Evie and Her Nightmares

by Francesca Zappia

After the death of her best friend, Evie Leigh seeks solace in an online role-playing game. In the game, she finds purpose, community, and even romance. But online life alone can’t sustain her, and the farther she pushes herself away from reality, the harder it will come back to bite. A stand-alone companion to the acclaimed Eliza and Her Monsters from award-winning author Francesca Zappia. Illustrated by the author.

Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, Fiction, Mental Health, Young Adult Contemporary

304 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication July 28, 2026

About the author

Writer of MADE YOU UP and ELIZA AND HER MONSTERS. Represented by Louise Fury of the Fury Agency.

Also wrote The Children of Hypnos serial on Wattpad (https://www.wattpad.com/story/9547883...).

Social Media: @ChessieZappia

You can find links to all my social media on my website, www.francescazappia.com.

Reviews

[willow · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful, emotionally powerful standalone sequel to Eliza and her Monsters.

Evie’s best friend Alissa has recently committed suicide, leaving Evie struggling with questions like: why? and was there something I could’ve done? The subject matter of mental health (depression and grief) as well as autism was handled with care and awareness. Like Eliza and her Monsters, this story interweaves strong fandom culture, this time through a book series and video game. I loved this aspect of the story and how it grounds the story and its themes.

many thanks to netgalley for an arc :)

[Rebekah]

NEW FRANCESCA ZAPPIA BOOK?!?!?! July can't come soon enough!!!

[Evie Oliva · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I first read the title of the next release by Francesca Zappia, Evie and Her Nightmares, I immediately thought of the book Eliza and Her Monsters. There is something everyone needs to understand about that book, my dear Eliza. Eliza and Her Monsters is the one book I usually recommend to readers on social media. I've talked about how important the book is to me in my group chat of reader friends. I love Eliza and Her Monsters still to this day, I have favorite passages that I go back and read over again, knowing that they'll break my heart but I embrace those feelings and then everything that comes after that. So the symmetry to the title made me think it had something to do with that book and I immediately jumped at the chance to request it to review. Evie and Eliza do, in fact, exist in the same world and with that in place, I knew I was about to find a new favorite to read. I have favorite passages already that I want to read again and again in Evie and Her Nightmares. I want to tell all my friends and family to read this book. When I finished reading this story, I had to choke back a few tears because it was the small hours of the morning and the one thought in my head was ALL THE STARS IN THE WORLD to rate this book.

Evie and Her Nightmares is a beautiful, stunning, heart-wrenching read and it was perfect.

This story follows Evie Leigh, picking up at the funeral service for her best friend who suddenly passed away. Alissa committed suicide and now Evie is struggling to figure out how she should be acting at the service. Should she be outwardly sad? Should she be sitting up front with Alissa's family? Evie is autistic and she wants to be blunt and honest with the fact that she doesn't know what to do and this situation makes her want to leave. So she does. Everyone asks how she's feeling but Evie doesn't know how to answer them. While trying to avoid what is going on in her world, she receives a last birthday gift from Alissa, Alissa's set of the Children of Hypnos books. Evie tried to read them once but they didn't appeal to her but now, for the sake of her lost friend, she tries to read them again. Realizing that she loves the story, Evie decides to start playing The Children of Hypnos Online, joining a gaming community that Alissa was also a part of when she was alive. Determined to become the best, Evie devotes all the time she can to this online game, all the while leaving behind the things she used to care about. Evie is skipping track practice, talking back to teachers and letting her grades slip but none of it matters as much as the game. Except the more Evie avoids the real world, the worse it'll be when she is finally forced to face the loss of her best friend.

The world-building in this book is everything you can expect from a high school setting. Evie attends her classes with people who avoid looking at her because they know the loss that she had suffered. They know that Alissa should be with her but she isn't and because of the way she died, everyone would rather avoid the situation altogether instead of paying her any attention. The school is filled with everyone you expected to see and that you used to know in school, from the sympathetic teachers to the hateful classmates that use Alissa as a way to insult Evie. This book perfectly captured that sense of being a teenager and struggling with making choices for the future all the while knowing the struggles that will come with college and finding a job and everything else after that. Which brings in the why about what Alissa did and how different characters, including Evie, are trying to find the reason that drove Alissa to what she did. My heart hurt wandering the school halls with Evie, visiting Alissa's house, hiding in Evie's room while she played online and sitting in the room while Evie tried to start therapy. Everything felt real and because it felt real, it hurt to see Evie avoiding reality. This world felt like opening a window into someone's life and watching all the pieces falling and moving as the story developed.

My lovely, brutally honest Evie, you are one of the best examples of autism I've seen in a book in recent memory. I recognized so many aspects of people I know in this character and for that, I loved her. I found her grief to be authentic and her reactions to the people around her to be incredibly realistic. I was right there with her when she talked back to a teacher and when she fought back against an incredibly rude classmate. I felt her struggle to find a way to interact with Alissa's parents all while not knowing how to stop from making things worse with anything she said or did. I found it interesting that the other character we learned more about, besides Alissa in Evie's memories, was Ash, Alissa's older brother. Ash as a character was someone who was in Evie's corner, feeling her anger and her grief at Alissa's loss and searching for answers. Literally, the moment these two characters really interacted involved the two of them bumping into each other where Alissa was found, because they each thought that it was possible they could find something that Alissa left behind, something that could give them some answers. As the story developed, I appreciated how much effort Ash put into comforting Evie when she needed help and how in turn, Evie became someone Ash could confide in as well. I also adored the fact that Ash was a Monstrous Sea fan. That automatically made me want to help him to be happy along with my dear Evie.

As for the themes of the book, the idea of loss and grief and the effects it has on people, the word that kept circling in my mind was kintsugi. Kintsugi is the ancient Japanese art of repairing broken things, ceramic cups and bowls, with gold or sometimes some other substance, all to show that just because they were broken, it's not the end. The cracks are celebrated, showing a story about the history of the piece. The scars are something to be celebrated and admired, and if the term is applied to people, can show resilience. This word kept going around and around in my head, especially when I thought as I opened this book that I was ready to get my heart broken and put together again while reading this story which reminded me of the term. Kintsugi stayed with my thoughts along with the idea that Evie and Ash, and Ash's parents, and Evie's mom, had all gone through some kind of devastating loss, they had become broken, and they were learning, or had learned, how to fit their broken pieces back together, to make themselves whole again. Watching Evie learn to be more authentic, to be able to say what she wanted and not necessarily be the people pleaser she claimed to have been, all helped with showing how she was remaking herself. Who was Evie without the best friend she thought would always be by her side? What did Evie have to live for and what was it that made Alissa feel like she couldn't stay?

Zappia also adds in the usual adults who don't how to talk about suicide and the adults who dare to judge a girl because she didn't ask for help before she made the decision that she made. All of this highlights how difficult it is to understand the complexities of suicide, showing how many people will never know why someone killed themselves or even if there was anything they could have done that would have made a difference. At the same time, there are no answers given, and that helps with the idea that grief and loss and growing up is different for everyone. No one knows for sure what is going on in someone else's mind but these characters, my dear Evie, are learning what they need to continue on and that lesson is a good one to learn. The book ends on the note of hope of acceptance and it made me cry when I read those last words.

In the end, I truly, sincerely loved and adored this book. If you're a fan of Eliza, you'll find a new favorite with this release. Evie's struggles and her hope for the future are something to be admired and I, for one, am so grateful that this book exists.


Rating on my Scale: All the Stars in the World or 10 Glowing Stars!! Now when I talk about a book you just have to read, it will either be Eliza and Her Monsters or Evie and Her Nightmares. Here's hoping we might see something else from this world again in the future. You never know what the future might hold, after all.


My thanks to Netgalley, HarperCollins Children's Books, Greenwillow Books and Francesca Zappia for the eARC of this book in exchange for a review. All opinions are my own.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and Greenwillow Books for the eARC!

Eliza and Her Monsters is my all-time favorite book. Ever. I've read over 1,000 different books (at least), and it will forever take the cake as one of my favorites, if not my absolute favorite. So, obviously, I had to beg on my hands and knees for an arc of Evie and Her Nightmares.

Overall, this was a very solid read. I didn't feel quite as connected as I did with Eliza, which makes sense in a lot of ways. This novel very much focuses on grief rather than the artist's struggle, and I believe it was well-written and important to discuss. It also moved very quickly, and I found myself rooting for the main characters. I do wish, to a degree, there was more fandom and more overall with both of the characters to really make the romance more satisfying, but it's also possible I'm being over critical because Eliza is my favorite book of all time.

Spoiler? There is some weed usage, and I do wonder about the ethics of that not only being used, but promoted, in YA books. This is the second YA book that I've read where this happens. I know that it is common for teenagers to do this, and it's really about the same as a YA book having drinking, but I feel as if introducing weed as a comping mechanism for grief (as it's used in this book), should not have happened or been normalized when you think about young adult readers that may end up picking this book up.

[Ms. Yingling · Rating 3 out of 5]

E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

Evie's best friend Alissa has died by suicide, and Evie is obviously having a hard time dealing with this. Not only are the kids at school not taking it as seriously as she would like them to, but Evie has already lost her father to cancer. Her mother insists she sees a therapist, but after getting a birthday note from Alissa with the Children of Hypnos books, Evie tries desperately to find some meaning surrounding her friend's death. There is also an online game, and Evie tries to puzzle out how all of these pieces fit together.

The cover of this (especially the shadowy creature hovering over Evie) made me think it would be a middle grade book, but it really is more of a young adult one. Evie is a junior in high school, and there is some more mature language, as well as some situations. The book is very heavy, which is not surprising given the topics. It's all fairly realistic, although I don't know that the school would have any kind of memorial for Evie; at least in the past (and in my experience), schools tend to steer clear of students who have died in this manner.

This would work well in a high schools setting for readers who appreciated White's D.J. Rosenblum Becomes the G.O.A.T. Mather's Where Was Goodbye?, Nolan's Running Past Dark, or Niven's All the Bright Places.

[Jessica Bright · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you so much to netgalley and the publisher for the advanced copy!!

I didn't realize when I started this but Evie and Her Nightmares takes place in the same world as Eliza and Her Monsters. It's been a few years since I've read (and loved) that one so I didn't make the connection until the end of the book but it's definitely a fun connection. Evie and Her Nightmares follows our main character Evie whose best friend just recently died. The whole book surrounds Evie's feelings of grief and the series of events that take place after one's best friend commits suicide. Similar to Eliza and Her Monsters, there's a lot of video game/book talk included. The fandom is not my favorite aspect of this book and my mind was kind of wandering in the scenes where our main character is playing the video game. I didn't hate these scenes though because I do understand the importance of them. I don't think this was as impactful as Eliza but it was still an overall enjoyable book. I appreciated the discussions around grief and depression as well as the insight into our character who has autism. Her commentary on how she thinks in certain situations and her reactions/ the way she's perceived were so relatable and I really enjoyed that aspect. 3.5 stars!

[Natasha Gunn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book from the publishers' drop at Bookcon. This is a very smooth read. Plot is interesting over the entire book and didn't stray into the realm of boring or losing focus.

This novel deals with the loss of a friend to suicide. Evie, our FMC, struggles with the fallout of losing her closest friend. I really enjoyed how it showed that not everyone processes grief the same way. I've often felt wrong for how I process loss myself. One thing that is talked about during the book is how everyone around you keeps moving forward, while you are left looking at the world utterly changed. It discusses seeking therapy for navigating hard times. All of it is done in a way that felt natural to me. Not preaching in any way. I think this would be a great book for teens who may be dealing with similar things in their lives.

This is an instance where I wish you could rate half stars. I always round up when I wish I could rate a half star. There is exploration into how a secondary character deals with his grief and ptsd that I wish was discussed more in the end. I will not spoil anything beyond that very general info.

[Allison]

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for giving me a free eARC in exchange for my honest revie. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This book deals with Evie Leigh, who is dealing with the grief and fallout after her best friend who dies by suicide. As part of her grief, Evie turns to her friend's favorite book series and her older brother, and the rest follows.

I was so excited coming into this book because I am such a big fan of Eliza and Her Monsters, and although this book didn't resonate with me as much, it was still solid. I found pieces of Evie to resonate with me. I do like romance, but I think it was probably wise for it to not be really the focus or a major part of the plot. I would have liked a little bit more to happen in the plot. Also, I wasn't expecting the book to be so gaming-focused, which wasn't for me, but I won't hold that against the book. But in a way, I like the representation of Evil being a gamer girl.

[Gretal · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25 stars

It's hard to review this book without just talking about Eliza and Her Monsters and how much that book means to me. I think it was always going to be an unfair comparison between these two books. I was seventeen when I first read Eliza, and it was a book that I needed, that deeply spoke to my soul. What that book means to me is not just the book itself, but the context in which I read it, also being a senior in high school like Eliza. I'm now twenty-six, so of course I don't relate to Evie, a junior in high school, as much as I did Eliza. But I'm still so happy this book exists. I think it's very well-done as a companion novel, standing alone from Eliza whilst also covering a lot of the same themes and bringing a degree of closure I didn't know I was missing.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s hard to rate this book. It’s for a specific audience of young adults who are experiencing grief. This book focuses on the loss of a friend by suicide. There are heavy conversations in this book. Read with care. It was good to see an autistic main character who is trying to regulate themselves after their best friend. She connects with her best friend’s brother, who also feels alone in his grief over his sister. I loved how this book shows how reading can be comforting and can bring like-minded people together. I would recommend this book. It feels important to be out in the world. Check TWs.

Thank you to NetGalley, Francesca Zappia, and Greenwillow Books for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

[Crim · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story will be right for the right person. I had a hard time staying interested in the story. I dont know if I just wasn't in the mood or if it was the topic. The beginning interested me but then dropped off. I felt like the depression part overshadowed the overall story. like yes its a key part but theres alot of it. The video game aspect was interesting as well as the autism representation though which I can appreciate. I will try again to reread this at a later date but as it stands I couldn't get into it. Give it a try anyway though.


I want to thank Netgalley for this gift to read early.

[Tyenasaur · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was so incredibly cathartic. I really appreciated the author's approach to depression and dealing with issues like suicide and anger, frustration, and waves of up and down emotions. Personally, Evie's reactions resonated a lot with me, they felt real and nonsensical in a way that does make sense when you're going through it.

I ended up binging through the book in a day because I just felt as hooked and obsessively focused as Evie got. I just could not put it down.

Big thanks to the publisher for the arc copy I received at Bookcon!

[Kassyreadsalot · Rating 4 out of 5]

Title: Evie And Her Nightmares

Author: Francesca Zappia

Synopsis: After the death of her best friend, Evie Leigh seeks solace in an online role-playing game. In the game, she finds purpose, community, and even romance. But online life alone can’t sustain her, and the farther she pushes herself away from reality, the harder it will come back to bite. A stand-alone companion to the acclaimed Eliza and Her Monsters from award-winning author Francesca Zappia. Illustrated by the author.

Review: When I first heard that Francesca Zappia was coming out with a new book that just so happened to be set in the same world as Eliza And Her Monsters I was ecstatic! Francesca Zappia does not disappoint! I loved the way the author incorporates fandom culture and grief! I can’t imagine what losing your friend must feel like! I thought the way a lot of big topics were discussed in this book were done well and I would read anything she writes!

Thank you to Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book in advance!

[Kayla Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this eARC! The last work I read by this author was Eliza and Her Monsters, which I enjoyed immensely. This one was really well done as well. As an autistic woman, and someone that was recently in a car accident it was kind of trippy to relate to both main characters. This was a very finely crafted book, Francesca has found her stride

[rachel x]

⚠️ A stand-alone companion to the acclaimed Eliza and Her Monsters

[Frank-Intergalactic Bookdragon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received an eARC of this through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

2.5 stars

As a teenager, Eliza and Her Monsters spoke to me like few other books due to its deeply resonate discussion of anxiety and fandom. Evie and Her Nightmares is a standalone companion that swaps out anxiety for depression, following a teenage girl who becomes addicted to an online game after her best friend dies by suicide. You can read this without reading Eliza, though if you're a fan of like me, you'll be happy to find it referenced throughout Evie.

The subject manner is handled in a respectful manner, clearly taking notes from mental health activism and real life experience. But the book was PSA-esque, so focused on explaining depression that the story took a backseat. Even by YA contemporary slice-of-life standards, this has little plot. I never felt I understood who Evie was before Alissa died or what her interests were, I also never understood who Alissa was, which is ironic given how her having been a person is constantly emphasized in the text.