Description

A crucial, genre-bending tale, equal parts Ned Vizzini and Patrick Ness, about the life-saving power of friendship.

Solomon and Ash both experienced a traumatic event when they were twelve.

Ash lost all memory of that event when she fell from Solomon’s treehouse. Since then, Solomon has retreated further and further into a world he seems to have created in his own mind. One that insulates him from reality, but crawls with foes and monsters . . . in both animal and human form.

As Solomon slips further into the place he calls Darkside, Ash realizes her only chance to free her best friend from his pain is to recall exactly what happened that day in his backyard and face the truth—together.

Fearless and profound, Sam J. Miller’s follow up to his award-winning debut novel, The Art of Starving, spins an intimate and impactful tale that will linger with readers.

About the Author

Sam J. Miller is the Nebula Award–winning author of The Art of Starving (an NPR best book of the year) and Blackfish City (a Nebula Award finalist and a John W. Campbell Award winner). Sam is a recipient of the Shirley Jackson Award and a graduate of the Clarion Workshop. His short stories have been nominated for the World Fantasy, Theodore Sturgeon, and Locus Awards, and reprinted in dozens of anthologies. He lives in New York City. 

Praise For…

“A stunning and intimate new novel about the effects of trauma on individual lives as well as the connections that allow people face their own incredibly difficult pasts… readers will be unable to forget both the pain and eventual freeing illumination Solomon and Ash find in the past.” — ALA Booklist (starred review)

“Art and storytelling are featured both as coping mechanisms and tools by which survivors find a voice and stand up for the truth… A combination of Andrew Smith, Laini Taylor, and John Corey Whaley that crosses genre borders and will win over readers.” — School Library Journal

“Equal parts fragile, fierce, and mind-blowing, Destroy All Monsters is powerful testament to friendship and the things we’ll do for the people we love. Read this book and you’ll be a Sam Miller fan for life.” — Kathleen Glasgow, New York Times best-selling author of Girl in Pieces and How to Make Friends With the Dark

“In DESTROY ALL MONSTERS, Sam Miller has achieved something truly great—a book that masterfully combines the restless, electric imagination of sci-fi/fantasy with the luminous, beating heart of a contemporary coming-of-age story.” — Jeff Zentner, Morris Award winning author of The Serpent King

“Laini Taylor meets John Green in this poignant young adult tale of parallel worlds and deep magic where trauma breaks but friendship heals. Miller offers no easy answers for fighting the all-too-real monsters in our lives but still allows space for hope, healing, and above all, bravery.” — Rebecca Roanhorse, Hugo & Nebula & Campbell Award-winning author of Trail of Lightning 

“Sam J. Miller has cemented his status as one of the most visionary fiction writers of his generation. A staggering, stunning novel.” — Kass Morgan, New York Times bestselling author of The 100

“Destroy All Monsters haunts and delights. In this beautiful book are visions of what we might look like as victims, as villains, but, most importantly, as heroes. Sam J. Miller has done it again.” — Tochi Onyebuchi, award-winning author of Beasts Made of Night

“In Destroy All Monsters, Sam J. Miller bravely examines the wounds that trauma leaves behind, and continues to beautifully study the way love and connection of all kinds holds us all tight until it gets better.” — Christopher Barzak, award-winning author of Wonders of the Invisible World 

“Explosively beautiful, wild, and fresh, DESTROY ALL MONSTERS is uplifting and challenging and painful and still somehow joyous all the way through. A helluva journey.” — Daniel Jose Older, New York Times bestselling author of the SHADOWSHAPER series

“Destroy All Monsters is an intricate and otherworldly thing of beauty, pain, and dinosaur plumage. I devoured every page.” — William Alexander, National Book Award-winning author of Goblin Secrets

“Destroy All Monsters is immediately tender, with an intimacy of friendship that is both startling and beautiful… Two protagonists, two overlapping narratives, two friends in a serious struggle to help each other and their worlds.” — Lightspeed Magazine