Title: Monster
Written by: Walter Dean Myers
Series: N/A
Publisher: Amistad
Publish Date: 2004
Genre: Social Issue Focused YA
Pages: 281
Source: Bought
Buy the Book: Monster
Synopsis: FADE IN: INTERIOR: Early morning in CELL BLOCK D, MANHATTAN DETENTION CENTER.
Steve (Voice-Over)Sometimes I feel like I have walked into the middle of a movie. Maybe I can make my own movie. The film will be the story of my life. No, not my life, but of this experience. I’ll call it what the lady prosecutor called me … Monster. (Via Goodreads)
Shaunta: Monster is an intense little book that will make you think about things you maybe haven’t ever thought about before. It has a pretty chain of awards down it’s front cover, including a Printz Award and an award for being a National Book finalist. Maybe a better testament to how great this book is, though, is the fact that nearly ten years after its release, it still reads like a fresh, relevant story. Some of the critiques I read after I finished reading this book talked about how pointless the crime involved was, and how that wasn’t mentioned in the book. Only, of course it was, because the whole book is about the aftermath of that pointless crime. What this book takes on, brilliantly, is how broken our justice system is. How biased it is. And really how human it is, because in the end it relies on biased, imperfect human beings. The author doesn’t ask you to like Steve, or condone anything that he may have done. Instead, it shows the trial from Steve’s point of view, shown through the lens of his interior movie camera.
Brian: My background is in screenwriting, so it was startling, and ultimately a pleasant surprise, to see that this novel, the very first winner of the Michael L. Printz award, is mostly written as a film script. I loved how this element of the story played into the end, and how it gives an immediacy to the dialog that in most cases just can’t be replicated in standard fiction. I found myself flipping through these pages so fast I could barely keep up. I loved the use of mixed media in general in this story. Some of the novel is told in letters written by the main character, much of it is in script form, there are images sprinkled throughout, big font on certain pages used to stress a point. This was the perfect first book to win the Printz award because it’s not only a great story that pulls you in from the word go, but an impressively creative project I’ve never seen in the world of books before.
Shaunta: Monster takes the “other”–a black kid accused of a violent, heinous crime–and then asks us to make our own decisions about what his involvement was, and what his punishment should be. Was the time he spent in jail awaiting trial enough? Was he scared straight? Is being scared straight enough? How about having to spend his life knowing that everyone he loves believes that he is guilty, no matter what might happen in court? Do we punish for rehabilitation (for the criminal’s own good) or for retribution (for our own good)? Does a boy who is clearly smart, and who just as clearly made a very bad decision, deserve to spend his life in prison? Will the world be better off if he does? Weeks after I finished reading Monster, I’m still thinking about these questions. This book is interesting, intriguing, easy to read, and short. In addition to what it has to say about the justice system, it has a strong message about judging a person by the color of his or her skin. The title refers to what Steve’s attorney assists the jury will think of Steve, a young black man on trial for a violent crime. He doesn’t have the privilege of being presumed innocent.
Brian: Shaunta brought up that some readers have found the crime committed to not be dire enough, shocking enough, interesting enough to carry this story. I actually loved the fact that the central crime Steve is on trial for is fairly banal. In many ways this element of the story reminded me of one of my favorite movies, 12 Angry Men. One of the most riveting films ever made, it’s just twelve men in a room talking for ninety minutes, and the crime that they discuss in detail isn’t even greatly interesting. It’s just a boy who may or may not have committed a murder. Similarly, in Monster, it’s of a teenage boy who may or may not have played a part in killing a store owner. But as author Myers brings us deeper and deeper into the trial, the book takes on an element of suspense that no fantastic crime story ever could have. It’s so down to earth, and seems real, like something like this happens to teens all over the country on a regular basis. I enjoyed getting to know Steve as a character, and finally getting the opportunity to read a book by Myers, who I’ve heard about before and am certainly will look into again. The Printz award was created to recognize the very best in young adult literature, and such is absolutely the case with Monster.
