A Monster Calls Themes

In A Monster Calls, thirteen-year-old Conor lives in an English town with his mother, who is implied to be battling cancer. Over the course of the book, Conor’s mother grows more and more ill as multiple treatments fail her, and it’s implied that she passes away just after the novel’s conclusion. At the beginning of the book, Conor has a difficult time coming to terms with the very real possibility that his mother…

The titular monster in A Monster Calls comes to Conor with a clear purpose: to tell him three stories, after which Conor will tell the monster one story of his own. Each of the stories that the monster relays bears similarities with Conor’s life, and because of this he starts to expect that there is a clear-cut moral lesson to be learned at the end of each one. But the stories that appear within the…

Yet another difficult aspect of Conor’s story can be found in the way that he is forced to grow up far sooner than he would have if his mother had not gotten sick. Conor’s parents are divorced, and his father lives in America with his new family. Thus, because it’s only Conor and his mother in their household, thirteen-year-old Conor is forced to take on a lot of responsibility when his mother is diagnosed…