Eliza and Her Monsters
Life will go on, and so will you.
In the real world, Eliza Mirk is shy, weird, and friendless. Online, Eliza is LadyConstellation, anonymous creator of the wildly popular webcomic Monstrous Sea. Eliza can’t imagine enjoying the real world as much as she loves her digital community, and has no desire to try.
Then Wallace Warland, Monstrous Sea’s biggest fanfiction writer, transfers to her school. Wallace thinks Eliza is just another fan, and Eliza begins to wonder if a life offline might be worthwhile. But when Eliza’s secret is accidentally shared with the world, everything she’s built—her story, her relationship with Wallace, and even her sanity—begins to fall apart.
With illustrations from Eliza’s webcomic, as well as screenshots from Eliza’s online forums and snippets of Wallace’s fanfiction, this uniquely formatted book will appeal to fans of Noelle Stevenson’s Nimona and Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl.
Content Warnings: suicide, suicidal ideation, depression, anxiety
A Junior Library Guild Selection
Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“A wrenching depiction of depression and anxiety, respectful to fandom, online-only friendships, and the benefits and dangers of internet fame.”
School Library Journal (starred review)
“A must-have for all YA collections, especially where geek culture is celebrated.”
Booklist (starred review)
“A fervent celebration of online fandom, sure to leave readers craving an actual Monstrous Sea comic.”
Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)
“Zappia’s lighter approach to these topics doesn’t diminish the strength of this sensitive and compassionate story or the message mirrored in the themes of the webcomic: there are monsters in the world, both real and imaginary, and without support systems, those monsters can cause great harm.”
2019 Beehive Award Nominee
2019 Oklahoma Sequoyah Book Awards Nominee
2018 Thumbs Up! Award Honor
YALSA 2018 Best Fiction for Young Adults, Top Ten
Capitol Choices 2018, Fourteen and Up
Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2017, Teen Books
Goodreads Choice Awards 2017, Young Adult Fiction