My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two, by Emil Ferris: very good, but weaker than the first volume

My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two is a good comic. Very good, in fact. Really very good. But it comes after a first volume that, for me, was a masterpiece, and that makes it impossible to judge it fairly and independently.

When I wrote the review of My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book One, the main idea was that it did not work only as a comic. It was also an artistic object, a kind of notebook supercharged, a work not created simply to be read from left to right, but to be explored page by page.

The first volume had a lot of surprise and discovery. Not only because of the drawing, which was amazing, but because of the feeling of being in front of a strange object: half diary, half comic, half art exhibition on paper.

A work that did not simply invite you to follow a story, but to stop and look at how it was told, how it was drawn, and in which every page seemed made from a deep, personal place.

Quick opinion on My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two

In this second volume a good part of that still works: Emil Ferris keeps her style, her density, her way of mixing monsters, trauma, identity, family and beauty dirty. 

The difference is that now you come prepared. You already know more or less what kind of experience you are going to find and, although the result is still very powerful, the impact cannot be the same.

I am not saying it as a reproach. It is impossible to hit like volume 1 does when you face it for the first time.

This volume 2 is still far above average, but I found it less rounded, less surprising and somewhat more irregular than the previous one.

But even so, and to make it clear from the start, if you liked the first volume, you have to read this one.

That said, it felt to me like a less balanced comic than the previous one: while reading it, I was often fascinated by what I was seeing (how could I not be), but not always just as caught by what it was telling me. 

Here the visual side still pushes very hard and every page is a surprise, but the narration weighs more, spreads out more and “tells less” than in the previous one.

It is not a serious problem, because the work keeps an extremely powerful identity, but it does mark the distance between “this is very good” and “this is a masterpiece”.

Perhaps what makes the difference is the surprise effect of the first volume, while here you already know the language and you know you will find ballpoint-pen drawings, dense pages, references to classic horror, monsters that are shelter and threat, and a protagonist who looks at the world from a place that mixes innocence, fear, desire and anger.

It remains a very good comic, different from everything being published right now; the thing is that it is compared against itself, and there it loses.

Though not by much.

What My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two is about

Without going into spoilers, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two continues the story of Karen Reyes and her way of understanding the world through drawing, monsters, mystery and family wounds.

Karen keeps investigating, remembering, imagining and reconstructing what happens around her. The comic keeps the weight of characters such as Deeze and the Silverbergs, and once again moves through that late-1960s Chicago.

But the important thing is not just “what happens”.

The story advances, but it does so through associations, memories, drawings, obsessions, fears and fragments. As if Karen could not tell the world in an orderly way because the world has not offered itself to her that way either.

Ferris does not simplify, does not lighten things and does not seem especially interested in making it easy for you. Basically, like in the previous volume.

Do you need to read My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book One first?

Yes.

I would not start with My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two under any circumstances. You can understand things, of course, but you would lose a large part of the emotional, visual and narrative weight of the work.

This second volume works as a direct continuation. If you come straight in here, you are missing half the journey.

So the recommendation is simple: before getting into this one, read volume 1 first. And if you read it a long time ago, it may not be a bad idea to revisit it before starting this.

The best of My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two

Well, there are several things, honestly. That is why it is a work I will always recommend, especially for this.

Emil Ferris’s drawing is still outrageous

There is not much debate here: Emil Ferris keeps drawing as if she had all the time in the world to complete each page. This comic, visually, is an absolute blast.

Composition, texture, internal rhythm, use of color, expressiveness, accumulation of details and, above all, personality.

As I mentioned before, there are pages that are not read in one go, but travelled through. They force you to stop, look into corners, go back and notice how an apparently chaotic image has more control than it seems.

The notebook format remains a key creative decision. That school-notebook appearance makes everything feel more intimate. As if we were not reading a finished comic, but entering Karen’s mental space. That is how I felt while enjoying it.

Ferris also shows a great ability to mix beauty and ugliness. 

The monstrous does not appear only as something terrifying, but also as a metaphor, since it is the protagonist’s way of protecting herself . An identity to turn to when the “normal” world proves far more violent than any creature from an old movie.

In short, the drawing justifies the reading by itself, but there are more things I liked.

The ambition of the work

It is nice to read a work that does not want to be comfortable, quick or easy to consume and explain. You have to read it to understand it.

At a time when much cultural content seems designed to be consumed, explained and forgotten in the same afternoon —without, of course, leaving very clearly defined rails— this comic demands another kind of relationship with the reader.

It forgets those limits. It tests them.

You can tell it comes from within and that it is not a commissioned comic, but a work that wants to transcend the medium. 

Karen and the mishmash of… everything

Karen is a powerful protagonist. Her gaze turns everything it touches into something else. Reality, in her hands and pencils, passes through the filter of fear, fantasy, desire, pop culture and monsters.  

It is a comic about a girl growing up. Or rather maturing, because it means understanding things she might prefer not to know.

All of this seasoned with that mix of classic horror, family melodrama, investigation and historical memory that worked so well in the first chapter.

The worst of My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two

For me, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two loses to the first one in three things.

The surprise is the most obvious.  

The first volume had the impact of discovering a language. This second one already works within that language. It keeps it, expands it in some places and takes it to the end, but it is impossible to create a first impression twice.

The rhythm also feels more irregular to me.  

There are moments when the comic flows with enormous force —as much as before, or more— and others when it gets a little stuck in its own density. Perhaps because of that ambition I mentioned. Not every cathedral can, or should, be St. Peter’s. But every page here tries to be.

And then there is the overall feeling. 

This second one felt somewhat more scattered to me, as if it wanted to close, expand and explain all at once. I would not say it is badly built, but at certain moments I did not know where it wanted to take us.

It is still a highly recommended read. It simply does not feel as rounded to me as the first one.

In fact, the ending did not leave me with as rounded a feeling as I expected. Maybe because a third volume is underway, despite certain differences between the author and the publisher. If that is not the case, the ending would certainly not be satisfying for me.

Conclusions

My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two is a very good sequel to a masterpiece. That is its virtue and also its problem.

As a comic, it is far above average. As a visual experience, it is still madness. As a continuation, it works. As an ending, it partly delivers. But as a second impact after the first volume, it inevitably falls short.

Not everything can surprise you twice in the same way. Emil Ferris had already done the hardest thing: create a language of her own. This second volume maintains it, expands it and takes it to the end with a personality that remains overwhelming.

The magic of the first encounter is not repeated, but it does not disappear either. It is there, more domesticated by our own expectations, less surprising, perhaps a little heavier in some sections, but still far above most comics you will read this year. Or in your life.

That is why I find it essential reading. Without being as rounded a work as the first, it remains a huge, strange, beautiful, uncomfortable and against-the-current comic. Only this time we already knew the monster really existed.

Technical sheet

Field	Data
Exact title	My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two
Year	2024. Spanish edition: April 2024 / 11-04-2024. Original English edition: 28-05-2024
Duration / length	420 pages in the Spanish edition. 412 pages in the original English edition
Director / author	Emil Ferris
Main cast / characters	Karen Reyes, Deeze, Anka Silverberg. The building’s environment and Karen’s community also matter
Official genre	Graphic novel; auteur comic; fiction; with elements of noir, mystery and thriller
Country	United States as the original work; Spanish edition published by Reservoir Books
Available on	Paperback with flaps and fixed-layout eBook. Buy/check on Penguin, Todos tus libros, Amazon, Agapea, Casa del Libro, FNAC and El Corte Inglés