Category: Book Review

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Monster Blood (1992) by R.L. Stine: (Goosebumps, # 3) Book Review

Monster Blood is by far one of my favorite Goosebumps titles. This is mostly due to the fact that the TV series, based in Canada, did a two-part special on it, which I cannot help but remember fondly. The show does deviate from the original book a little bit, and the second episode, More Monster Blood, was created purely for the young audience, rather than drawing from any of the books. R.L. subsequently wrote a total of four Monster Blood titles, but the first one is my favorite. Monster Blood II is pretty great, too. Shockingly, I have never read Monster Blood IV (nor did I own it during my childhood), and being the final book in the original Goosebumps run (book #62), it fetches a pretty penny at around $50. There is a trend where the latter books in the series seem to be rather expensive. At any rate, on to the review!

Plot: Evan Ross is dropped off by his mom at his great-aunt Kathryn’s house while mom attends to a sick relative in Atlanta. Evan wants more than anything to go with his mother, and not be forced to stay with a family member he hasn’t seen in 10 years. Plus, great-aunt Kathryn is completely deaf! Evan’s cocker spaniel, Trigger, accompanies him. Kathryn comes to the door holding a bloody butcher’s knife, giving Evan and his mother quite the fright!

Overall, Evan doesn’t get along with his great-aunt; and he has to spend (potentially) weeks with the crazy old bat! She keeps asking him if he has a girlfriend. Her hulking appearance and ash-white skin contrasts sharply with her shock of black hair, despite her age. Mom tells Evan to just try getting along with Aunt Kathryn, for her. She quickly leaves, without Evan and his dog. Needless to say, Evan isn’t enamored with the numerous books his aunt has stashed in the study he’s staying in. Old books, leatherbound tomes, that look like they haven’t been read in a hundred years. Bor-ring.

Evan meets Andy while he is exploring the town. Andy is snarky and sarcastic, but Evan quickly takes a liking to her. Evan and Andy decide to go to the old toy store, even when there’s a newer one in town. Andy says she likes the older one better. They find the mysterious can of Monster Blood in a dusty back room. The store owner eventually, although with copious amounts of chagrin, sells Evan the can for only $2.

Andy and Evan rush back to Kathryn’s to check out the Monster Blood. It glows in the dark. It bounces. It stretches. It looks like some kind of radioactive Jell-O. It’s just too strange! They decide to play catch with globs of it, and go in the backyard to keep the dog company, who has been removed from the house by Kathryn. She’s set up a dog run there. Trigger seems to be interested in the Monster Blood, too. He likes it so much, he licks it. Then, he even eats some! Evan is horrified. What if Monster Blood is poison? What will happen to him?

It turns out Mom may have to stay in Atlanta longer than she anticipated. Evan is distraught at the thought of having to stay at Kathryn’s even longer. Evan walks over to Andy’s house one day; along the way, he meets a pair of brothers (the Beymer twins) who, it turns out, aren’t very nice. They threaten Evan, telling him he must pay a toll to walk along “their” block. Andy comes by on her bike, and tells him the twins act big and tough, are imposing physically, and they push around all the kids in the neighborhood.

Evan returns home to find Trigger, choking to death on something. Or is he? Alarmed, he sees that Trigger’s collar is too tight. He removes it, Trigger licking his face appreciatively. What could possibly be happening here?

Evan sees great-aunt Kathryn is wearing some kind of a bone around her neck. Odd, he thinks. And what about Kathryn’s strange black cat, Sarabeth? Why does she have those creepy, yellow almond shaped eyes, that seem to be staring right through you?

Evan takes Trigger to the vet after he realizes the cocker spaniel is growing in size since eating the hunk of a disgusting substance. The vet gives Trigger a clean bill of health, saying he is just experiencing a late-stage growth spurt. While this seems unbelievable, this is after all a Goosebumps book. Evan is, at least, temporarily relieved at the report on his dog.

Something odd is happening to the Monster Blood. It seems to be growing and swelling in size. Pretty soon it has outgrown its can. Andy and Evan must find a new home for it. And he has his friend take some home with her. They are horrified when the green goo multiplies into even more Monster Blood. Evan takes quite a while to associate Trigger’s growth spurt directly to the Monster Blood. But it makes sense, doesn’t it?

Of course, great-aunt Kathryn is no help with his Monster Blood problem. She either treats everything like a big joke, or she completely ignores Evan. One night, Evan has a freaky nightmare that Trigger is suddenly even more monstrous in size! A dream in which Trigger chases the Beymer twins down the street as they flee for their lives. In the dream, Evan himself has even grown to a ridiculous size! Evan and Andy are forced to move the Monster Blood all kinds of weird places, like a bathtub. He even takes a swim in the gunk! Then a garbage can with a lid, followed by two giant garbage bags. What could possibly happen next?

Well, actually, quite a lot. But…as it happens, I don’t want to give away the climax of the book. I will mention great-aunt Kathryn has more to do with the Monster Blood than Evan and Andy realize. There’s much more to Sarabeth than meets the eye. The Monster Blood even swallows a robin, whole. And what will happen to Trigger, now that he’s humongous? Oh, the humanity!

Final Thoughts: In Monster Blood, Stine uses a lot of great words to describe a horrifying premise: a boy and his friend purchase a toy, something that’s supposed to be fun and pass the time, which turns into a living nightmare. How do Evan and Andy get out of their predicament? Will they be able to return the Jell-O-like stuff to the old, dusty toy store? Will the Monster Blood outgrow all of the containers they try to put it inside? Perhaps. Escaping it won’t be easy. I think the Monster Blood wants to eat you, for dinner!

Rating: A. This book is great fun, with some wicked imagery. You cannot ask R.L. for much more fun than this. As an adult reader, I quite possibly enjoyed Monster Blood even more than I did as a kid! It’s no wonder Stine decided to write four books in total on this fascinating…blood, er…stuff. Substance. Whatever it is, it’s hideous and dangerous for all the wrong reasons. When it comes to Monster Blood, just what will Stine think of next?

Have A Good Day!

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Final Girls (2017) by Riley Sager: Book Review

Genre: Thriller/Mystery

Final Girls is a whirlwind of a story, a truly gripping read. Riley Sager’s ability to suck the reader in is amazing. By the time I got to the middle of the book, I was hooked. A lot of books sag in the middle, and middles are notoriously hard to write. Sager does it with gusto. Now, on to the review.

Plot: Sager unfolds the scenes of the book in two ways. Firstly, we see the events in present day New York unfolding through Quincy’s eyes as they happen, in present tense. Second, in past tense, we see the events leading up to the attacks of Quincy and her friends at Pine Cottage, and beyond. I’ll get to the Cottage in just a moment.

The first Final Girl is Lisa Milner, who also survived a mass murder at a sorority house. She was stabbed several times, and was lucky to have escaped with her life. She later becomes a child psychologist. Then, suddenly she is dead, apparently by her own hand.

Samantha Boyd is the second of the Final Girls, who survived a horrific event at a motel called the Nightlight Inn. The perpetrator of the murders was a man, referred to as The Sack Man, due to his attire, which includes a sack over his head with eyeholes and a slit over the nose. Quincy is seven years old at the time of this crime. She sees a news report, and marks it as the first time she remembers actually watching the news, and being scared by it.

Quincy, our hero, is the third Final Girl. She survives a massacre at a place called Pine Cottage, which is really more of an expanded cabin with many bedrooms. Quincy is in college, and comes to Pine Cottage in late October with her friends Craig, Janelle, Ramdy (the name for a couple that are always together, Amy and Rodney), and Betz.

Joe is a stranger who shows up at the party after his car breaks down nearby. Janelle, who’s celebrating her birthday, says to invite him inside, even with the amount of inherent risk that comes with doing so. He’s seemingly a shy man who wears dirty glasses. He seems harmless. He isn’t much of a drinker, but certainly the alcohol is flowing in copious amounts for the others.

It doesn’t help matters that Quincy, now 10 years post Pine Cottage can’t remember what happened that night during the attacks. She tells police detectives that she is drawing a blank from that night; she apparently has a type of amnesia in which her brain locks away the traumatic events, in essence protecting her from those events by choosing not to remember them. This is actually a real thing and it seems plausible. She has effectively put the events of Pine Cottage behind her. The other Final Girls, Lisa and Samantha, have tried to do the same with their nightmares.

She has reinvented herself into a full-time blogger. The name of her blog is Quincy’s Sweets, and it helps her when she gets anxious to get into the kitchen and bake something. Everyone there died, except Quincy. A rookie cop, Cooper, found Quincy running through the woods, covered in blood. Quincy is rescued by Coop, and she now (presently) keeps his number on speed dial, texting or calling whenever she feels anxious. Coop comes into the city and tells her that Lisa is dead. This is basically the setup for Final Girls.

Quincy refers to the perpetrator only as Him, and will not say His name, partly due to the intervention of her mother, Shelia, who says it’s better to never discuss what happened to her daughter. Quincy begins taking, and eventually abusing, Xanax. She lives with her boyfriend Jeff, a criminal defense attorney, who is currently working on a big case he can’t really discuss with her. There is definitely a wall up between Jeff and Quincy. She never quite feels fulfilled, as though something is really missing in her life since the murders. Quincy has desperately tried to move on, but the cracks are showing in her carefully laid façade.

Eventually, Quincy meets Samantha, who shows up outside her apartment. Sam moves in temporarily with Quincy and Jeff. Jeff is not amused by this turn of events, but eventually gives his consent. Just for a few days. Supposedly, Sam has come because of Lisa’s suicide, and wants to see if she can help Quincy so she doesn’t travel down the same road. And Coop, he seems so hands-off, never touching, never hugging, but will come at a moment’s notice when Quincy needs him. He seems to know something, but it’s anybody’s guess as to just what that is.

Quincy spends a fair amount of time getting to know Sam, or so she thinks. It turns out Sam may be keeping a lot of things to herself. Quincy only has the illusion of closeness. The way Sager plays Sam off Quincy, and how Sam goads her into doing things she never thought she would do, is part of what makes this book so good. Sam and Quincy have been making side trips to Central Park at 1 AM. What, exactly, are they doing there? What does Samantha have planned when she takes a purse loaded with paperbacks along? Why is a police detective suddenly so interested? Questions, questions.

Ending: The suspicions against Sam are well-warranted. Who is she, really? The twist is great, and there is certainly more than one! Did Quincy murder her friends all those years ago, or was it the mysterious Joe? What was Lisa’s role in all of this? Can Quincy uncover it before it’s too late? A stellar mix of mystery and murder, with plenty of blood to boot! This is my kind of novel.

Final Thoughts: I loved this book! It was so engrossing and riveting, and the story just kept getting better and better. I highly recommend you read this one, and then you should check out Sager’s next book, Lock Every Door. So, so good! Riley Sager is definitely one of my new favorite authors!

Grade: A for sharp writing, and shocks and surprises throughout. Sager is the king of twists and turns. Be prepared to be up all night with this one. You literally won’t be able to put it down!

Have A Good Day!

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Stay Out of the Basement by R.L. Stine (1992): (Goosebumps #2) Book Review

Ah, middle grade fiction, and horror fiction at that. It always makes me smile when someone mentions Goosebumps or Fear Street. These were the series—Goosebumps especially—that ultimately sparked my interest in reading, first and foremost. Thank you, R.L. Stine. I am forever in your debt.

Not only was collecting the books fun (it may be surprising that I never did actually collect all of them back in the 90’s), but reading them was by far my favorite thing. Through R.L. Stine, I was brought into the wonderful world of reading. And it stuck. Now, I love all things horror. Movies. Books. Memorabilia. Clothing. Toys. You name it, I’ll probably want to eventually own it. And of course, I love reading. When you combine reading and horror, two of my favorite things, you can never be steered wrongly.

I remember being home sick from school one day. It was overcast, rainy and cold out. I felt crappy, but then I pulled out my copy of The Headless Ghost and began to read. The environment outside was perfectly suited to reading a horror novella (all the Goosebumps books fall under the novella category, though some of you may disagree with this). Under the covers, my head nestled on a pillow, my reading light on as I began turning pages. If I seem to be gushing nostalgia, it’s because I am. I just can’t help it. I love these books so, so much. As a kid, I used to say to my Mom, on overcast or rainy mornings, “Hey…it’s a Goosebumpy day out there!” I love rainy days! I am one of THOSE people. *Grins*

And those COVERS. Let’s all take a moment to remember that Goosebumps would not have been the same were it not for the beautifully done illustrations by Tim Jacobus. Each cover, he took some scene from the book and then vividly rendered them in all their spooky glory. The covers of today (done by different artists) may be a cool way to introduce more kids to the Goosebumps series, but they don’t hold a candle to Jacobus’s covers. I am in the (slow) process of recollecting all the original Goosebumps books (#1-62). I’m certainly getting there! Some of the original editions included bookmarks inside, or trading cards. Whenever I come across one of those, I usually try to buy it, because they are rare. Even editions that say “trading cards inside” rarely have them intact. Hard to find, surely.

I must have momentarily had an episode of sheer mindlessness when I sold my entire Goosebumps collection to a mother for only $12 at a garage sale. *Gives myself the side eye, rolls eyes* What on earth was I thinking?! I spent years of my childhood collecting those books, and then poof! Gone, just like that. Well, now is the time to right that particular wrong. I possess most of the Goosebumps. It’s just a matter of time, and I will have them all over again. At any rate, on to the review.

Plot: Stay Out of the Basement is the second book in the Goosebumps series. Margaret and Casey have a botanist father experimenting with his plants in a fashion not done before. He wants to successfully make a plant that is also part animal. He was recently fired from his job, but hopes to get it back soon. In the meantime, he has turned the entire basement into his own private plant greenhouse. The kids’ mom is away caring for a sick relative for most of the book; so, it’s just Casey, Margaret, and their weird father.

Naturally, the kids are curious to know what Dad is doing down there. He won’t take them aside and tell them, so they decide to go exploring. He keeps the door locked tight, but it just so happens Casey knows how to pick a lock—and he’s only 11! When they get down there, it’s hot and humid, and there are grow lights and plants all over the place. Of course, these aren’t just ordinary plants. They’re—bizarre. Like, some of them seem to be breathing. And moving around. Some are tree-like. Some have tendrils or vines. Some bear fruit. Stine makes a great effort to make the plants scary and foreboding. Imagine if your dad was doing all that stuff in your basement! Pretty creepy.

You may have guessed something was bound to go wrong. The kids decide to go into the basement. Casey gets a bit hot under the collar, so he takes off his shirt. They hear Dad returning, and rush back up the stairs as fast as possible. Only then does Casey realize he left his shirt down there. He rushes back to get it before Dad can find it, proving they were down there—after expressly being told to stay out of the basement at all times! He’s taking too long down there, Margaret thinks. She goes down to see what’s keeping him. Casey gets back, just in the nick of time!

Things get even weirder from then on. First, Margaret sees Dad…eating something in the kitchen. Sounds pretty normal, right? But in this scene, he’s really wolfing something down as though he has never eaten before in his life. She checks the trash can, and is shocked by what she finds. This is not the first shocking thing, as luck would have it. She wants to tell Casey all about it, and wishes her Mom would come home.

Margaret and her brother are tossing a Frisbee, when Dad walks outside, only to be struck in the head. He wears a Dodgers cap, which the Frisbee knocks away, and he just so happens to have leaves growing on top of his head where hair should be. Curiouser and curiouser.

Dad’s boss, Mr. Martinez, comes by to see how Dr. Brewer (AKA Dad) is getting along with his experiments. The trouble is, the kids don’t see Martinez leave the house. Even more bizarrely, the kids also hear moaning coming from the storage closet in, you guessed it, the basement.

Casey decides to fly a kite, and asks if Margaret would like to join him. She agrees. They look for the kites; but strangely, they find items that are out of place there. Could it be some type of clue as to what’s making the oddly human-like sounds in the storage closet? Could it have something to do with all these plants? The rest of the book unfolds even further mysteries, and a very wacky explanation is soon forthcoming.

Ending: One thing about Stine’s books: you can always expect a twist ending. R.L. likes to end each chapter on a mini cliffhanger. The purpose behind this, he says, is to keep kids invested and to keep them reading. I am living proof that yes, even 28 years later, this stratagem does, in fact, work.

Final Thoughts: This book was well written and a classic, without any doubt. Why is it a classic? It’s vintage Stine, at his very best. Also, don’t forget the Goosebumps TV show, where Stay Out of the Basement is proudly featured. After the craziness of Welcome to Dead House (Goosebumps #1), Basement is a welcome reprieve from people’s eyeballs coming out of their skulls (a heavy scene, given the fact that seven and eight-year-olds read these books!). Now I know why I was genuinely scared by Goosebumps!

Grade: A – for delicious horror scares and some heavy concepts, such as job loss, a sick relative, and even darker things (you will have to go read it to find out about these!). The scares are great and numerous, and as I said, each chapter ends in a mini cliffhanger. I think it’s easy to see why Stine is so popular with his audience! And I don’t just mean children. He has a veritable legion of 30-something fans that love these books, and got hooked in the 90’s, just like I did! And, he maintains a rigorous working schedule to this day! As a writer, I aspire to be even partially as successful as R.L. Stine has been.

Have a good day!

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The Cabin at the End of the World (2018) by Paul Tremblay: Book Review

The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay is a thrilling ride of small proportions. What do I mean by this? Well, Tremblay delivers jabs and punches right to your midsection. The cabin is the main setting, so such jabs can only be thrown in a small, defined space. As you might imagine, this means that when the thrills start coming, you don’t have much room; you hit a wall, and then must turn and face them head-on. There’s nowhere to run or hide.

Plot Summary: Wen, Andrew and Eric’s adopted daughter, is catching grasshoppers in the front yard, alone. Her dads are in the back, unaware of her activities. Wen is approached by Leonard, a true mountain of a man, well over 6-feet tall. At first, Wen is guarded, but then she is won over by Leonard’s smile. They get to talking, and she discovers he is great at catching grasshoppers.  But then the conversation turns off, and Wen feels more and more like she needs to go inside and be with her dads. It’s really due to the kinds of things Leonard’s been saying: “Nothing that’s going to happen is your fault. Your dads aren’t going to want to let us in, but they have to…We need your help to save the world.” (pg 28-29)

Suddenly three more people show up, all similarly dressed, and all carrying strange weapons in their hands. Leonard says that Wen must explain to her dads what is happening, and that she has to convince them to let the four strangers into the cabin so they can all talk.

The dads don’t let the group inside, because they can see Wen is scared, and they don’t know who these people are. Frustratingly, Tremblay has Eric and Andrew go back and forth for pages and pages, asking if all the doors and windows were locked. It turns out that, no, the windows were not actually locked. Shortly, the quartet of bad guys breaks into the cabin in dramatic fashion. Quickly enough, Andrew and Eric are tied to some chairs.

Tremblay easily switches character viewpoints, telling Andrew and Eric’s side of the story (or their pasts), and then effortlessly switching to Wen, or Leonard’s, or some of the others’, views. There is quite a lot of background detail for each character; we learn that Andrew was attacked in a bar for being gay, which prompts him to take up boxing and the use of firearms to feel safer. We find that Leonard, Adriane, Redmond, and Sabrina don’t really know one another well. They’ve only met recently, through a messaging board, and apparently, they have had similar “visions” regarding the end of the world. Leonard tells Eric and Andrew that they have to make a sacrifice, or many millions of people will die.

Leonard turns on the television, which was previously showing cartoons for Wen. He shows the two men the news, using the program that’s playing as proof that the world is coming apart, maybe even ending. Planes are crashing. There’s a tsunami. A set of earthquakes, one of which causes said tsunami.

Leonard uses these events as proof that the world is ending, telling the heroes they have got to make a choice, a sacrifice, before it’s too late.

And will they sacrifice one of themselves to save millions, even billions? The news is saying these horrible events are happening, but Andrew notices Leonard, and even the other three, keep checking their watches. Who the hell wears watches anymore? he thinks to himself. Maybe, he says to Eric, they keep checking their watches because they wanted to see a specific program at a specific time. Maybe, he says, they even knew what would be broadcast. Maybe these events were already happening, sacrifice or no sacrifice.

I should mention that Andrew’s attack comes back to haunt him. He says that Redmond is actually the same man, named O’Bannon, (older and 50 pounds heavier), that attacked him in that bar all those years ago. Perhaps then, they are all being targeted for some sick and twisted hate crime, a sort of bizarre continuation of what happened all those years ago.

As you may imagine, none of the three heroes is willing to sacrifice one of their own. This creates an obvious problem for Leonard and the others. In his mind, a sacrifice has to be made to save millions. I sort of began wondering what these grand, end of the world visions really were. Are the visions of the end actually real? Did Leonard and the others really have them, collectively, or are they just saying that as a reason for why they decided to break into the cabin?

Some of these questions are answered and some, unfortunately, aren’t. Tremblay uses a lot of words, but the reader gets the sense that, because everything happens inside the cabin (except for the first scene, a scene on the back deck, and some flashbacks), the visions sort of seem “out there,” and as a result they don’t have much of an impact. Which is really a shame, being that the visions seem intricately tied to the novel’s title.

Ending: The ending was really pretty terrible. It’s one of those endings where you expect something final to happen, and nothing ever really does. I feel potential readers would benefit greatly from knowing why the world is ending, as well as how. And, more importantly, IS the world actually ending?

The conclusion, if you can call it that, leaves a lot to be desired, which I guess isn’t really saying much; but of course, I don’t want to give anything away, in case you decide to give this book a go.

Final Thoughts: The Cabin at the End of the World is a showcase for Tremblay’s talents. This man knows how to write and engage the reader. He does, at certain points, tend to drone on and on. One sequence near the end of the book went on for at least 17 pages. I was ready to pull my hair out and took most of the day to finish the 30 or so pages I had left. If you haven’t read Tremblay before, I recommend that you don’t read this one first. Try A Head Full of Ghosts, a Bram Stoker Award winner for 2019, and then maybe come back to this one, once you get to know the author’s style a bit better.

Grade: B- for gore, blood and decent descriptions. Character development is solid. Beware of long soliloquies. Many people will not like the ending (I did not), and this affects the book’s grade. But, all in all, the book was entertaining. If you like horror fiction, give this book a try!

Have a good day!

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