Eliza has external and internal monsters. She has the external high school kind of monsters who like to pick on and reject anyone who seems different. She has the internal monsters of anxiety and insecurity. And of course, she has the monsters that she has created for her webcomic.
Eliza is the creator of a highly popular webcomic called Monstrous Sea. She publishes under a pseudonym, and very few people in her life know that she and her nom de plume LadyConstellation are the same person. Online, LadyConstellation is witty and engaged with her fans. In real life, Eliza is a loner who tries to draw no attention to herself. One day Wallace, one of the most popular fanfiction writers in the Monstrous Sea fandom, transfers to Eliza’s high school, and they strike up a friendship. They become very close without Wallace knowing that Eliza is LadyConstellation. The question is what will happen when Wallace finds out? (The back cover makes it clear that this is a “when,” not an “if,” which could be considered a spoiler, but this is the kind of book where of course Wallace would eventually find out.)
I loved this book. It was a real page-turner for me as I waited to see when and how Eliza’s secret would be revealed and what the fallout would be. The book does deal with some challenging themes, primarily around mental health, which I felt were handled fairly well. I also enjoyed the pages from the webcomic (and a prose narrative of it) that are interspersed throughout the novel. It made me wish to know so much more about the world that Eliza had created.
CBR15Passport #5 – book I already own
