I’m a sucker for titles and A Monster Like Me gets my attention. It did its job and I took the bait. By the title, this book could be anything: a fantasy, a thriller, a murder mystery, and more. It actually took me a while to figure out what the book was—certainly longer than it should have. I was pleasantly pleased when my brain finally pulled it all together.
At the beginning I was lost in Sophie’s monster fantasy world. I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Was it just a real-world girl’s imagination? Or were we going to see actual monsters in the story which would change the genre from realistic fiction to magical realism? Maybe this was going to be a psychological mind bender where the entire story is just in an unbalanced person’s imagination. I wasn’t sure I trusted that the author knew what she was doing. I have to admit that I don’t trust authors who are new to me. By the end I was feeling a lot better about things.
I’ve always had a weak spot for the “child against the world” trope. A Monster Like Me by Wendy S. Swore, fits this trope well. Sophie is in a battle against her mother’s “monster” boyfriend, against the “monsters” at her school, and (in a twist) against the monster in herself. Perhaps you can understand some of my confusion about this book. Sophie unreasonably really believes in these monsters, so much so that I had to question either her sanity or the author’s ability to create a story that will hold together.
I really enjoyed the author’s use of Sophie’s Big Book of Monsters. Sophie takes that book with her wherever she goes for a quick reference against the possible monsters she meets around town and at school. Each chapter begins with a reading from this Monster book and is some of the best writing in the novel. The monster book is also used well as a metaphor for Sophie’s struggle with her greatest fear—not other monsters, but the monster within herself.
The “fight against the world” theme kept me reading as well as the questions I had about how the author was going to pull off the ending. I really thought it was going to flop. It seemed like the monsters were going to have to be real as in bad-breath-bite-your-arm-off real or Sophie was going to have to say, “Just kidding” and just drop the whole monster obsession. Either of those two endings would have been a dud for me.
I’m not sure if the author pranked me or if I was just incredibly slow (probably the latter), but when I saw what was really going on (right before my eyes the entire book), I was touched. Sophie’s self-image issues were real and serious. She’s on the brink of a real psychosis. When I finally caught on, I was able to really enjoy the book. Clearly A Monster Like Me is about all who grapple with self-loathing. It touches upon Hawthorne’s themes of “the guilty see guilt everywhere” or, in this case, a monster sees monsters everywhere. The book delves into a difficult topic but does it so creatively that I didn’t catch on very quickly. This is a good thing in my opinion. It kept the book getting preachy. I’m sure others will catch on more quickly, but for me the depth of Sophie’s self-image issue came across as genuine. In the end Sophie touched my life.
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These books by Tory Anderson are now available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback format:
