The Boy Who Drew Monsters

Title - The Boy Who Drew Monsters

Author - Keith Donohue

Source - Net Galley

Summary -

Three years ago Jack Peter Keenan and his friend Nick nearly drowned in the ocean by his home. Since then Jack Peter, called Jip by his father, has never been the same. Jip was already diagnosed with Aspergers, but after the incident he became even more withdrawn and anti-social. He hated to be touched and if startled would lash out, even blackening his mother's eye. His was a high functioning disease, but for his mother and father, dealing with Jack Peter was destroying them. But what they didn't know was that the world Jip retreated to in his mind was even more terrifying to him than the world on the outside.

"...The boy was not sure if it was a house in show more which dreams came true or if the house itself had been made our of dreams. Once upon a time, the name had made him happy, but on ice cold nights like these, the dreams turned into nightmares, and monsters under the bed stirred in the bump of the night..."

Jack Peter finds an outlet for the world trapped within his mind. He draws and he draws all the time. He draws everything he thinks of, only lately he thinks of monsters. Creatures that rise out of the sea and great massive dogs. He listens to the conversations around him and from there he draws, turning comments and thoughts into nightmares. But once they are on paper, the scenes begin to come to life. And out on the shore his father sees a shambling form of a man, a creature that wanders nude in the freezing snow. Lately, he can even hear something moving inside the house at night. Something that leaves the floor cold and the doors like ice.

Jack Peter knows what the thing is and he knows its real. He draws it to keep it away and he draws other things to keep them near. The line between the world's reality and Jip's mind has cracked and soon all the monsters will begin to flood in.

Review -

Keith Donohue writes creepy stories. Not the bloody slasher type, but the old black and white Twilight Zone kind that sort of cause the hairs on the back of your neck to stand. It is the old instincts within us. The one that says there is something darker and far more evil nearby. A predator. A sense that for a moment, the story could be more real than we want it to be.

Little Jack Peter is not a likable kid. The difficulty his parents have in managing him is well written. Though you know it's because of the Autism, still you find it difficult to imagine having to work that hard just to communicate with your child. Slowly, Donohue unravels the secrets behind this family and you begin to understand that in some way they have laid all their troubles at the feet of the child. Blaming him for all that is wrong in their lives and their marriage. For Jack Peter's part, he is just trapped in his world with his monsters.

Donohue builds the suspense slowly, taking his time to develop the characters and the story until midway through you are re-examining your feelings about each individual one. The secrets unfold and there is something of a sense of retribution forthcoming in the appearance of Jack Peter's nightmares. These monsters are not only here to terrorize but perhaps to also take some recompense for the wrongs of the past.

In the end, the power of Jack Peter's drawings goes far beyond the creatures he calls forth. In the end, Jack Peter is drawing for their very lives.

A good read. show less

Jack Peter Keenan is a 10 year old boy who has Asperger's. When he was 7 years old he almost drowned in the ocean with his friend -and neighbor- Nick. Ever since that incident, JP has developed agoraphobia. As the days go by, JP becomes more and more reclusive and has even shown signs of aggression towards his parents when physical touch is involved.
As the winter settles in, strange sightings and sounds have been taking place at the Keenan's: scratching and clawing in the dead of night and quick flashes of a large, white naked man roaming about.
JP starts drawing these "monsters" he claims are after them and want to get in the house. His parents dismiss all these occurrences and try to find out what is really going on. As the days go by, show more JP's drawings become more and more disturbing and there is no doubting some unnatural presence is haunting the family. As they get closer to finding out what is happening, things start to get very dangerous; and the conclusion will make you gasp with surprise.
Super creepy, super well written and the pacing is just perfect. You will really start paying more attention to those white flashes we sometimes catch out of the corner of our eyes. Loved it! show less

Donohue's latest may not be his best, but it offers another entertaining story in that literary supernatural vein that he's worked in so well for four novels now. Here the main element is an autistic boy who, as the title indicates, has taken to obsessively drawing monsters. At the same time his parents start seeing strange things, hearing strange noises, and learning about shipwrecks and the lost bodies of the drowned, who might possibly be roaming around as angry ghosts if you talk to the local priest's housekeeper about it (he really wishes you wouldn't though). Also tangled up in the increasing fright is his reluctant friend Nick, the son of his parents' best friends.

The story sort of ambles along for a good while, throwing out show more tidbits and going down avenues that may or may not have much relevance to anything in the end. The character of the boy Jack Peter is drawn well, though his parents seem like they could have used a bit more work (I know I just saw something really strange I can't explain, but you can't possibly have heard anything odd, honey, you nutty kook).

The ending is strange and twisty, and I can envision two reactions on the part of the reader: throwing up one's hands in exasperation, or thinking "ooh, very good!" I kinda did both. show less

the boy who drew monsters

Jesus, this book.........wow. I'm stunned. I did NOT see that ending coming! That poor, poor boy.....

A cross between a horror story and a mystery, this novel starts slow, and ends with your mind a little blown away. Slightly reminiscent of Stephen King's early works, this novel was GOOD. But it reminded me more of old Twilight Zone shows from TV. I liked it a lot. Some of it frightened me.
I had never read any novels by this author before, so I am quite intrigued as to whether his other novels are good or not. Unlike other reviewers, I started this book not knowing much about the subject matter, except that the boy drew monsters for some reason.
I had to give it up early in the night, the first night I was show more reading, and I'm glad I did now. I might have been a little spooked out, reading this book at night, in the dark, alone...... It's a little haunting, it kept me spell-bound from the beginning, and the minute this story sped up and began it's final scene, I could not put it down. Friends of my son's came over, and I pretended to be sleeping, while hiding under the covers, still reading. Just so I could race to the end, and find out WHY. I have done nothing today, but read this book. I feel a little foggy now, and displaced...and only a good, slightly scary novel will do that to you.
And the end, the final page...? Holy shit, that's all I can say. WOW. I might just have to purchase this Ebook for a few friends, and see what they think.
It really makes you evaluate the weight and pull of marriage. Makes you think about friendships, and parenting. And about Asperger's.
What the author has written about the boy with Asperger's was not completely spot on. In fact, rather off. A few pages lagged a bit, but then they caught right back on. And the boy, who's name is Jack Parker, but it called Jack, J.P., AND Jip, throughout the novel, was a bit confusing...sometimes on the same page. Someone should have fixed that before publication; a slight quibble, but still noticeable.
And the. The last page, with that last paragraph......like a kick in the gut. All I could think of was, how ii would NOT want to be that mother. Wow! This ending saved the novel completely.
4 1/2 stars, for keeping me enthralled, through every turn of the page. Well done, Keith Donohue!

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Jan.-Feb 2019: this book is still amazing, even through the second time. The audiobook was narrated by Bronson Pinchot. show less

An interesting premise that fizzles in execution. Jack Peter has Asperger's, and since he and his best friend, Nick, nearly drowned three years ago, he has refused to leave his house. Lately, he has been obsessed with drawing monsters, which his parents and Nick have glimpsed outside--and they seem to be getting closer to the house.

As this story was set in Maine, I can't help but compare it with pretty much everything Stephen King has written, and Donohue definitely comes up short in both the scares and the suspense departments. The stakes just never seem to become real enough to matter. Jack Peter's parents don't act in ways that I find believable, and the "monsters," while sometimes grotesque, never seem all that menacing. I also show more can't help but compare to the last book I read that was set in Maine, Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand, which used the remote coastal setting and the conceit of a storm to much better effect, amplifying the emotional damage and isolation of the characters. I appreciated the twist at the end of The Boy Who Drew Monsters, which I didn't anticipate, but the journey to that destination seemed labored and often tedious. Bringing in a magical Japanese woman (as opposed to a magical Negro) to help explain some of the paranormal concepts also seemed like a crutch. In this case, I think this story would actually make a much better movie than a book. Disappointing. show less

Keith Donohue, whose The Stolen Child, a literary fantasy novel about a changeling, was a runaway success a few years back, takes a similarly literary—and fascinating—angle on the ghost story in his latest, The Boy Who Drew Monsters.

The boy in question, Jack Peter, is 10 years old. Autistic and agoraphobic, he spends his time drawing incredible—and increasingly frightening—pictures of people he knows and things he imagines.

Then, the things he draws begin to be seen, in the real world, by others.

What does this have to do with the terrible shipwreck off his family’s stretch of beach a century earlier, or with Jack Peter’s one remaining friend, Nick?

A supernatural story that is also a taut family drama with emotional insights show more on living with autism, The Boy Who Drew Monsters is a page-turner.

Reviewed on Lit/Rant: www.litrant.tumblr.com show less

The Boy Who Drew Monsters tells the story of Jack Peter and his parents. Jack Peter is on the spectrum and draws monsters that somehow manifest into real life. Unsure about how to handle an increasingly violent Jack Peter who refuses to leave the house, his put-upon parents and best friend, Nick, are now harassed by all manner of things that go bump in the night. It's eerie, and it has an interesting twist, but the characters often felt strange and wooden. A subplot about a shipwreck seemed unnecessary and odd word choices kept jolting me out of the story. All in all, the book felt like it was trying very hard to accomplish something, but the something is uncertain and the pieces just never quite added up.