Eliza and Her Monsters

Eliza and Her Monsters

by Francesca Zappia

In this world of cell phones and online anonymity, parents find it harder and harder to understand their children. This is especially true for Eliza Mirk and her parents. 

Eliza is one of the most introverted people out there and yet she also has one of the biggest online followings in the world. At school, Eliza just tries to get through each day, never making eye contact and ignoring the world around her. Online, Eliza is LadyConstellation, the creator and author of Monstrous Sea, one of the biggest webcomics on the Internet. 

As LadyConstellation, Eliza is generous to her fans, regularly answers questions, and even joins in on the teen soap forums. She has a huge fan forum and merchandising operation run by the only two people outside of her family who know her real identity. 

But at home, Eliza's introverted behavior worries her parents and alienates her relatives. She doesn't speak often, rarely pulls her head out of her phone or sketchbook, and definitely does not go out with friends. Her parents have no idea how big Eliza is online and there's really no way to tell them so that they'll understand.

When Eliza meets Warren, the new kid at school, there's a profound shift in her life. He's highly introverted, as well, and he has his own online secrets but they are drawn together by Monstrous Sea and their mutual difficulties in dealing with the real world; they may be the only two people in the world who truly understand the other person.

Now Eliza needs to figure out how to meld the two worlds before they crash together on their own.

Final thoughts: I really enjoyed this book. I'm in that in-between generation that loves tech but I wasn't raised on it from infancy. I definitely like my social media and all the things that my cell phone and computer can do, but I don't live online. This shared some great insights that I hope to be able to use in the future. Eliza's webcomic is a little difficult for me to grasp with the little we see, but the illustrations pull the story together and get more solid over the course of the book, just as Eliza becomes more solid a character. As an introvert myself, Eliza's struggles are real to me and Zappia brings those issues to the page very well. Good read.

Rating: 4/5