Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Last Night I Sang to the Monster
    Unavailable
    Last Night I Sang to the Monster
    Unavailable
    Last Night I Sang to the Monster
    Ebook287 pages3 hours

    Last Night I Sang to the Monster

    By Benjamin Alire Sáenz

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    "Sáenz' poetic narrative will captivate readers from the first sentence to the last paragraph of this beautifully written novel. . . . It is also a celebration of life and a song of hope in celebration of family and friendship, one that will resonate loud and long with teens."—Kirkus Reviews

    "…There is never a question of either Sáenz’s own extraordinary capacity for caring and compassion or the authenticity of the experiences he records in this heartfelt account of healing and hope."—Booklist

    "Offering insight into [an adolescent's] addiction, dysfunction and mental illness, particularly in the wake of traumatic events, Sáenz's artful rendition of the healing process will not soon be forgotten."—Publishers Weekly

    "Sáenz weaves together [18-year-old] Zach's past, present, and changing disposition toward his future with stylistic grace and emotional insight. This is a powerful and edifying look into both a tortured psyche and the methods by which it can be healed."—School Library Journal

    Zach is eighteen. He is bright and articulate. He's also an alcoholic and in rehab instead of high school, but he doesn't remember how he got there. He's not sure he wants to remember. Something bad must have happened. Something really, really bad. Remembering sucks and being alive—well, what's up with that?

    I have it in my head that when we're born, God writes things down on our hearts. See, on some people's hearts he writes Happy and on some people's hearts he writes Sad and on some people's hearts he writes Crazy on some people's hearts he writes Genius and on some people's hearts he writes Angry and on some people's hearts he writes Winner and on some people's hearts he writes Loser.

    It's all like a game to him. Him. God. And it's all pretty much random. He takes out his pen and starts writing on our blank hearts. When it came to my turn, he wrote. I don't like God very much. Apparently he doesn't like me very much either. Sad

    Benjamin Alire Sáenz is a prolific novelist, poet, and author of children's books. Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood, his first novel for young adults, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and a Young Adult Library Services Association Top Ten Books for Young Adults pick in 2005.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCinco Puntos Press
    Release dateSep 1, 2009
    ISBN9781933693798
    Unavailable
    Last Night I Sang to the Monster
    Author

    Benjamin Alire Sáenz

    Benjamin Alire Sáenz is an author of poetry and prose for adults and teens. He was the first Hispanic winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and a recipient of the American Book Award for his books for adults. He is the author of Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, which was a Printz Honor Book, the Stonewall Award winner, the Pura Belpré Award winner, the Lambda Literary Award winner, and a finalist for the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award, and its sequel, Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World. His first novel for teens, Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood, was an ALA Top Ten Book for Young Adults and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His second book for teens, He Forgot to Say Goodbye, won the Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award, the Southwest Book Award, and was named a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age. He lives in El Paso, Texas.

    Related to Last Night I Sang to the Monster

    Related ebooks

    Children's Social Themes For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Other Child

      Dec 1, 2018

      The Other Child
      9 min read

    • Article

      To Live a Little

      Oct 3, 2022

      To Live a Little
      13 min read

    • Article

      What Are You Really Crying About?

      Jun 14, 2020

      — “I love to cry — as long as it’s not about my life.” It was a simple statement, a line I’ve said a thousand times before. But when your dad is a shrink — like mine — you never know where a conversation might take you.  A few months ago I was visiti

      3 min read

    • Article

      Swisher Sweets

      May 1, 2022

      Swisher Sweets
      17 min read

    • Article

      Perfection

      Jun 9, 2020

      For years I could barely write a page. I thought I was becoming a virtuoso of smallness while the grief, which is wordless, occupied an ever-greater volume. My friend lived in the estates on the bad side of town. Let’s go to the forest, she said when

      9 min read

    • Article

      My father MY HERO

      Apr 30, 2020

      My father MY HERO
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Same Story

      Mar 29, 2021

      FROM ISSUE #53: MISTAKES SUZANNE ROBERTS is the author of Bad Tourist: Misadventures in Love and Travel (Bronze Medal Winner from the North American Travel Journalists Association for Best Travel Book) and the memoir Almost Somewhere: Twenty-Eight Da

      13 min read

    • Article

      Okkervil River

      Sep 12, 2016

      Okkervil River
      9 min read

    • Article

      Brite

      Oct 7, 2019

      Brite
      7 min read

    • Article

      A Conversation

      Sep 1, 2021

      I’ve known Melissa Broder for almost a decade. I invited her to my first book party because I was a big admirer of her writing and I wanted to meet her. She was smart and funny and I could tell she wanted to know something about what any of us are do

      11 min read

    • Article

      Yomi Ṣode Interview: Unpacking The Experience Of Black Grief

      Jun 17, 2021

      Yomi á¹¢ode is recalling the moment that inspired one of the most powerful scenes in his new play. He was on a bus to King’s Cross in the winter of 2019 when he got the call to say that a family member, ill with cancer, had deteriorated overnight, an

      5 min read

    • Article

      Didn’t Wanna Be Your Ghost

      Aug 4, 2022

      Didn’t Wanna Be Your Ghost
      1 min read

    • Article

      A Brand-new ending

      Jan 29, 2022

      A Brand-new ending
      7 min read

    Reviews for Last Night I Sang to the Monster

    4/5

    124 ratings14 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 2/5
      Narrated by Andrew McLeod. Gave up on this after two discs. Too much angst and inner dialog; just wasn't feeling it.
    • 5/5
      I read this book mainly because it was on the 2011 Banned Books list. I still don't know why anyone thought it should be banned. It's a Young Adult title, but the story is relevant to adults as well and I found it a good thought-provoking read. Zach is an alcoholic who finds himself in a treatment center without being able to remember how he came to be there. With the help of a good therapist and support group, and an older friend who is fighting his own monsters, Zach begins to remember - which starts with wanting to remember.I think the book says a lot to all of us, not just young adults, about facing issues in our own lives and not hiding from reality, and instead dealing with it. It says a lot about being in control of your own life, your own feelings. Good book, good message.
    • 5/5
      Zach is a senior in high school. He gets straight A's. He is a victim of his brother's frequent violence and neglected by his mom and dad. And he drinks bourbon. Alot. Zach is also in a drug and alcohol rehab center with no idea how he got there. Adam, his therapist, tries to get Zach to tell him what happened, but it hurts too much to try to remember. All Zach knows is that God wrote 'sad' on his heart and there seems to be no way to change it. But Zach has a friend, a father figure, a fellow addict, whose story seems to echo his own. And perhaps that friendship and therapy and time can help him confront and conquer the past before it destroys him.This was one of the most beautiful books I've read in a long time. There is much profanity. Zach has an unbelievably sad life. In spite of that, the whole book has a hopeful tone and you must read till you come to the end of Zach's story. The language is gorgeous. I don't normally read sad books but once I started on this one, I couldn't stop till I came to the final page.I see students everyday who also perhaps have 'sad' written on their hearts. They cover it up with behavior issues and substance abuse. Perhaps if they can read Zach's story, it will give them a hope for the future, that they do not have to continue down self-destructive path that they have been walking.This IS a definite 5!
    • 5/5
      I have a new favorite author, folks. Last Night I Sang to the Monster sealed the deal for me. In spite of taking for-freaking-ever to actually get to what happened, I found this book to be so authentic and so heartbreaking. I wept for almost an hour when I put it down because it spoke to me. That sounds so annoyingly cheesy but really.. I was extremely touched by Zach's story.Read the rest of this review at The Lost Entwife on Oct. 30, 2013.
    • 5/5
      Wow. What a fantastic novel. Zack wakes up and finds himself a client (which means he can leave anytime he wants) in a mental facility. He doesn't remember how he got there and spends a great deal of energy trying to be numb and to keep from remembering. As time goes on, however, things start changing and he finds he wants to connect again. Somehow. Whith the help of people he comes to care about, maybe he will remember.
    • 4/5
      I didn't like the book as much as I thought I would. I thought the mystery aspect was the best -- the whole "what on earth happened, how did he wind up in rehab" thing. But it seemed like the author was trying a little bit too hard to be eloquent and poetic. He spent a lot of page space on fancy language while the story lagged.
    • 4/5
      Wow. Harrowing story of a young man coming to terms with an extremely traumatic childhood.

      Zach wakes from a stupor in a facility that is what I would call a rehab-type in-patient facility. Adam is his therapist, and he rooms with two others.

      Zach is 18 years old and has a monster. Or maybe more than one monster. He needs to remember, but it hurts too badly. Through his therapy, group sessions, and roommates, he comes closer and closer to the edge of why he is there. Will he do the work? Will he come to face his monster? Will he then be able to tame it?

      Excellent writing drew me into this story. Fully developed characters and situations left me breathless, laughing, and in tears. An exceptional novel of the depths to which our memories can plunge us, and one young man's journey to come back into the summer of his life.

      Highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      Zach is 18 and in rehab. His connection to the others in rehab is beautiful. He slowly remembers what brought him to this place - his famy. Each of his family members has a part to play in his abusive childhood, but it takes him the whole book to remember the incident that actually brought him to rehab. With the help of kind Adam, his therapist, Rafael, a father-like figure to him who is also a patient, and the other "clients" at the facility, Zach finds his voice and his will to live. A depressing novel with hope at the end, readers will admire Zach's will to get better.(can read the first page aloud to kids to get them to read it)
    • 4/5
      Zach works with a therapist named Adam and his fellow denizens of a rehab facility. He forms a strong bond with a middle-aged alcoholic, Rafael. Zach was raised in a home with an alcoholic father, neglectful mother, and sadistic brother. Slowly he begins to remember and face the painful events that led him to the rehab facility. Although the ending has a bit of a fairy-tale, happy-ending quality, it feels as if Zach deserves a chance at happiness and normalcy after all he endured in his short life to that point.
    • 4/5
      this is one  you won't regret investing time in. In fact you'll find yourself thinking about the story long after its ended....If you have some great stories like this one, you can publish it on Novel Star, just submit your story to hardy@novelstar.top or joye@novelstar.top
    • 5/5
      UGLY SOBBING

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      This is a beautiful but heart-wrenching tale of a young man dealing with addiction and an incredibly difficult family situation. Seriously, I cried about every 10 pages through out the book but also couldn't stop reading it.
    • 5/5
      “I have it in my head that when we’re born, God writes things down on our hearts. See, on some people’s hearts he writes happy and on some people’s hearts he writes sad and on some people’s hearts he writes crazy and on some people’s hearts he writes genius and on some people’s hearts he writes angry and on some people’s hearts he writes winner and on some people’s hearts he writes loser… And it’s all pretty much random. He takes out his pen and starts writing on our blank hearts. And when it came to my turn, he wrote sad.” (pg. 11)Zach is 18 years old, and instead of spending his senior year in Mr. Garcia’s English class or hanging out with his friends, he’s spending it with Adam, his therapist in rehab. Zach can’t, or won’t, remember the events that brought him to the clinic. In fact, much of his time is spent trying not to remember anything at all. But the memories of his life before – of his loving but alcoholic father, of his distant and sometimes abusive mother, of his troubled older brother Santiago who holds the whole family hostage to his terrible anger – keep creeping in.The first few chapters of Zach’s narration are told in language that is fragmented, dense, and repetitive. Brief memories float up to the surface, like the little pieces of paper Zach imagines covering the world with words. While the language brings the reader deeply and authentically inside the mind of a troubled young man, it is also really difficult to read. I almost gave up. I’m so glad I didn’t. Because as Zach peels away the barriers that he has put up – whether it is the barriers created by the haze of bourbon and cocaine that was his life before rehab, or the mental barriers that he uses as protection from his own past – this novel grows from a profoundly sad portrait of young man and blooms into something much more.Zach certainly can’t be considered lucky in his life, but he does have the good fortune to meet a few people who truly see him as he is. His English teacher, Mr. Garcia, sees through to the bright, creative young man who hides behind silence and sadness, and he reaches out to him. Adam, the therapist at Zach’s rehab clinic, also sees past Zach’s many barriers and tries to help him break past them. But there is one person who actually reaches past those barriers and touches Zach.Zach’s roommate in rehab has the name of an artist or an angel, and to Zach he is both of those things. As Zach learns Rafael’s heartbreaking story, and watches this man who should be broken fighting to conquer his monsters and live his life, Zach begins to search for the strength in himself to face his own past, and maybe his future. Their relationship becomes the emotional heart of the story, even more than the traumatic event that Zach has buried deep in his mind. While the reader has seen the depth of Zach’s internal life, he has not been able to share any of his struggles with others. Rafael is the first person who convinces Zach to share what is buried inside of himself – both the good and the bad. It is a relationship that is truly transformational, and it is written with deep emotion and grace.This is a devastating, crying-on-the-subway kind of book, but it ends on a note of hope – and not one that felt forced or false. Despite his many trials and tribulations, Zach is a beautiful young man, and Sáenz tells his story in a way that will stay with the reader.
    • 5/5
      Zach is in rehab, but doesn't remember how he got there. His mother was depressed, his father was an alcoholic, his brother terrorized the family. Zack drank to escape. He knows he was an alcoholic, but he doesn't know what happened to his family and he isn't sure he wants to remember.