When Zeke the monitor lizard’s best friend Daniel shows up to school wearing a hat, Zeke is thrown—after all, hats are usually reserved for birds, who sit at the top of the social pecking order. Things get even stranger when Zeke’s friends start visiting the guidance counsellor, and a mysterious “Death Ray of Death” begins targeting him. Feeling isolated, Zeke becomes convinced someone is out to get him.
I loved the first Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody, and the sequel is just as enjoyable. The world is thoroughly strange and surreal, but once you get to know the cast of monitor lizards, the animal social dynamics, and the fact that pelicans are the supervillains, it all starts to feel oddly grounded.
This second book focuses on Zeke and the shifting dynamics of his friendships, sparked by Daniel’s fabulous pink (or is it salmon?) hat. As more of his friends turn to the guidance counsellor, Zeke feels increasingly alienated. Themes of mental health and emotional openness are central—not just for Zeke, but also for Miel, the blind hawk, who’s on the verge of a major predator anxiety crisis. The story also continues to explore social inequality, particularly the status divide between lizards and other animals at the school.
France is still living on Zeke’s knee, and the ominous presence of the Death Ray of Death keeps things deliciously surreal.
These books are weird, bizarre, and yet packed with poignant, powerful messages. They might not be for everyone, but I absolutely love them.

Patrick Ness is an absolute genius. This is the second book in this series and hopefully not the last.

Zeke is a monitor lizard (and also a hall monitor but this is a coincidence). He has two monitor lizard best friends (also hall monitors, also a coincidence) and another, a blind hawk, who only communicates by shouting.

Zeke also has a mother with depression (she has an actual pet black dog) and the entire country of France on his knee, following a curse that has been handed down through generations of his family.

If that isn't enough to make you want to read this book, I'm not sure what else I can say. It's a completely bonkers and absolutely brilliant story about friendship, being yourself, standing up for what's right and the joy of a good hat!

I was umming and aahing about returning to this series – it IS Patrick Ness after all – but all that I felt a bit rum about the first book was multiplied here. It's a clunky mix of social drama, where friends fall out due to opinions, statements made and unmade, and because that's what friends do, and fantasy, as the big baddy from the previous book produces a Death Ray of Death and, er, uses it. The wacky situation is not too overtly bonkers for bonkersness sake, but it doesn't help that one of the lizards concerned has France – the full country and all her people – as a knee adornment. It doesn't help either that it's so obviously trying to get us aware of certain friendship advice, or to show what happens when the one lizard gets sad that the other lizards have got new friends to be with.

I was left quite non-plussed by this – which to be fair only matches the high praise these books get. I just don't find them gelling with me at all, and again the Americanisms are only one aspect of this that makes it too easy for me to dismiss. For those who like wry comedy where the drama is as much about the pecking order on the school bus as it is about lethal heat rays, this is wonderful. But this is one series that just doesn't float my boat.