Quite honestly, I bought this book for the wonderful illustrations by the fantastic Gris Grimly. I bought it under the auspices that it was for our daughter but really it was for me. The scratchy inked lines with impressionistic washes of color are gorgeous but the greatest thing about Mr. Grimly's style is the unique ways he allows his free-flowing lines and splatters to abstract the figures...it is a style perfect for the subject matter - namely two monsters who live in Booville and can't stand each other because one is tidy and one is messy. The felix and oscar relationship, no surprise, blossams into love and friendship by the end but along the way, we are treated to all kinds of disgusting verse and fantastically rendered monsters and creatures. It is a great book, a great book for kids with nothing offensive or questionable (i feel)...but then again, I bought it mainly because I wanted to look at the illustrations while I read to our daughter...