My Favorite Thing Is Monsters

Starred review from June 1, 2017

Combining elements of historical fiction, family drama, a coming-of-age-tale, and a murder mystery into an unforgettable and widely acclaimed debut, author/illustrator Ferris presents the graphic diary of Karen Reyes, an artistically inclined ten-year-old girl living in 1960s Chicago with her mother and troubled older brother. Drawing from Karen's sketchbook journal, Ferris fills each and every page of this weighty first volume of a duology (Vol. 2 releases in October) with stunningly beautiful and virtuosic illustrations, exploring Karen's fears, curiosities, and more through the lens of her fascination with pulp creatures and B-movie monsters. With an incredibly rich, sprawling narrative to match the luscious illustrations, Ferris creates an absorbing and demanding magnum opus that rewards every bit of effort it takes to comprehend the scope of her vision. VERDICT This debut has already netted Ferris comparisons to (and praise from) some of the lions of the graphic novel field, and it's the rare title that actually lives up to the hype. Readers are sure to welcome, discuss, and meditate on Ferris's accomplishment, anxiously awaiting what's next. [A movie of Ferris's work is underway, with Sony Pictures recently obtaining film rights.--Ed.]--TB

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Starred review from March 13, 2017
Karen loves monsters, comic books, and her tattooed, art-loving big brother, Deeze. She hates her mom’s cancer diagnosis, the cool kids at school, and being a little girl Chicago in the 1960s. She wants to be a monster, but when the upstairs neighbor, a Holocaust survivor left haunted and unstable by her experiences, dies under suspicious circumstances, Karen decides to become a detective. This stunningly ambitious and assured graphic novel, the creator’s first, slides gracefully between past and present, reality and imagination, and the shifting kingdom of children and the hard-concrete world of adults. Ferris’s writing, full of wordplay, elisions, and unpredictable revelations, suggests the cockeyed genius of Lynda Barry, comics’ most fearless chronicler of childhood. But her art, presented on lined notebook paper in the form of Karen’s own ballpoint-and-pencil sketches (though surely no real 10-year-old could draw this beautifully), is entirely her own. This is a book that surprises at every turn. It’s about the power of art, the nature of monsters, the way secrets keep unfolding, and everything else Karen’s investigations can uncover. It’s the best graphic novel to come along in recent memory.

Starred review from February 26, 2024
The much-anticipated conclusion to Ferris’s dazzling debut proves a triumph. In it, readers are invited deeper into the mind of Karen Reyes, a 10-year-old girl in 1960s Chicago who sees the world through a kaleidoscope of fine art, classic movie and pulp fiction monsters, and mystery. Karen now lives with her older brother, Deeze, a brilliant but troubled artist in danger of being shipped off to Vietnam. As she continues to investigate the death of her neighbor, Holocaust survivor Anka, she becomes enamored with Shelley, another monster-loving girl. Together they form a secret society called the Eternal Guild of the Benevolent Undead. The free-flowing plot develops organically as Ferris lavishes attention on Karen’s obsessions: visits to art museums where she pictures herself climbing into the paintings, conversations about philosophy and paranoia with a Greek chorus of street people, and expeditions into the depths of her spooky old apartment building to unearth family secrets. “All my family does is hide stuff from me,” Karen gripes, even as she discovers that the adults in her life have reasons to bury the truth. Ferris coaxes images of uncanny depth and vitality from ballpoint pen on lined notebook paper, and the dialogue carries similarly offbeat beauty: “Mama used to say Dante’s voice was like butter melting off a honey factory.” Elevating gritty urban realism to the heights of her protagonist’s flights of fancy, Ferris brings forth a gloriously subversive world of the imagination. Agent: Holly Bemiss, Susan Rabiner Literary.

Starred review from
In Ferris' debut graphic novel, a young queer girl in 1960s Chicago sees herself as a classic movie monster beset by small minds, big hearts, and a murder that hits too close to home. Young Karen Reyes has a recurring dream in which she sheds her girly trappings and euphorically transforms into a werewolf. As her body radically reshapes, Karen lets loose a howl that winds through the streets of Chicago, drawing to her an angry mob (or "m.o.b.," made up of "mean, ordinary & boring" people) ready to kill. But Karen is less concerned with death than she is with becoming mean, ordinary, and boring herself. In her waking life, artistic Karen faces bullies zeroed in on her queerness; family crises with a sick mother and an unbalanced brother; and a frustrating crush on Missy, a former best friend who dropped Karen for the popular girls after her mom forbade her from watching any more late-night monster movies with Karen because, as she tells Karen, "people of your class never protect their kids from bad influences." Into this bubbling cauldron of prepubescence drops the murder of Karen's troubled neighbor, Anka Silverberg, whose death might be tied to her past being sold for sex as a child in Nazi Germany; or to her husband's connection to a local mobster; or to her affair with Karen's bad-boy brother, Deeze, an artist. Karen dons a hat and trench coat and starts sleuthing, uncovering hard truths, making new friends on the fringes, and communing with the paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago, a transcendent place introduced to her by Deeze. Ferris' work is doodling par excellence: Her pen on lined notebook paper--complete with spiral binding and holes--achieves sculptural depth with layered linework and crosshatching, while less-detailed panels carry the charm of a comic strip. A striking love letter to art and family--both blood and chosen.

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