The Boy Who Drew Monsters is a supernatural psychological horror that offers scares and profound themes. 

• Scare factor: ★★★★☆
• Psychological factor: ★★★★★
• Monster factor: ★★★★★
• Twist factor: ★★★★★

The Boy Who Drew Monsters is an excellent novel that intertwines important social themes with the supernatural and does it with great scares, surreal imagery and common interactions between families and friends. It’s a magnificent read that is both scary to read as offers more to the story if you are willing to make the effort. 

It consists of 273 pages.

Plot

Jack Peter is a 10-year-old boy diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome. His father Tim thinks he’s getting better and will do fine in the world once he’s an adult, while his mother Holly worries about him especially since he’s developed agoraphobia since the past three years. When Jack was seven years old he and his best friend Nick went swimming in the ocean, while Tim and Holly and Nick’s parents Fred and Nell Weller sat on the beach. Suddenly the boys went under and nearly drowned. While Jack doesn’t talk about the incident something has changed within him. Now he’s not only trapped inside his own world but also inside the house. 

It’s nearly Christmas and Nick’s parents go on a cruise to rekindle their relationship and make Nick stay with the Keenans. Nick is reluctant to go because all Jack wants to do is draw monsters. Every now and then he has a new interest that quickly turns into an obsession but vanishes as quickly as it came. Nick is tired of drawing monsters. Especially when he starts seeing things, scary impossible things. He is not the only one. Tim sees a monstrous looking white naked man on the road and Holly hears people’s voices coming from the ocean. 

While Tim is in denial of what he saw, Holly seeks help with the local church where more ghosts stories rattle her and Nick is getting scared of monsters and of Jack. Meanwhile a monster is roaming the area, a monster that looks exactly like Jack’s drawings. 

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Short Review

The story is told from multiple perspectives. Written from the point of view from Jack, Nick, Holly and Tim, the story has a rich angle on all the characters. We get to know each character very closely. We learn how they feel about themselves, but also about each other. We learn from each character more about the other characters, which isn’t necessarily true. Each of them makes assumptions without communicating very well.

Jack might be diagnosed with Autism, is stuck in his own world and thoughts, and has a hard time communicating. That is to say, others find it hard to communicate with him. Meanwhile all the other characters, Tim, Holly, Nick and his parents are stuck in their own thoughts and worlds as well. They miscommunicate with each other, they don’t listen to each other, or don’t believe each other and even presume what others are feeling or thinking. All the characters are preoccupied with themselves. Not that they are selfish, they care for each other, but without realizing everyone is cooped up in themselves. That’s what makes this story very interesting. They have an image in their head of each other, which isn’t always the right one but they act upon that image, causing even more miscommunication. Nick thinks Jack is a burden. Jack thinks the same of Nick. Tim thinks Jack is doing better. Holly thinks he’s getting worse. 

The novel starts out as a boy with Asperger. A boy who is not “normal” and spends his time drawing monsters at which he is very good. But the story is more complicated than that. It’s about relationships. The relationship between Jack and his mother, his father and Nick. But also between Holly and Tim and Nick’s parents. The theme of communication is a very important one. While Jack doesn’t communicate in a socially accepted way, the other characters have a hard time communicating as well. 

Although the themes of relationships and communication are dominating the story and play a vital role in the story, in the ending it all comes back to Jack. The story evolves around Jack. He is the key character and his monsters and monstrous drawings seem to be coming to life. Those parts are rather scary and surreal. Especially the opposite ways Jack and Nick respond to those monsters. While Tim’s and Holly’s responses are quite the opposite as well. Tim wants to fix things but at the same time he thinks it’s going to be fine. While Holly seeks help with Father Bolden and his housekeeper Miss Tiramaku. All the while scary surreal things keep happening and neither of the characters know what to think anymore. 

The Boy Who Drew Monsters offers a lot to think about. But it also offers a lot of scares and surreal images that are described in a masterful way. It’s both a psychological novel that focuses on the characters, as a supernatural horror with an ending that combines both in a surprising way. Everything we learn that happened with the two families and all the characters comes together in the last act with an exceptional and maybe even a cosmic twist.