Destroy All Monsters

Miller, S.J. (2019). Destroy all Monsters. New York: HarperTeen. ISBN: 9780062456748 (hardcover); 9780062456762 (ebook)

Genre: Fantasy/magical realism / Format: Prose Book

Awards: Locus Award Nominee for best Young Adult Book (2020)

Reading level / Interest Level: Grades 7 and up (source: slj.com)

Plot Summary: This story is told in alternating chapters by the two protagonists, Ash and Solomon. Ash is a high-school senior watching her small-town community shudder under a series of increasingly hateful pranks, and trying to help her best friend Solomon, who seems to be slipping away from her into his own imagined reality. In Solomon’s perspective, he lives in a magical city under siege, where Ash is a princess under a spell. Both Ash and Solomon are scarred by a trauma that happened when they were twelve, which neither of them can remember, and their stories blend and overlap as danger grows in both worlds. They have to face the memories they’ve been suppressing, and call out the real monsters who are still harming people. In Ash’s story, she helps diffuse the cult of cruel initiation rituals that has grown up among the high school football team, and bring truth about a sexual predator in their community out into the open. Solomon is part of that story, but he also has his own struggle, translated in his narrative into a battle between good and evil. The end of the story brings growth and resolution for both of them, although it leaves the reality of Solomon’s magical world, and the question of his mental status, ambiguous.

Author Background: Sam J. Miller is an award-winning author and community organizer. He has written YA and adult books and short stories, and he is active in the science fiction/fantasy genre community. He attended the prestigious Clarion Writers’ Workshop in 2012, and would have returned there as an instructor this summer, if it wasn’t postponed due to the pandemic. Although some of his writing hews closer to traditional SF/F genre work, his two published YA novels are closer to literary surrealism.

He also draws heavily on personal experience in his YA writing. First novel The Art of Starving was about a boy with an eating disorder, inspired by his own struggles as a teenager. Miller grew up in a small town in upstate New York, similar to the setting of Destroy All Monsters, and that novel reflects some of the concerns of his other job, working as a community organizer on projects that support the homeless and disenfranchised.

Critical Evaluation: School Library Journal identifies this book’s interest-level as grades seven and up—but I would think carefully before recommending it to any but the most mature and sophisticated middle school readers. The story’s ambiguous relationship to reality, and its direct engagement with the trauma of a child abused by an adult make it a difficult read on several levels. That said, it’s incredibly powerful, innovative, and insightful. I love the way it addresses issues of mental health without either portraying people as “broken” or offering neat and permanent solutions to mental struggles.

Creative Use for Library Program: I would include this book on a recommended reading list or as an older teen book club pick for Mental Health Awareness Month (May). Alternatively, since the story hinges on photography and makes a lot of allusions to the work of Diane Arbus, I could imagine making a display of “Novels and the art that inspired them.”

Book Talk: When Ash and Solomon were twelve, something terrible happened, something Ash can’t remember, something that drove Solomon away from reality, into a magical city called Darkside. Now, five years later, Ash is trying to look after Solomon, worried that he’ll become homeless or that he’ll get picked up by CPS, while a plague of petty crime and vandalism sweeps through their small town. At the same time, Solomon sees dangers lurking in the streets of Darkside, threats to people he cares about that echo what’s going on in the real world. Ash and Solomon have to regain their memory of what happened to them, and protect themselves and each other from monsters that threaten them, even as it becomes less and less clear what is real and what is fantasy. This book is a dark, strange, and great for fans of stories about friendship, mental health, and trauma recovery

Potential Challenges and Defense: As I mentioned in my evaluation, this story is pretty heavy in the way it tackles trauma and sexual abuse. Its ambiguous structure might also lead to complaints that is too sophisticated or confusing for teen readers. One defense would be to point to the book’s positive reviews in LIS professional collection guides, and also to highlight the fact that sophisticated literary structures and challenging topics have historically been part of YA literature.

Why did I include this book? Miller’s previous YA book, The Art of Starving, tore my heart out, and I knew I wanted to read his latest, even though I also suspected it would be a harrowing emotional experience. I was right, and it includes a number of different elements that I think make it of interest to teen readers and distinct from other items in my mini library: focus on mental health, genre-bending style, literary ambiguity.

References:

Finberg, C. (2019, June 1). Destroy all monsters [Review]. School Library Journal. Retrieved from: https://www.slj.com/?reviewDetail=destroy-all-monsters

Goodreads (n.d.). Destroy all monsters [Webpage]. Retrieved from: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40221926-destroy-all-monsters

Miller, S.J (2020). http://samjmiller.com/ [Website].