such a non-dramatic way. This has been one of my favorite books all year!
    • 5/5
      I loved this. Listened to audio and read it, ended perfectly. Made me laugh and cry.
    • 5/5
      Thus is the best!! It speaks to the true soul of an introvert! I know I am one! This book is just wonderfully written and completely relatable!!
    • 4/5
      I'm not usually a huge fan of YA, but I really enjoyed this one. This spoke to my fandom loving side, as well as the anxious wreck that burrows under my skin.
    • 5/5
      Where do I start! Fandom ✅ love story ✅ teen angst ✅ comic books ✅ art ✅ and family ✅. An amazing story about a girl how just didn’t fit in this world so decided to create another.
    • 5/5
      I absolutely loved this book. Waited a very long time to get my hands on it and YAY it was worth the wait ?
    • 4/5
      very cute and heartwarming read! As someone battling anxiety and depression Eliza‘s thoughts and feelings were just too relatable. recommend it!
    • 5/5
      I received this book for free through BookLikes’ Giveaways. This book definitely lived up to the hype. Great story. Fantastic characters. Lots of heart. Tackled real issues in a realistic way. Plus, the comic excerpts were a nice touch that just elevated this to the next level. Overall all I can say is: Believe the hype.
    • 4/5
      This was a very interesting book. The main characters were a bit frustrating at times, but in the end the story pulled through.
    • 3/5
      Eliza has severe social anxiety (though nobody ever says this outright) and drifts through school; her parents berate her ineffectually and periodically make her abandon the computer/phone/drawing pad she’s buried in. Online, though, Eliza is the creator of a highly popular webcomic, which she’s even monetized for college money, and she has two close friends who help her maintain this as a secret identity. Then a new kid comes to school and it turns out he’s a BNF in her fandom. They grow closer, but Eliza isn’t just the fellow fan he thinks, creating the conflicts you’d expect. Love doesn’t magically heal either Eliza’s anxiety or her love interest’s own problems, which include selective mutism. Teen romance isn’t really my genre, but this did fine despite being really more plausible as a f/f story.
    • 4/5
      I liked the way the story was about a creator, an artist with a problem with social anxiety. It's never clear to me where this anxiety stemmed from, but as the story goes on we see just how much this is affecting her life, right at a time when she does seem to step out a little with a boy and his circle of friends. At first it was easy for me to blame Eliza's problems on herself more then her family, but in the end I think that it's better to blame the social anxiety as the root cause.
      If she'd confided in her parents about Monstrous Sea, they wouldn't have inadvertently outed her as the creator, and if she'd opened up to Wallace after he revealed his painful familial history and told him then that she was the Monstrous Sea creator things would have gone smoother. But the fact that she didn't might be attributed to social anxiety.

    • 4/5
      Eliza is SO distant and ungenerous with her family and almost everyone in her life for most of the book that I found it hard to read. I feel like the balance of space devoted to her unhealthy and her healing was off. Otherwise, I loved it — especially the unusual exploration of how internet community can be genuinely important “real life” but having a 3D life matters, too. Read-alike: This Song Will Save Your Life
    • 4/5
      Eliza and Her Monsters is the story of Eliza Mirk. Eliza is quiet and shy and has no friends in the real world but when she is online in her fan forums, she is LadyConstellation, the outgoing, vibrant creator of the enormously popular online comic, Monstrous Sea.

      During her senior year of high school, Eliza meets Wallace who is built like a football player but is not a bully like the other players she knows. In fact, he is so introverted that he can only communicate through notes and texts.

      When Eliza accidentally discovers that Wallace is "rainmaker." a huge Monstrous Sea fan, he becomes Eliza's first and only friend in the real world, but what happens if she can never find the courage to tell him who she really is?

      This is another wonderfully, well-written story by Francesca Zappia that should appeal to a wide range of interests including not only those who spend lots of time online, but also those who enjoy reading stories about teen angst and romance. The online communication in the forums and the story of The Monstrous Sea comic are both expertly woven into this unique and dynamic story of love, loss, and life.
    • 5/5
      Online, Eliza is LadyConstellation, the anonymous creator of the epically popular webcomic, Monstrous Sea. Offline, Eliza is just Eliza Mirk, shy, weird, and friendless. All her friends are online and she has no desire to try and make them in real life, that is, until she meets a new school transfer, Wallace Warland. Wallace is Monstrous Sea’s biggest fanfiction writer, rainmaker, and the two quickly become friends. Wallace even begins to draw Eliza out of her shell. But when Eliza’s secret online persona is accidentally shared with the world, everything begins to fall apart.

      Firstly, this book is absolutely beautiful and amazing. I grew up writing and reading fan fiction as a teenager. Seeing small interactions of fandom life showcased in a positive light made me smile so much. I always find it’s hard to explain fandom life to those not apart of it, but I believe Francesca Zappa was able to capture it perfectly. Like both Eliza and Wallace, at one point, I had friends all over the globe who would “gather together” online to watch episodes together and then geek out over what happened. Those communities made me feel so safe to be able to be myself.

      Another thing Zappa really captures well is Eliza’s depression. That hit me in the gut and twisted hard. I went through the same thing after college - I could no longer write, I was super depressed, nothing seemed to be going the way I had thought it would...

      “Broken people don’t hide from their monsters. Broken people let themselves be eaten”

      This book made me think a lot about my own writing and stories. I use to write all the time, but since I left college, there hasn’t been that spark. This book gave me all kinds of feelings and afterwards, I sat in my bed and really thought about why I even stopped...

      “We create art for many reasons - wealth, fame, love, admiration- but I find the one thing that produces the best results is desire. When you want the thing you’re creating, the beauty of it will shine through, even if the details aren’t all in order. Desire is the fuel of creators, and when we have that, motivation will come in its wake.”

      Long story short, I wrote something that wasn’t a journal entry in the first time in 5 years. It felt amazing and I really hope I can continue doing it again.

      I realize this isn’t much of a review as it is my reflection of the book, but right now, that’s all I can think to do. Maybe one day I’ll come back and edit, but for now, I’ll leave with one of my favorite quotes from the book:

      “Like life, what gives a story its meaning is the fact that it ends. Our stories have lives of their own - and it’s up to us to make them mean something.”
    • 5/5
      I absolutely loved this book! It was so good! I was so totally invested with these characters. They were just so real. I felt everything Eliza felt while reading this. In "real life" Eliza is the shy quiet girl that no one really ever notices and she likes it that way, but on the internet she is LadyConstellation, the creator of the super popular webcomic called Monstrous Sea. Then one day her homeroom teacher assigns Eliza to show the new kid, Wallace, around school. Wallace looks like a big football player guy, but turns out he is actually the top fanfiction writer for Monstrous Sea. He thinks she is just another fan of the comic and she keeps who she really is a secret from him. Things do not go well when her secret comes out. Mental health issues are addressed in here, more specifically anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts.
    • 4/5
      Eliza is so done with high school. Considered by her classmates to be weird and unapproachable, Eliza looks forward to college, where she hopes to find people who understand her. She's certain that her sports-loving family doesn't. All that keeps her going is her webcomic, Monstrous Sea. Nobody outside her family knows that she is the creator of the immensely popular series -- and her family doesn't know just how popular (and lucrative) the series has become. When a new student at her school turns out to be a Monstrous Sea fan, will Eliza reveal her secrets to him, or will she find it too risky to trust another person in the non-Internet space?Though there were times when Eliza's attitude and poor decisions frustrated me, I really enjoyed this story. The romance depended on one major coincidence that I found highly unlikely, but I was absorbed in the sweetness of the love story and just wanted them to be happy, so I was willing to overlook it. So, I'd recommend this if you enjoy realistic YA fiction, especially if you're active in any kind of fandom.
    • 4/5
      I did really like this book, however, there were just a few things that I didn't like which kept me from giving it 5 stars. For the most part I really loved Eliza as the main character. I love the mental health issues that are addressed and how they are handled for the most part. I really didn't like the way Eliza was regarding her parents. I get that she's a teenager and I get that she wanted to be anonymous but I think she went a little too far in regards to her family. She recognizes it later in the book but I don't really feel that it is ever resolved properly. I really loved Wallace from the moment he is first introduced but then he makes a mistake. It was a pretty big mistake which I also felt wasn't resolved properly and I just couldn't get back that first love I had for him which was disappointing. Overall really great book and I would recommend it!
    • 4/5
      4.5 stars
      Eliza was a realistic teen with relatable mental health issues. I loved how these were dealt with, I liked the complexity of her online vs real life presence, and her parents difficulty in relating to her.

      In short, I felt like this book was just real. I don't think YA is easy to do in a realistic way, but it was, and this book still managed the profundity which also comes with youth.
    • 4/5
      Title: Eliza and Her Monsters

      Author: Francesca Zappia

      Publication Date: May 2017

      Genre: YA Contemporary

      Score: 4/5

      Eliza and Her Monsters is a story about a high school student who creates a very popular webcomic. She meets a new student in her senior year who is a fan, the first fan she’s met in real life, and they become involved. She suffers from crippling anxiety. This theme of mental illness is explored throughout the entire story.

      I have a couple of problems with elements in this novel. One is that, in this day of Google, how could her parents not know how popular her webcomic is? Especially as they want to be as involved in her life, couldn’t they take a minute and plug the URL of her creation into a web browser? Failing that, Google much? Plus, with regard to her anxiety, and although it came together better in the end, there were a couple of times I found it unbelievable and it broke my suspension of disbelief. This is a small spoiler, but her consideration of suicide was believable and sort of not believable too. It could have been done a bit differently to more accurately represent suicidal feelings. Though, I am glad to see real representation of suicidal feelings in a book.

      There was a lot to like in Eliza and Her Monsters. I’m glad to have read it. It is a very easy read. Recommended.
    • 4/5
      Synopsis: Eliza is the creator of a webcomic that has gained a large following. She mostly keeps this fact hidden, especially when she meets a boy named Wallace who is a fan of he comic. Unfortunately, such secrets don't' bode well for a budding relationship. Rating:4/5This book really resonated with me, as a creator, and there were many things I liked about it. I think the portrayal of Eliza coincided with my experience as an author. Her art and her life are mixed and there is not much separation between the two which is hard on any creator but especially a teen. After Eliza is outted and no longer able to hide behind a pen name it makes it difficult for her to create art because of fear of criticism. I could deeply relate to that. I also adored Wallace as a character. Him and Eliza are a great match and both were endearing partly because of their lack of social astuteness.This book is much more cutesy (relationship wise) than angsty which is a nice change as it is YA. I tend to find many YA books involving relationships to be full of unnecessary angst. There is angst in the book but not because of Eliza and Wallace's budding romance. I also really liked Eliza's family. Especially her brothers. Her relationships with them were complicated as is typical for sibling relationships. Eliza's relationship with her parents really resonated with me. Eliza's parents don't get it but they are supportive as they are able to be. In this book Eliza is 18 though I felt like she read a little younger. Probably closer to 15. I also appreciated the anxiety representation in this book and thought it was well done. I struggle with anxiety and so could relate to Eliza when she struggled. While I liked many things about this book there were a few things that didn't work for me. We are shown quite a bit of Eliza's comic and honestly I didn't find it interesting. I wanted to be invested in the comic but didn't end up thinking it was interesting. I also felt that Eliza's level of fame was probably overdone in the story. Most teens who make a web comic aren't going to have the amount of fans she did. Sooooooo many people from her school are fans but they don't know she is the creator. I felt like this level of fame, while cool for the story, might not have been very realistic.Also, there is one scene where Eliza is dealing with the aftermath of the reveal that I thought portrayed some unhealthy ideas though there is also a scene later where those ideas are challenged. Still, I thought the scenes impact when it was unhealthy was stronger than the passing comment about it being an unhealthy view later.My last issue with the book was just with the marketing. I thought the synopsis revealed too much. Eliza doesn't have her identity revealed until late in the story and I would have preferred not knowing that was coming. Overall I do recommend this book especially to content creators. It was a fun and enjoyable read.